Learning Your Opponents

[Insidestr8]

In addition to playing your cards wisely, what is just as important (and even more important for good players) is watching your opponents and playing your opponent more than playing your own cards.

A couple of examples come to mind from the past week.

During yesterday’s game, one of the players was playing extremely tightly. I don’t believe they entered a hand for a few rounds. They had accumulated a bit of a stack and seemed to be intent on only seeing flops on their big blind and only entering other hands when they had a giant hand. By the time the tournament was down to the final table the blinds were a fair size, so if there weren’t callers before me I would often raise their big blind and take their blind because I knew they would not call unless they had a monster hand. The cards that I had didn’t matter to me at all since I was purely playing the player because they had become so predictable.

Another hand that comes to mind was one where I was in the big blind with A-9. I usually don’t play A-9, but I was in the big blind and there were no raises so I got to see the flop. The flop was the best that I could hope for with that hand. The flop didn’t have an Ace (which would of made me worry about my kicker) but it was something like 2-8-9. That gave me top pair with top kicker and nobody could have flopped a flush or straight. I was likely ahead at this point but I was vulnerable to over cards on the turn or river. I made a reasonable sized raise to protect my top pair from over cards and to hopefully push out someone that might be chasing a straight around the 8 and 9. A very passive player was in the hand with me and they surprised me with a re-raise over the top of me. I don’t recall the player’s name, but I know them as being very, very predictable. Even though I had hit my perfect flop and I had invested a fair size raise on it, I just mucked my hand. I never did see their hand, but I am sure that they had at least an over pair to my pair, or they more likely had hit trip 8’s or 2’s. The reason I felt very comfortable in folding that hand is that I feel that I know how that player plays, and they never seem to make a move without a very strong hand.

My suggestion is that you start making a few notes on players and learn which ones you can figure out. It will help you learn who and when you can push and when you’re better off just tossing your hand in the muck.