Knowing & Reading Your Opponents #1
Knowing your opponents is one of the most crucial things in any poker game. If you study them and know what cards they play, how they play in certain situations, and how much they bet when they have certain hands, you will have a huge advantage when you play against them. This knowledge can be used to manipulate them unmercifully.
Consider this hand I had at a 2/5 NL table at Foxwoods.
Scenario: I had been playing for about 90 min. I am in seat #5 with about 550 in chips. The button is in seat #3, making me the Big Blind.
Seat 6: Fold
Seat 7: Fold
Seat 8: Min-raise to $10
Seat 9: Fold
Seat 10: Call
Seat 1: Fold
Seat 2: Call
Button: Fold
Small Blind: Fold
I look at
There is $37 in the pot, and I need to put in $5 more to call. I am getting 7.5:1 pot odds here, so making the call is automatic.
Before I go further, here is my take on the table.
Overall, it has been a fairly loose-aggressive game. There are two guys at the table who are constantly raising and reraising with marginal hands (seat 7 and 3). Individual player knowledge goes as follows:
Seat #7: Extremely loose-aggressive player, however, he is NOT in the hand.
Seat #8: A fairly decent player who recently took a bad beat and lost all of his chips. He has just bought in again for $500. He has been at the table about the same amount of time as I have. He is quiet. His betting patterns suggest that he has a good command of the game.
Seat #10: This guy is like the Rock of Gibraltar. This guy is VERY VERY tight. I think I have seen him play two or three hands in the 90 minutes I have been there. I have been listening to his banter since I sat down. Although he is NOT obnoxious, what he says tells me that is a very strong, solid, and knowledgeable player, just like seat #8. The rock has about $900 in chips
Seat #2: He likes to socialize a lot. He has the largest chip stack at the table with about $1,600. Like the three other players in the hand, he knows what he is doing.
So, as it stands, there are 4 people in the pot, all of whom are knowledgeable and solid players.
Pot: $42
Flop:
This was a fairly good flop for me. I have a flush draw. I elect to check to see what the other people are going to do.
Seat 8: Bets 50, about the size of the pot.
Seat 10: Thinks for a minute, and raises to $150.
Seat 2: He is visibly disturbed. His anger is genuine (i.e. he is NOT acting to give off a false tell). He think and thinks and thinks and talks to himself. Finally he raises to $450.
This is an interesting situation. The key to the analysis is knowing that the four players in the pot are both knowledgeable and straight-forward players.
Lets analyze the action preflop.
Seat 8 min-raises. Min raises are tough. If the player is solid, it means they have a monster hand. If they are a weak player, it does not mean a whole lot - they could be on a wide variety of hands. Not having seen him really mess up, lets say he is an average player. What would an average player raise with in this spot? He would make this play with any pair down to 66 (AA, KK, QQ, JJ are unlikely because he probably would have put in more than a min raise, but we will keep them in the possibility list for now). Certainly up for consideration is AK, AQ, AJs, ATs, KQ, KJ, KT, QJ, QT, JT and some other random hands. That is a pretty broad range.
Seat 10 calls the min raise. Knowing seat #10 is VERY tight and using the GAP theory, we can narrow his holdings somewhat. He would make this call with pocket pairs from AA down to 88, maybe 77. Unpaired cards might be AK, AQ, AJs, KQs, KJs (weak). I highly discount the possibility of AA, KK, QQ because the guy would probably reraise to try to isolate the person in EP. His most likely cards are JJ, TT, 99, 88, 77, AQ, AJs, KQs, KJs, and perhaps some mid-range suited connectors.
Seat 2 calls. This call is peculiar. However, he could be playing position and hoping to flop a monster. He is getting almost 3:1 for his call. Those are decent pot odds preflop, so he could have a wider variety of cards. Pocket pairs from AA down to 55, any two cards over T, and any suited connectors down to about 54s.
Now, lets analyze the action on the flop.
I am in a bad position I check to see what everybody else is going to do. This play is reasonable.
Seat 8 bets the pot, which is about $50. The question is WHY did he make a pot sized bet? The obvious answer is that with three other people in the pot, he does NOT want to give anybody the pot odds to draw at the flush. So, we can rule out seat #8 as being on a flush draw (betting the pot on a draw is a very bold move, and one that I did not think this player was capable of making). So with the pot sized bet, what could he have? He might have flopped the straight (KT or T8). T8s is unlikely from his position, but he might be trying to protect a KTo, which is reasonable. He could also have flopped trips (QQ, JJ, 99) or two pair with QJ (possible), Q9 (less likely, but possible), J9 (possible). Lastly, he might have an overpair (KK or AA), but by his small preflop raise, this is unlikely.
Seat 10 raises to $150. This bet tells you a lot too. If you are going to raise, the standard amount is 3x the last bet. Seat 10 does not disappoint in that regard. To raise a pot-sized bet, he MUST have something good. With a threatening board like this, seat 10 would dump 2 pair given his tighness. Also, by raising to $150, you can logically deduce that he has a completed hand and is afraid of (at least) a flush draw. He does not want to allow any other players to have the odds to draw at that hand. Now, what does he have? Seat 10 might have a straight (T8 or KT), trips, (QQ, JJ, or 99), or an overpair (KK or AA). We can rule out the AA and KK due to his preflop call. I also do not suspect he has QQ because he did not raise preflop. Seat 10 most likely has T8, KT, JJ, or 99 with no flush draw.
Seat 2 then thinks and thinks and thinks. He is visibly disturbed. His emotions are genuine. He then raises the previous raise by 3x, which is $450. Raising in the face of a pot-sized bet and then a 3x raise again tells me he must have a strong hand, and he is NOT on a draw. What might seat 2 have? He does not have T8. If he had T8, he would be afraid of KT and would have simply called, or more likely folded. He probably has a set or the KT. Best guess: QQ, JJ, 99, KT with no flush draw.
Now, back to me. With the betting thus far, I can logically deduce that no players have a flush draw. I am very confident of this. I am not afraid of somebody who has made a straight because they cannot improve further. However, if somebody did flop 2 pair (seat 8 ) or trips (seat 10 and 2), then I have to worry about the board pairing, this giving them a full house. The only other possibility I am afraid of is runner-runner diamonds so that somebody makes a larger freak flush.
There is no calling in this situation. It is push all in or fold. What do I do? Lets look at some math.
If I push all-in, my hand odds are 1.9:1 to make the flush by the river, and I am guaranteed to see two cards if I do in fact push. Would seat #2 call my all-in? His initial bet (pot-sized) indicates that he has a strong hand. He shoved $500 in the pot a few hands ago, so he is not afraid to put his money out there. That is a good thing for me. Would seat #10 call a $550 bet? His $150 bet indicates that he would. With a strong hand, he would be getting good pot odds at this point. Seat 2 would certainly put in an extra $100. With seat 10 and 2 making the call, I would be getting the required odds to push all-in. If I knew if seat 8 was going to call as well, I would be getting about 3:1 money odds on a 2:1 draw. Seems like an easy choice.
The things against me are that there might be some diamonds out. This flop has obviously hit all four of us. If anybody hit trips, then there is a good chance that some of my diamonds are gone. If two are gone, I am a 2.6:1 underdog to make my hand by the river. I still have the necessary odds to push all-in if I know all three players are going to call.
This is a tough decision. In a tournament, this hand is an easy fold. In a cash game, you must push small advantages. The decision is closer than one might guess.
In the end, I decided to fold not because I did not think I had a good betting proposition, but rather I had only been at the table for 90 min and I did not want to walk away if I lost.
As the hand turned out, the other three people were all-in. Seat 8 showed Q9 (2 pair), seat 10 showed 99, and seat 2 showed QQ ! All four Queens and Nines were OUT and I had no fear of a full house (barring a runner runner pair). The turn was a 7 of diamonds. Had I called, I would have taken down a $2,000 pot.