Things it took me a while to learn part 9, Hand Reading

[ZenMusician]

[ QUOTE ]
the examples you give -- aren't very applicable to an audience that plays mostly $20 and below tourneys.

[/ QUOTE ]

The high-level thinking goes out the window for sure, but
even donkeys know what their hand is, and learning how
our furry friends try to think will certainly be valuable.

Now, having said that, if I start to see "Hey look at my
awesome QQ fold in the $1 Rebuy!" posts, I may have to join
P5.

-ZEN

[Sherman]

I think Chewy should call the river bet getting 4:1. Villain only has to be bluffing 20% of the time to break even and our line looks really weak (i.e. like a good target to bluff).

But I'm a fish.

[HandCracker]

ouch.
little harsh on Daniel dont ya think?

[Donkey5layer]

Another great one bond...

part 10 accumulating vs surviving?

[DeuceSeven]

This is a great post, ldo. Once you can put villains on ranges of hands, you're entire poker world opens up. Now you can maximize value, get cheap showdowns, etc. etc. Too many people raise with QQ flop an over card and cbet into 4 people because they were told that you cbet when you miss the flop.

I played a home game with my uncle and his friends about a month ago (took down that 2 table mtt) and he commented how his friend is a good poker player and can put people on hands. Anyway, he raised with KK (can't remember the raise but it wasn't big enough) and got 4 callers. The flop was A62 and he led out from the sb into 4 callers. He got 2 calls. A blank hit the turn and he led out again at least half the pot got 2 callers, then checked the river and showed KK. I lost all respect for his game there. Any good player is pretty much check/folding this vs 4 donkeys on an Ace high board.

I guess what I'm trying to say, is alot of people fall into the routine of cbeting with a hand that has showdown value or betting when their hand is more of a bluff catcher (2nd pair). Instead of thinking what your opponent has, how he plays people will just go to the automatic cbet or check. So I guess the moral of my post is, take the time to put someone on a hand range, post flop aggression factor, and execute the best play.

[wannabe2]

i really think reading all these may wake me up and make me listen to people like u chewy and aejones

[Boise123]

Thanks for another great post Bond. The nice part for you is that you will have alot of the leg work done once you hit your big score, become a household name and are ready to write your book. Looking forward to the next chapter.

[Super Villain]

Bond.

Again I am super impressed w/ these posts. Kudos as this is the best one to date!

I will echo however what sapsukah is saying as many times I am in the same boat. Typically I play any tourneys from a $3r to $20 FO MTT's. There are some opponents that are so bad I can't get a read to save my life. The opp's that I have the most difficulty w/ are the uber-passive players.

Quick Hand reference:

folds to hero in hthe co w/ qks// hero raises 4x
bb calls
flop top pair (Q) on a rainbow board and lead out
villain calls
Bet turn villain calls
Bet river villain calls and show kk(??????????)

Obviously that is very general, but any hand that I played after that w/ villain, I just plain felt lost. I wanted many times just to check to him which I know is weak, but I wasn't sure what else to do. I just wanted to bet w/ monsters and monsters only which seems logical, but feels weak.

Conversley how do you attempt to read a player that is super laggy?

In my experience in trying to do this, I never really attempted to read these players and just played my hand straightforward and use their tendancies against them but not their "range" as that could be anything.
Is this acceptable or am I just not trying hard enough?

Look foreward to part 10// Keep it up!




P.S. Will you adopt me?

[Bond18]

To answer the questions posed in this thread:

Sapsuckah: I agree that many of these examples are a bit complex for low/mid stakes MTT’s, but I think delving into the thought process is a good idea. Hand reading is kind of awkward at the low stakes, since you’re not sure which players know and understand what. For the most part, you end up doing things in a more straight forward manner, despite how obvious they might be if a player really put some thought in.

WinbyTKO: I don’t think you have to necessarily make quick decisions, thinking things over should never be discouraged. However, the more you play the more you find certain things become automatic.

Sherman: We both thought it was really close. Perhaps we’ll post this one.

Handcracker: I actually think Negreanu is a great ambassador for the game but man does he love to say “that’s what I put you on.”

Slayer: We’ll get to that at some point, seems like a productive article.

Villain: Sorry, just got a dog, that’s enough responsibility.