| |
Reading Hands on the Basis
of Your Opponents' Play and Exposed Cards
What you do in a game like seven-card stud or hold 'em or
razz is to put an opponent on a variety of hands at the start
of play, and as the hand continues, you eliminate some of
those hands based on his later play and on the cards he catches.
Through this process of elimination, you should have a good
idea of what that opponent has (or is drawing to.) when the
last card is dealt.
Suppose, for instance, in seven-card stud a player starts
with a queen of spades, then catches the deuce of spades,
then the 7 of spades, then the 5 of hearts, and he's betting
all the way. You have a pair of l Os which does not improve.
Your opponent bets on the end, and clearly you can beat only
a bluff. The question is - might your opponent be bluffing?
With something like a four-flush and a small pair, he would
probably have played the hand exactly the same way - semi-bluffing
right to the end, assuming you didn't catch any dangerous-looking
cards. Therefore, while your opponent may, in fact, have a
pair of queens or queens up, there's also a chance he has
a busted hand. Very possibly you should call his final bet,
given the pot odds you're getting - but realizing at the same
time that he may indeed have been semi-bluffing yet still
caught his hand on the last card.
Suppose, on the other hand, your seven-stud opponent started
with that same queen of spades and you with that same pair
of lOs. Once again your opponent is betting all the way. But
this time he catches the 7 of diamonds, then the 4 of clubs,
then the jack of hearts. Now when he bets on the end, you
should almost certainly fold your two unimproved l Os because
when he caught the 7• and 44 but continued betting,
you had to eliminate the flush draw as one of his possible
hands. Therefore, he is almost certainly betting on the end
for value with at least a pair of queens - more likely two
pair. Ironically, it can sometimes occur that because your
opponent's hand looks less dangerous on board it is more of
a threat to have you beat when your opponent bets on the end,
because nothing showing suggests he might have been semi-bluffing
as the hand progressed.
At the end of a hand it becomes especially crucial to have
a good idea of what your opponent has. The more accurately
you can read hands on the end, the better you can decide whether
you have, for example, a 20 percent chance of having your
opponent beat or a 60 percent chance or whatever. You use
your ability to read hands to come up with these percentages
and then decide how to play your own hand.
In practice, most players don't arrive at exact figures like
20 percent or 60 percent, but at the very least they try to
decide whether their opponent has a bad hand, a mediocre hand,
a good hand, or a great hand. Let's say your opponent bets
on the end. Usually when a person bets, it represents either
a bluff, a good hand, or a great hand, but not a mediocre
hand. If your opponent had a mediocre hand, he would probably
check. If you have only a mediocre hand yourself, you have
to decide what the chances are that your opponent is bluffing
and whether those chances warrant a call in relation to the
pot odds. If you have a very good hand, you must decide whether
your opponent has a good hand or a great hand. If you think
the chances are high he has only a good hand, you would raise.
But if you think he may very well have a great hand, you would
just call. If you are virtually certain he has a great hand,
you might even fold your very good hand, depending upon the
size of the pot. You ask yourself two questions: What does
it look like my opponent is representing? Could he have the
hand he's representing and have played it the way he did?
Once you draw your conclusions about your opponent's hand
on the basis of his play and his up cards, you decide on the
basis of your own holding and the size of the pot whether
to bet, check, call, raise, or whatever.
We have seen that in open-handed games one way to read hands
is to start by considering a variety of possible hands an
opponent might have and then eliminate some of those possibilities
as the hand develops. A second or, more accurately, a complementary
way to read hands is to work backward. It is that sort of
thing my high-low split opponent did. If, for instance, the
last card in hold 'em is a deuce and an opponent who'd been
quiet from the start suddenly bets, you think back on his
play in earlier rounds. If there was betting on the flop or
on fourth street, that player would not have called with nothing
but two 2s in the hole. So he is betting now either as a bluff
or because he has something other than three 2s. If, on the
other hand, everyone checked on the flop and on fourth street,
it's very possible the player caught three 2s on the end.
Every step of the way you must work forward and backward to
zero in on your opponent's most likely hand.
|
|
