Poker Hand Reading

This is one of the most important capabilities of a successful poker player. It is about making an “educated guess” of what the opponent might be holding. For this, you have to consider the following factors:

• Your opponent’s actions in the various stages of the hand
• His position
• Previous actions in other hands, his general playing style
• The size of the pot

To develop this capability, you should make it a habit to watch the table even when you are not in the hand. You will find that you often evaluate the situation better than when being involved yourself.
It is very important to watch the way the player plays his hand, indicating whether he is holding a draw or a made hand. If you think he is on a draw, and the turn card appears not to have helped him, you may want to bet aggressively and make him fold his busted draw.
If you encounter fierce resistance while thinking the opponent has a drawing hand, you may want to switch to check/call mode.
If you are holding a real good hand and your opponent raises and reraises you, do not think about unlikely worst-case scenarios right away. Keep building the pot.

Example: You hold As Qs, the board shows Js 9s 2h 3h 7s. You have the nut flush. With two perfect cards (8s Ts) in his hand your opponent could beat you with a straight flush. But this happens very rarely, so not capping the betting costs you money. Your opponent is likely to have two pair, a set, a straight or only AJo. Maybe he has even overlooked the flush threat or he thinks you are just bluffing.

A great and fun way to improve your hand reading is to watch good players playing and then trying to put them on a specific hand, according to the moves they make. This will help your game a lot.
The best room to do that is the room that has the most poker pros actually playing online poker at the high stakes tables – that is definitely Full Tilt Poker!
Download Full Tilt Poker here, and use bonus code COACH100 when signing up to get one of the highest deposit bonusses out there – $600 up to 100% on your first deposit!
Then just open some of the high-stakes tables for Fixed Limit or No Limit Hold’em – it is free to watch. By just observing how the players play here, you can learn a lot for your own game!