Hand Reading in No-Limit Hold’em

In order to play poker optimally then you are going to have to start at some stage to try and pinpoint what hand ranges your opponent is on. Most novice and even many intermediate players make the mistake of merely playing their own hand and nothing else. Let us look at an example from NL200 full-ring to highlight exactly what I mean.

Both players have $200 stacks before the hand begins and it is folded around to you in middle position and you have the Qh-Qd. You open raise to $7 and everyone folds except the big blind who calls. The pot is $15 and now we have to see how we can narrow what the big blind has. In this example we will assume that we know nothing about him.

Well firstly they could be making a devious play with a premium pocket pair like aces or kings but that’s unlikely as most players would three bet with these holdings and especially kings although I have seen these plays. A Small pocket pair than yours is a distinct possibility. As are Broadway cards like AK,AQ,KQ, KJ, QJ, JT and maybe some suited aces and other suited connectors.

So their range is pretty wide at this moment in time. The flop comes 9c-6d-2s, they lead out for $8, what do we make of this? Well we cannot make an awful lot of it as this player could be using a stop and go tactic by trying to put the pressure on you to hit the flop if you have no big pair.

A pocket pair higher than the board like tens or jacks is possible as is fresh air of course. You decide to raise to $35 and your opponent calls you. This narrows down their range tremendously. If they are a typical player at this level then you can discount hands like 8-7s for a straight draw as most players wouldn’t call that kind of raise on a straight draw. There is no flush draw so they cannot possibly have that.

They wouldn’t call with 9-6, 9-2 or 6-2 so two pair is out of the question. If they had something like A-9 for top pair top kicker then they may call a pre-flop raise and they may lead out on the flop but they surely wouldn’t call a flop raise. So what does this leave? It leaves overpairs and sets like AA,KK, JJ, TT, 99, 66 and 22.

Your pre-flop raise and flop raise basically tells your opponent that you have at least an overpair to the board. Would they bet and then call a raise with TT? Some players would but most wouldn’t although his flop lead was small and so could have invited a raise.

Continuing on with JJ and TT against the action that you have laid down is risky and very marginal. So a slow-played AA now begins to loom large with a lesser chance of KK…..and the sets.

The turn card is the As and your opponent bets $60 into an $85 pot. Now he knows that you could easily be sitting there with an AK, AQ, AJ and connected with that card. Your betting has indicated a big pair, there is a card on board that fits in with what you are representing……this bet cannot be a bluff. Now he cannot have JJ, TT or even KK. Aces are now unlikely as there is one on the board so a set is now the main choice.

He is betting hoping that you have hit that ace with AK etc and is betting for value as if you semi-bluffed the flop with AK and hit your ace on the turn…..you may go into pot control and check the hand behind. So simply fold those queens and live to fight another day……what did he really have?……you have to pay to see in this game.

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