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Deciphering Opponents Actions
You don't play NL Holdem Poker in a vacuum, so your next move at
the poker table has to be determined with respect to the moves of
the others who are offering action.
In no limit Texas Holdem, as in all poker games, the same action may mean different things from different types of holdem players. Your response needs to vary according to the type of holdem player you’re up against. Consider the following situation. You have a hyper-aggressive player in the game. He’s in early position. He has been raising about 35-40% of his hands -– calling with the remainder unless the pot has been substantially raised in front of him, in which case he’s generally folded. You follow him. You have a pair of Tens. He raises in front of you, and you’re in late position. No one else is in the pot when the action comes to you. What do you do? Now consider another situation. A very tight player –- someone known to play only high cards -– raises in front of you. You have the same pair of Tens and you’re in the same position. Do you respond the same way? When the hyper-aggressive player bets you need to respond differently from how you respond when the tight player bets. You usually want to assume that he (the hyper-aggressive guy) is weak and raise him, to make sure the players after you are encouraged to fold, leaving you heads up with the maniac. You also want to put pressure on the maniac to fold -- since you know he often raises with the expectation that he’ll get everyone to concede, but he folds when he sees pressure applied back at him. He may be aggressive but this doesn’t make him a fool. When the conservative player raises, however, you have to assume that he really has a hand. Sure, the hand may only be Ace-King -- in which case you’re a very slight favorite. But there’s also a good chance that the hand is a higher pair, in which case you’re a big underdog. My best advice is when you are facing a situation where you are either a big dog or a tiny favorite that you concede early, even if you have good position. Against the tight player that is the case in example. So fold here. Other situations develop that must be played differently based on the type of player you’re against. Here’s another one that comes up often. Suppose you have A-K in late position. If the blind has not been called and you’re followed by typically solid players you can raise here -- with the expectation that you will win the pot uncontested if no one has much of a hand. If someone does call you and the flop hits either your Ace or your King then you can bet the flop strongly, pretty much assured that you will be in the lead against a player with a lower pair or a pair with a lower kicker. But if one of the players yet to act after you before the flop is a hyper-aggressive player, then it’s often best to just call with that Ace-King. He may very well do the raising for you if he has any kind of hand at all (and even often when he has no hand). You won’t call-raise him. You’ll just call with your drawing hand and see the flop. If an Ace or a King hits you can check again, let him bet, representing an Ace or King, and then you can either check-raise him or wait until the Turn to bet to knock him out. I recommend, by the way, not waiting, not giving him a chance to get lucky with any miracle cards, but to check-raise him to the max and force him out on the flop when he underestimated your hand. But that’s just me. Either way, you can see how you must play the hand differently based on the type of opponent you face. Let’s look at another example. Suppose you are in middle position and there are a few loose calling stations after you. No one in front of you has raised the blinds. One player has called. You have an Ace-x suited. Go ahead and call this hand. You know you are unlikely to get raised based on the players yet to act. And you know that if you are lucky enough to hit a super-longshot flush or a longshot flush draw that you will be in good position with a few opponents. But what if you are followed by a couple of solid, tight/aggressive players? In that case you are better off folding in middle position. You know that they are unlikely to call you unless they have serious hands, in which case they’ll raise you and pose a serious threat of raising any semi-bluff stabs you make at the pot in later rounds if you pick up a flush draw. So concede when the players after you are strong aggressive ones. But what if the players after you are very, very tight -- rocks, for example? In that case, your best action may be a raise, a semi-bluff raise to either win the pot outright or to at least buy the button for all future betting rounds. I can give dozens of examples of this. But as
you can see, the important thing is for players to realize that they
must not just play their hands based on their cards and their position,
but based on the type of players they are up against.~~
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