You Gotta Have Feel!

Unlike the basic strategies of poker, which are relatively easy to learn and available in many books, reading hands is an inexact science; indeed, it is more art than science. It is very complex and requires great perception, awareness, and knowledge. In any medium- or high-limit public poker game, most of the players have the "book information." In spite of that, the abilities of the players holding that information vary greatly. The wide spread in players' abilities to read hands is what makes up much of the difference. Reading hands goes beyond knowledge to a feel for the state of mind of your fellow humans; more than anything, it is an exercise in human psychology. You have to be highly aware of why people do what they do.

Great hand-reading skills aren't necessary to win in loose, social games. Good emotional control, quality hand selection, and basic strategies will take down the fair share of the money. But if you step up a couple of notches, hand selection and basic strategies are much more uniform, and you need better skills to take down the dough. Those better skills involve not only advanced-play knowledge, but also good hand-reading ability.

Most advanced poker plays are based on the situation. You have to advance beyond playing your own hand to understanding how your opponent plays his hand. You need to be able to, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, narrow your opponents' holdings to a range of hands, and actualize the correct play.

Many factors go into the art of reading hands. Physical tells are a great source of information, if you can acquire reliable and accurate ones. Against tough competition, however, such tells can be hard to find. Physical tells are likely to be more evident and accurate in unschooled players. It takes a lot of focus and concentration to acquire accurate tells. (Beware of the misleading fake tell from sophisticated players.)

When sitting down in a game, I focus on those opponents from whom I think I will get the most benefit reading. Watching and thinking about what you are seeing pays huge dividends. Most of the time, you won't be able to detect anything, but when you hit upon an accurate tell, you will own that player. Let's say you play in a $15-$30 game with an average pot size of $200, and you have an accurate tell on a player when he is bluffing. Twice in a month, you make a play off that tell that wins you both pots. Your expectation from those plays is huge (it may not in all circumstances be the whole pot). Think of what you would earn against this player if you played with him regularly all year.

At all limits, another method of reading hands is to analyze a player's knowledge level, and think how he would logically think based on that knowledge level. This requires reading players' minds through their actions. With some players, I can easily do this … with others, I never have a clue. With those I cannot read, I often think my decision-making is clouded by the absence of information.

Reading an opponent based on his playing style is most effective when he is guided by reason at the table. However, few men or women are guided solely by reason. It is part of human nature that we base most of our decisions on emotions. Even when we think we are acting solely on logic and reason, our emotions sway us. What we feel governs us more than what we think.

Players who, in their personal lives and poker games, are governed by emotions are the easiest to read, in terms of both physicals tells and patterns of play. Once you are able to follow and understand a player's emotional patterns, and know what circumstances create given cause and effect relationships, you will be able to use your own reasoning ability to put yourself in his emotional mindset and predict with reasonable accuracy what he is doing.

Developing hand-reading skills is a process, something you have to learn through doing. Some players are natural "people people," and can easily relate to how others think. Others have to work hard to get into the minds of others. And still others seem completely unable to obtain a clue.

Many poker players have a natural arrogance; it is inherent to their thinking that they can compete and prevail. However this arrogance often prevents them from being empathetic, and they are unable to sense what matters to other people, what others care about … in short, what others feel. Many players are hardened by the poker world and just don't care what other people think, and this hard-edged personal characteristic carries into the game, and affects their play. To prevail, you must achieve balanced sensitivity to and awareness of your opponents, without sacrificing the calculated thinking and thick skin that enable you to separate them from their money.

A big part of the sensitivity that's necessary to read hands is continuous awareness of the state of your opponent's mind. How a player feels and what he thinks will be affected by how long he has been playing, whether he just won or lost a pot, whether he's mad at a dealer or cocktail waitress, whether somebody just put a beat on him, and so on. You have to be aware of what's happening to everybody at the table at all times to understand their motivations. That doesn't leave much time for watching the stock ticker, reading the sports sheets, socializing with friends, or grooving to your favorite tunes on a CD player. I'm not a big fan of listening to music at the table, although I have sometimes done it. If you don't know what people are saying, how can you know what they're feeling and therefore what they're thinking? Use the time that you're not in a hand to observe your opponents.

No poker columnist or theorist can teach you to read people, their play, and their hands. It is unquantifiable. It is intangible. It is based on things that are not found in a formula. It can be done only by doing. And the time to start, if you haven't already, is the next time you sit down at the table.

Roy Cooke played winning professional poker for more than 16 years. He is a successful real estate broker/salesperson in Las Vegas - please see his ad below. If you would like to ask Roy poker questions, you may do so online at www.UnitedPokerForum.com.

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