Allgamer.com

You are a good poker player if you know how to read the hands of your opponents. But if you don’t know how, you are still like a work on progress.

It is your edge actually if you know how to read hands. But it is not necessary that you can read hands a hundred percent of the time, you just have to do things right.

Well, if you don’t know how to read hands, you can actually learn. You can start by simply knowing your opponents. Have patience in knowing how they play and how they react to unlikely happenings at the table. Most especially, observe what kind of hands do they usually keep or else fold.

Then after knowing your opponents, watch out for some tells. Be very attentive even to little tells. Look out for a tightening jaw, raised brow, or twitched lips. These can mean certain significant things. But as you watch out for these non-verbal gestures, never miss to observe the betting patterns so you could make right decisions.

Right after watching out for some tells, focus now on the hands that usually appear at showdown and trace back how they reached such phase. Check what happened at pre-flop, post-flop, post-turn, and post-river. Maybe you can then find out how.

Then, know the strategy of your opponents through observing their betting patterns. Their betting patterns may not give you sufficient information but they can help. You can make good predictions later if you understand them better.

As you try to learn how to read hands, be careful. You maybe not aware, but others are maybe trying to get a read on your hands as you learn how to. Aside from trying to read others’ hands, try also to read if others are trying to read your hands too.

A “tell” is any physical reaction, habit, or kind of behavior that gives the other players information about what you are holding. There are actually some most common tells, and if you know what are they, you’ll not only be able to watch out for your own behavior to be sure your body language isn’t revealing your hand but you’ll also be able to watch for the behavior of your opponents to assess if they hold a strong or a weak hand.

Intimidation Signs

Typically, if a player tries to intimidate, he most probably has a weak hand. For an instance, he shouts “I raise” then bets instantly or tosses chips onto the table, more or less he’s trying to intimidate.

Busy Mode

Normally, if the player is talking to a friend, speaking on the phone, listening to music from iPod or eating, player must be strong. If you have a premium hand, stay in the pot in the event player raises.

Weakness Signs

If player tries to imply he is weak, he most likely has a great hand. He can imply he is weak by putting his chips neatly and quietly into the pot and afterwards slowly bets.

Intriguing Statement

If player leaves an intriguing statement before raising or going all in, he more or less has a very strong hand. An example of an intriguing statement is something like “a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do”.

Risking Bigger Chips

In the event player puts the bigger chips into the pot like $100 although he has 4 chips of $25, he may be strong. Player is not afraid to risk his bigger chips as he’ll get them back later.

Hello,

Last night I was in a 1/2 Holdem event. The ending wasn’t good as I can easily be read then. Whenever I flop a straight, I became serious and so players then easily perceived I had the nuts.

I remember back then when I was holding JQ suited and flop came and brought 8 9 10. I then placed a bet and player who told me I had obvious tells earlier part of the game folded his K 10 on the flop. In some similar situations, I remember he raised someone and not folded.

Any thoughts? Please help me.

All the best,
Caleb Martin
Caleb,

You need to evaluate your play or have someone you trust evaluate how you play. You may play too tight and only raise with premium hands. There may be some mannerism that you give off that gives away your hand strength. If your mood or demeanor during the hand changes when you have a strong hand, that would be a tell. Do you have a little shake to you when you bet that you only have when you have a strong hand? That may be another tell. You will want to work on your mannerisms to try and make the same movements and act the same way regardless of the hands you have. If your problem is from playing too tight, loosen up your style a bit or play a couple of hands that get shown down that will change everyone’s perception of your tightness. Get caught bluffing once in a while. Doing little things to change your image can pay off.