Two Plus Two Newer Archives - 2500th Post... Hand Reading

Alright. I've been generally dissatisfied with this forum as of late but haven't taken a whole lot of time to improve it. Lately I just haven't been motivated to write out logic, so while I think carefully about the advice I give I often don't explain it. So I was thinking about why the posts and advice has been of relatively poor quality and came up with one huge concept that is integral to poker and yet is done at a sub-par level here: Hand reading.

I made the switch to no limit cash games about 6 months ago and haven't looked back except for a 25 buy-in downswing at the 215's which made me remember why I left. I stick around this forum because I want to stay sharp for multis, because I took too much time learning bloody sng's to throw it all away, and because I like a lot of you and feel I am indebted to you, or at least the forum as a whole. When I made the switch I was a pretty solid 109 player (~15% over ~2500) who had made his roll grinding $1/2 NL. I was alright, but I wasn't great. I play $3/6 and $5/10 now and beat them pretty soundly. I also know why I beat them and it's because I have become a strong hand reader. While I learned this all at NL cash, I believe it is highly relevant to the early stages of sngs. The decent players here are mediocre pushbotters. The good players here are good pushbotters who can pwn the bubble a bit. The excellent players here are near perfect pushbotters who exploit sng nuances (bubble, etc.) at a high level and who can hand read at a high enough level to accumulate the all-important "early chips" in the first few levels. There are only a handful of players here I would consider excellent and it takes a hell of a lot of time and work to get there.

The secret to hand reading is to actually do it. There are lots of players I know who are good hand readers but that can not do it in the amount of time they have or who only do it when they are playing their A game and really concentrating. The reality of sng's is that you are often playing your B game because of the number of tables and decisions you are forced to make. My advice to those players is to practice to the point that your A game becomes such a habit to you that it now becomes second nature for you and you do it when you are playing your B or even C game. When you subconsciously hand read you don't have to ensure that you are in fact hand reading, and the amount of time and effort that will save you is huge. Unfortunately, there is no way around it... you will have to put in a lot of work to get good at this. If you want to spend this time at cash games, go for it, or if it means playing less tables, turning off the TV when you play, or just concentrating a little more, do it. It's worth it.

So now that you know you have to practice... what exactly is it you have to practice? You have to practice putting people on a range and you have to have the ability to accurately adjust this range as soon as new information becomes available to you. This means that you also need to know what new information is and how to interpret all of it. This is a daunting task and it'll take time to get good at. It's okay though because you guys spend half the day putting people on ranges only now you're doing it with 100BB and not 10BB. I'd like to go through a hand I played the other day to take you through this example:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $6 BB (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: 2+2 Forums)

UTG ($1098.86)
MP ($142.90)
CO ($425.05)
Button ($890.50)
SB ($533.55)
Hero ($1252.80)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 4[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], 6[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].
UTG raises to $18, 2 folds, Button calls $18, 1 fold, Hero calls $12.

This is a somewhat thin call here pf, but I considered UTG to be overly aggressive and generally fishy so with ~200BB's thought I could take a flop 3-way out of position. I believe that UTG's range is fairly wide as is the button's. Not a whole lot of hand reading here.

Flop: ($57) 8[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], 5[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], 2[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] (3 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks, Button checks.

On the flop I was intending on check calling. Although other lines are acceptable I have some nicely disguised outs and some not so disguised, but still good outs. If I bet and am raised by UTG, which I think he'll do a reasonable amount of the time considering his UTG raise (pp's and some sc's flopped well) I'm not loving it because I don't want to check fold, or check raise to get him to lay down a probably large hand. Once it gets through the opponents have told me a lot about their hands. Specifically, this button has told me he does not have a huge hand. He is a 2+2er, and a fairly good one at that. In this three way pot he simply would not check a set or 2 pair last to act on this board against this field. With these stacks he needs to start building a pot and he also must protect his hand.

Turn: ($57) Q[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] (3 players)
Hero bets $49, UTG calls $49, Button raises to $190,

This isn't the best card for me necessarily, but no one flopped a huge hand and unless the Q hit them I'm likely to take it down. Getting called is not the end of the world because I don't mind building a river pot, and while getting raised is no fun I believe it happens rarely. If the raise comes from UTG I can't be very happy because he's a bit of a loose cannon... they're hard to read, but awful for other reasons... so he could have a bunch. However if the raise comes from the button... well he just can't have that good a hand very often unless it's Q5 or Q2 and he would be very likely to bet the flop with those, wouldn't likely call pf with them, and still might fold them to my relatively large show of strength. When the above action took place I knew UTG could almost never call here. When he just calls and button raises and I repop the chance of him calling is incredibly small. He has made no effort to protect his hand or build a pot and he can only call with huge hands here. His pf, flop, and turn play is very inconsistent with a monster. The button can call here almost less than UTG can. He probably has a hand like AQ or KQ, which he will probably instamuck here if my read is on, and regretfully muck it if my read is off. It is also possible he is much lighter and trying to steal the pot, but he still can't call.

Hero raises to $666

if he understands basic hand reading, and he should, I often have to be huge here. It's very possible I went for a c/r on that flop with a set or two pair and having missed that, led the turn and reraised when it got back to me. It's very hard for him to put me on a hand like the one I have, and to be honest, it's a small part of my range. If I'm called I also have 15 outs .

UTG folds, Button folds.

After I made this play I realized it felt so standard to me I would have done it playing my C game. I also want to add that plays like this happen a few times a session; although by this point I doubt anyone thinks this it is just some brag, I want to make clear how profitable plays like this can be. I also want to make sure people understand the motivation behind it. Don't go around shoving double gutted flush draws because of this post or else you just become one of the fish. Shove air in my spot because you know that UTG and the Button can't call you because you have reads on them and have analyzed their play in this hand well enough to know that's true. I've rambled on enough. Get out there and try stuff like this and you'll be glad you did. But any time you make a play make sure you know WHY you're making it, and if it doesn't work out, don't be upset. It happens. Just make sure you factored that into your decision making. This advice doesn't just pertain to bluffs, but to calls and folds as well. Focus on the game. Focus on the player. Intake the information and use it as best you can. You'll be bluffing me out of massive pots or saving thousands folding the third nuts before you know it.

Thanks to everyone who made me stick around to my 2500th post. I'm glad I did.

- Todd