7 Tips To Reading Your Opponents

Get a Free Training Package at PokerHeadRush.com

Mastering the art of reading your opponents is a pivotal skill in poker, often turning the tide in your favor. This article delves into seven psychological tricks that can unveil the intentions and strategies of your adversaries, giving you a critical edge at the table.

1. Who Hates Being Caught Bluffing?

Most of these tips will require multiple sessions with the same players before you can use them. This is one that can help you with all of the regulars in the cardroom.

If someone plays regularly, pay attention to what they turn up with on the river. If they never get caught bluffing, then they’re not bluffing enough.

How do you know that? Think of it this way. Imagine if you move all-in on the river, the bet as a complete bluff needs to work 60% of the time to be successful. You look across the table, range your opponent, and surmise they’re folding 80% of the time. What should you do?

Of course, you should pull the trigger, but this also means you’ll be caught bluffing one-fifth of the time!

Players who bluff enough in marginal situations get caught regularly. If your opponents are not getting caught bluffing, then they’re not bluffing enough. No one pitches a perfect game. Don’t give them your money. They’re glorified nut peddlers.

2. Is Their Preflop Call Agitation Authentic?

This is a small point, but it deserves being discussed. There are many people in your cardroom who will give off genuine agitation when they get three-bet. They’ll put their chips in quickly, they’ll slam them in, they’ll look annoyed, or they’ll do a myriad of other tells.

Pay attention to when they do this! This often means they don’t have their best hands. Their range is capped when you get them post-flop.

I remember one time I three-bet a player and he didn’t show any agitation for the first time. He stared blankly before he called my three-bet. At the end of the hand, I found out he had aces.

Pay attention to who doesn’t care about showing agitation. It can help you range them more accurately.

3. Who Checks Out When They’re Going To Fold?

You’ll see this in many players if you look long enough. When they’re in a multiway pot and are planning on folding, they go to their cell phone, watch the game more intently, or just generally check out. When they’re ready to fold their hands behind you, they’ll sometimes have their hand ready to throw in the muck.

There’s an interesting wrinkle to this. Some players don’t want to obviously look like they’re folding because they know that will bite them in the ass later. But what they do instead is almost comical. They’ll stare at the action intently like they have something when they’ve missed the flop. When they’ve smashed the flop, they’ll look down at their chips and look away.

4. Who Is Calm With A Hand?

There are many players who get bored when they have a huge hand. They know they’re going to win a big pot or a bigger pot, so there’s no suspense. They’ll often wear this boredom on their sleeve, because they feel it doesn’t give away anything.

Pay attention to when these players finally do get dialed up. This is dramatically different than what they do with a hand. It’s possible they get this tense with their bluffs only. See what gets shown down. Look at how relieved they look if the other player folds.

5. Who Looks Ready To Go?

I remember sitting down once with a player who was picking at their skin. They were agitated with the dealer over nothing. They slammed their chips every time they raised. They looked annoyed when they had to fold anything.

I got 200 big blinds in on the flop versus this person with a set against their one pair. The other players at the table were surprised I played my hand so fast. It was obvious to them I had a set. They were shocked I got value.

When a player is ready to go, don’t get cute with them. They’re living on tilt. Give them big bets to call down. Don’t let someone else bust them.

6. Who Rechecks Their Cards?

This read takes a long time to confirm, but pay attention to when people recheck their cards post-flop.

If they never recheck their cards or they always recheck, that doesn’t tell you much. But most people have their favorite times to recheck their cards.

When the flop comes with three to a suit, a lot of players will recheck their hand to see if they have one card of a certain suit. If they have a suited hand, they have the suit memorized, so they don’t have to recheck their cards.

I’ve played with players who only recheck their hand when they have the nuts. It’s like a security blanket they want to soothe themselves with before they put the big bet out there. If they were bluffing, they would just get their nerve up and fire. They didn’t have to see their junk again.

7. Who Announces Their Raises?

This is another play that takes time to develop, but pay attention to it. There are certain players who only announce their raises at specific times.

I’ve played with players who only announced their raises when they wanted to intimidate someone. If they wanted to three-bet you light they’d announce it, but they got noticeably quieter when they had the hand.

You will also find the opposite of this sometimes. There are players who clam up with bluffs and don’t want to give off anything, but when they have a huge hand, they’ll be able to talk much more freely.

If you find someone who is calm and loose verbally when they have a huge hand, always use that against them. Chat them up with anything silly you can think of on the river. If they’re responsive and bored, then you know they have nothing to worry about. They have it. ♠

Learn how to play A-K when it misses the flop!

Alexander Fitzgerald is a professional poker player and bestselling author who currently lives in Denver, Colorado. He is a WPT and EPT final tablist, and has WCOOP and SCOOP wins online. His most recent win was the $250,000 Guaranteed on ACR Poker. He currently enjoys blasting bums away in Ignition tournaments while he listens to death metal. Free training packages of his are provided to new newsletter subscribers who sign up at PokerHeadRush.com