Poker Articles

A number of friends have asked me, knowing that I play poker online, how I can possibly read my opponents when I can’t see them in person. This is, of course, one of the key differences between playing online and playing in a brick and mortar setting. While being able to read physical tells is an important part of poker, these tells are certainly not the only type of read you can get on an opponent.

As is the case in live games, a player communicates through his actions at the table. Deductive reasoning is the key to deciphering this form of communication. Moreover, if you can get a good idea of what your opponent holds, you will be better suited to fold hands you need to get out of and to get paid off optimally when you’ve got the best of it.

First, you need to have a good idea of what sort of hands your opponent might be willing to get involved in and how they are likely to play these hands before the flop. This can be determined in part by observing their play when they first come to the table. If a player seems extremely timid before the flop, it is likely that they are only playing premium starting hands, whereas if they are involved in every pot, they could hold anything.

Beware of pitfalls with this technique, however. Many players will “advertise,” or show down a weak hand early in their session at the table, to try and make other players think they are betting with weak hands.

Another thing to be aware of, as far as watching for patterns, is that good players have the ability to change gears. A good player might try to obtain an image as a tight player at the table, and then use that image to steal pots later in the game. If a player is all of a sudden opening 50% of the pots, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ve just hit a sick run of cards. All in all, I’d say you’re most likely to get a good read on a player by observing their play through several rounds.

Once you know what sort of cards your opponent is most likely to be holding before the flop, you must be able to further narrow it down after the flop. You will face tough decisions and will have to be able to answer some questions: Should I call this big bet my opponent just made? Is he going to fold if I take a stab at this pot? Do I have the best of it, and if so, how do I get paid off as much as possible? If you cannot get some idea, through deductive reasoning, of what cards your opponent holds and how he is likely to play them, you will not be able to make the best decisions—you will essentially be playing your own cards against a random hand, and you will never be able to optimize your winnings.

Try to detect patterns in the post-flop play of your opponents. If an opponent is betting every time it is checked around to him, let him bet into your strong hand. The more often someone is betting, the less likely it is they have a top quality hand, so it may be easier to call with a weaker hand, such as top pair or even a lower pair. You never want to be a loose-passive player, regardless of who you are up against, but sometimes a call, rather than a raise, is a good way to test the quality of an opponent’s hand on the flop, particularly if raising will commit you to the pot.

There are a number of questions you can ask yourself when trying to figure out what your opponent holds. Does he normally bet big with a big hand or does he tend to slow play? What purpose could he have in betting this amount? Does he understand the relative strength of the cards he’s holding? Is he putting me on a hand or is he just playing his own cards? Is he likely to shut down if I call his bet on the flop?

One thing to keep in mind here is that none of this is much different from how you read players in a brick and mortar card room. The purpose of the article is more to show how much more there is to reading opponents than just looking at their face, and how you can apply these concepts, despite not being able to see the faces of your opponents. In the next article of this series, I’ll go over some examples of how a good read on an opponent can translate into a winning play in online poker.