New to the game, how to read into somebody elses cards

atw

Hey, only started playing poker online in the last week or so on the freerolls. Keep getting drawn into bad beats and was wondering how to gain any sort of information that could give me that vital upper hand?

Thanks

Alex

N1CK

In Response to New to the game, how to read into somebody elses cards:

Hey, only started playing poker online in the last week or so on the freerolls. Keep getting drawn into bad beats and was wondering how to gain any sort of information that could give me that vital upper hand? Thanks Alex
Posted by atw

i dont think you can hand read playing the freerolls as everyone raises and calls with any two cards
you need to start off by learning to play a ABC tight aggressive game opening stronger hands in early position and widening it as you get to the button
once your familer with what hands you raise from certain positions you can characterise certain players playing style and compare it to yours to get an idea what cards they play from were, i hope this makes sense

DeucesLive

hand reading in freeroll=near impossible

hand reading in low stakes games=difficult to easy

hand reading in mid stakes games=easy

hand reading at high stakes=difficult

Freerollers can jam with absolutely anything- since it's not costing them anything. Rebuys can be difficult for a similar reason, since you can bounce back in the tourney if you drop. Low stake tourneys can be quite tough as well.

The best thing you can do is sit quietly and watch how a player reacts, how they bet, how much they bet, whether their betting pattern suddenly changes. A simple trick of card reading is things like- if you bet on a flop with 2 hearts, for example, and they call- there's a high chance they're on a draw. If a heart comes on the turn, you bet and they raise you- they've probably got a flush. Of course, that's quite a novice play, but it's extremely common in low and mid stake games- same with straight draws.

What you have to do is look at the flop, and make a decision about what hands they'd be making what move with. Drastic allins tend to be to protect a weak hand- such as top pair on a 9 high board, or an open end straight draw or flush draw. The more hands you play, the more traits you see frequently. The mark of how good you are is how well you disguise those traits, by a mixture of playing the same way with good and bad hands, and mixing up your game so you don't do everything the same way. Nothing teaches poker better than playing a lot of hands and watching a lot of hands- seriously watch the live skypoker feed, and listen to what Ed, Tikay, Hartigan etc all say when they analyse plays- you can learn stacks from that, and set yourself on your own path to learning how to play.