Reading Your Opponents in Poker

Reading your opponents is an important aspect of playing poker. In addition to playing a solid technical game which takes into account probabilities, odds, etc, another very important aspect of the game is reading your opponents. In poker, you are playing your opponents just as much as you are playing your cards. If you can make your opponents believe that you always have a good hand, and if you can know when you are beat, you will win the battle.

Having a good read on your opponents can mean the difference between losing your entire stack and allow you to get away from a big hand. Not only do you want to get a good read on your opponents, which comes with experience, you want to have the courage to go with your reads. I see so many novice players say I knew they flopped a set when I had AA on the flop, but didn’t go with my read? Garbage! You either have confidence in your read on a player or you don’t. Don’t second guess yourself.

The difficulty with poker is most players possess one skill, and rarely are good at both. They either have a very good understanding of the math, or have an uncanny ability to read their opponents. You can get away with only having a solid technical game when playing low limit games, but as soon as you move up in limits to mid stakes or higher games this won’t be enough. Without the ability to read your opponents you will be like a lost kid in a supermarket isle, unsure of what is the correct play and losing confidence in your game, because good aggressive players in the better games are always putting the pressure on you.

It’s not all doom and gloom, the more experience you get playing poker, the better you will get at reading your opponents. You just need patience with your game and to make sure you are always being observant at the table. You don’t want to be missing out on any information your opponents may be giving you. This also applies when you are not involved in a hand, especially when playing live at the casino.

Let’s face it, when playing casino poker it’s a slower game then what you are used to online so it takes some adjustment. Instead of zoning out when you are not involved in a hand, keep your mind occupied by observing other players actions at the table. They can be telling you a lot even when you are not playing the hand.

When playing live, I tend to play very straight forward and conservative until I can get a better read on my opponents. If I have made top pair with a good kicker on the flop, and there is betting on the turn, I would want to know does this person bluff in this spot? Would they bet the flop with a worse top pair with there are no obvious draws on the board? It’s information like this that you really need to know to make more informed decisions at the poker table.

One of the advantages of playing live poker is you have the benefit of getting physical tells on your opponents. Your opponents facial expressions and eyes can usually tell you a lot about their hand. These are reads you just can’t get online. If you are good at getting physical tells on players, then live poker should unquestionably be your game of choice, you will make a lot of money just reading your opponents. If you are unable to get a physical tell you can always talk to your opponents to try and gain more information. Generally players will act confident when they are bluffing to disguise their hand, and on the other hand will be calm, quiet, and trembling when they have a big hand. Again, these are tells you wouldn’t get playing online.

What if online poker is your game of choice? Unlike live poker you can’t rely on physical tells. Instead, you need to observe the technical aspects of the game such as betting patterns, bet sizing, timing tells, etc. These reads can be just as reliable after you have been playing online for a while. Look at patterns when playing online, and if a player deviates from the normal pattern of play, you know something is probably up. What you miss out on with physical tells you make up for with statistics on your opponents when playing online. When you have a large sample size on a player, you can be confident in their tendencies both pre flop and post flop. Are they raising a wide or tight range of hands? Do they ever bluff? All of these questions can be answered once you have reads on your opponents.

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