Figuring Out Your Opponent’s Hand

In modern poker, players generally base their strategy on the range of hands that they expect their opponents to hold. This is a very sensible policy. An early position raiser, for instance, usually has a hand in the top 10 percent to 20 percent.

Therefore, it is logical to base your strategy against an early-position raiser on the fact that he has one of these premium hands. However, during the course of a hand, there are times when you will be able to home in on almost exactly what hand they could be holding. Intuitive players can occasionally do this without really knowing how they’re doing it. Their subconscious likely evaluates their opponents’ actions and combines some tiny factors to arrive at a concrete solution. Unfortunately, there is no way to teach people how they do it. They will also have ‘off days’ when their intuition isn’t working and they make some horrendous reads.

There are other times when it is possible to examine the evidence that you have and come to a very exact conclusion about your opponent’s hand. In these cases, it is relatively simple to communicate the thought processes that lead to a very specific prediction of which exact cards your opponent holds. One of these hands occurred in this year’s $25,000 World Series of Poker heads-up championship. I was playing Eric Froehlich, known as EFro, in the third round. He is a talented, young, aggressive player. I had pulled off to an early lead, but he had caught up when the following hand came up. In heads-up play, the small blind is on the button. In blind-versus-blind situations in ring games, the big blind will have positional advantage throughout the hand, but in these heads-up confrontations, the small blind has the positional advantage. Almost all players play their small blinds very aggressively; they almost never fold, they occasionally they limp, and most of the time they raise. The raise may range from the minimum raise of twice the big blind up to a huge raise by moving all in for amounts as high as 10 or so big blinds.

We were both fairly deep-stacked with more than 100,000 each when blinds were 1,000-2,000. He min-raised to 4,000 from the button. He had a range that probably included at least the top 80 percent of hands, and might have included 100 percent. I had K-Q offsuit and considered reraising, but decided I was better off calling out of position and making a decision when I saw the flop. The flop was A-5-3 rainbow. I checked, and he checked behind. I was surprised by this; I would have expected him to make a continuation-bet with most of his hands. I mentally ruled out very bad hands and moderately good hands. He would bet a hand like 8-7 to try to steal the pot. He would also bet a hand from 6-6 to J-J for value, and to prevent me from getting a free card that might make me an overpair or even a straight. Therefore, I put him on a very big hand like a set of fives or possibly draw, such as 6-4. He might also have a draw combined with a pair. Since he might have folded preflop with 5-4 or 4-3, his most likely hands were 4-4 and 2-2.

Another 5 arrived on fourth street. I decided that if I bet, he would probably fold a lot of his worst hands, all no-pair hands, and perhaps some pairs between aces and fives. He called fairly quickly. Since he didn’t hesitate and didn’t raise, I thought he was unlikely to have a really big hand. The river was another blank. I reviewed the hand; I had been thinking he had a small pair like 6-6, but then I realized he probably would have made a continuation-bet a pair bigger than fives. His check on the flop probably indicated a pair that included a draw with which he wanted to see a showdown. (Of course, his possible holdings also included the much less likely monsters comprised of aces or threes full, or even quad fives.) I felt relatively certain he had fours or twos – more likely fours, since he had called my bet on the turn. I also thought he wasn’t about to fold to a normal-sized bet.

That left me with two options. The first was to make a huge bet and hope he folded. The downsides to this play were that he might call anyway and that he might have a monster, in which case I had just knocked myself out for no good reason. My other option was to check. If he checked behind me, I could only hope I had misread the position and that he also had no pair. I also thought he would bet twos in the hope of getting me to fold any hand with a random 3. If he bet, I decided that unless his bet somehow convinced me that he really had a monster, I would make a big reraise and see if he would risk calling with deuces. I elected to check with at least some thought of check-raising. We’ll never know what would have happened if had deuces; he checked behind me and showed exactly what I expected him to have – a pair of fours.

The WSOP is already entering its third week as of this writing. I have survived past the dinner break in day two of all the $10,000 buy-in events I have played, but I have managed to get knocked out just short of the money each time. The hand described above occurred in the first event, so my memory of the exact details is already getting a little hazy, but the thought process described should be very informative. By the river, I was almost certain he had 4-4 or 2-2. I had a plan to steal the pot from 2-2; unfortunately, he had 4-4, and I never got to attempt my check-raise bluff. ♠

Steve “Zee” Zolotow, aka The Bald Eagle, is a successful games player. He currently devotes most of his time to poker. He can be found at many major tournaments and playing on Full Tilt, as one of its pros. When escaping from poker, he hangs out in his bars on Avenue A — Nice Guy Eddie’s at Houston and Doc Holliday’s at 9th Street — in New York City.