Have you ever wondered what exactly someone could possibly be thinking about when it's taking him seemingly forever to make a decision during a hand? As much as some of us pros would like you to believe we're simply "looking into your souls," what we're really doing is quite simple and basic, even if it is just a little counterintuitive to how we're used to thinking away from poker.
Rather than a top-down approach, when you're dealing with key decisions in a poker hand, it's very beneficial to think in a back-to-front manner. What I mean by that is that if you are faced with a tough decision, you need to reconstruct the hand and the action in your head from the beginning to the current point, using each street's action as a chance to narrow down your opponent's hand range. With a little experience and some thought, it's quite spooky how good a hand reader you can become if you can simply adopt this way of thinking.
Not only is this thought process important for trying to figure out what your opponent has, but if you're playing against a thinking opponent, you can often use it on your own hand in determining if a bluff might work.
This thinking applies in all forms of poker, but I'm going to use two cash-game examples to try to illustrate my point. In the first hand, a $5-$10 no-limit hold'em cash game on PokerStars, I have the Q J on the button. A middle-position player raises to $30 and I call, and both of the blinds fold. I've just sat down at the table and have no reads on this particular player.
The flop comes K J 7. The villain in this hand bets out $45, and I flat-call to try to use my positional advantage on the turn to get more information from my opponent and make better decisions on later streets.
The turn is the rather innocent 3. The villain checks, and I check, as well. The river is the 5.
The board reads K J 7 3 5 and my opponent suddenly bets out $200? Rather than trusting my instincts or trying to figure out exactly what his bet meant at that time, I started from the beginning, street by street, to try to figure out his range of holdings.
Preflop, the villain raised from middle position. This doesn't necessarily tell us much, but since it wasn't from early position, we don't have to give him credit for a strong hand, and since it wasn't from late position, he's probably not on a complete steal. We can give him credit for a medium to strong hand at this point.
On the flop, our opponent makes a pretty standard-sized continuation bet, which doesn't necessarily mean anything. He may have hit, or he may be continuing to bet to try to take down the pot. I could have raised here, but the board was so draw-heavy that I believed I was better off calling and seeing how he reacted to the turn, and re-evaluate the situation then.
We get a key piece of information on the turn. When the villain checks, it's very difficult for us to put him on any sort of real hand. With two Broadway cards and two clubs, anyone with a real hand would want to make a nice bet here to protect his hand from draws. When he checks, I think we can narrow down his range somewhat. He could have a draw himself, something like Q-10, 10-9, 9-8, or A-Q, or any club draw. He also could have a weak made hand like A-J, A-7, J-10, a weak king, or even the same hand that I have, Q-J.
So, when the river blanks and he makes his $200 bet, I reconstructed all of the previous streets in my head, just as I did in the previous paragraph, realized that the number of hands I listed that I could beat vastly outnumbered those that I couldn't, and made the call. The villain turned over the A 10 for a busted gutshot draw. The result of this hand isn't what is important, though, it's the thought process that made the decision. If my opponent had turned over the K 10, it wouldn't make the call any less correct.
So, when you're in a hand, you should be analyzing it as it goes along, first giving your opponent a broad range, then narrowing it down based on his actions. Then, if you are faced with a particularly tough decision - especially on the river, where you are last to act - take your time and reconstruct the hand from the beginning.
For the second example, I'm going to show you how I used this method of thinking against a solid player to make a believable bluff. In this particular hand, I have the 8 7 on the button in a $5-$10 no-limit hold'em cash game on PokerStars. A solid, conservative player limps in from middle position for $10, and I raise to $50 to represent a strong hand to try to win the pot right there, but if not, take it down post-flop.
The flop comes K 10 4. The villain checks to me, and I make a continuation bet of $70, and the villain calls. At this point, I figure I'm probably done with the hand. That board connects with a lot of potential holdings, and I have no hand and no draw.
The turn is the 4, and the villain checks. I check behind, essentially giving up on the hand for the most part. My preflop action should have indicated a lot of strength to this conservative player, and for him to call my flop bet, I really believed that he had a reasonably strong hand.
When the river came, though, it was the Q. The villain bet out $50. Against a tricky opponent, I might think this was a trap, but against this straightforward, conservative player, I really believed he was making a blocking bet, for fear of getting bluffed. The Q completed a lot of draws on the board, and by betting the flop and checking the turn, I realized that I had represented a draw by taking the free card, and that my preflop raise would have the villain thinking I might have a lot of these hands. I made a raise to $225, and after thinking for a while, the villain folded, asking me if I could beat K-Q.
By reconstructing these two hands from beginning to end at the river, I was able to win two pots that I may not have been able to win if I had thought about them solely based on my opponent's river action.
One word of caution here, though, is that this methodology doesn't work well against opponents who aren't capable of thinking of hands in a logical manner. Trying this sort of thing at a 25¢-50¢ table will often get you in trouble, because your opposition just doesn't think well enough to get what you're representing; they just know that they have two pair, so they call.
The next time you're at the poker table and are faced with a tough decision, try reconstructing the hand in your head from the beginning to the end. You may be surprised how well you can put things together, as well as how much more money you can make.
Eric "Rizen" Lynch is a professional poker player who is well-known for his impressive online results. Read Eric's analysis on his blog (rizenpoker.blogspot.com) and check out his instructional videos, available at PokerXFactor.com.
