I'm not sure if this belongs here, or in the newbie section, so feel free to move it if this isn't concider stratagy, or, if it is, it doesn't belong here.

Earlier today i decided I wanted to observe a $1/.20 NL SnG on PS. My main reason was to watch and see how the play was at this level and to see how it matched up with other tourneys I've observed. I was getting ready for bed, didn't want to play another game and jst wanted something to make my eyes tired and no good books were in reach.

After watching for about 10 min, I started trying to guess who was holding what at the showdown based on how they bet. There were about 17 players still in when I started watching and the table I was at had 8 players. I noticed that while most of players I was wrong most of the time (usually giving them more credit then their hand deserved) I noticed that about 50% (or better) of the time, I could call CL's hand without much thought. I had seen him show several hands and really noticed a pattern to his betting. He ended up winning but because of my reads I think I could have beat him.

Questions: Is the ability to read hands a learned trait or something more "innate"? If learned, or learnable, is this a good way to practice it? If so, what level would be most worth while to watch? What percent of accuracy is concidered good, both on the amount of players you can read and how often you're correct with a single player? When playing, should you try to put somebody on a specific "set" of hands or jst try to get a feeling for whether they like their hands or not?

When I mentioned being accurate with the CL, his patterns were amazingly simple to deduce, ie: 4xbb bet with A-Face, more if mid-pair or better, less if worse. depending on how much more or less gave you a real good idea how much better or worse it was.

I picked this level because I figured people would be playing in such a way to show down more cards and it doesn't help watching if you don't know what they're playing. When I play, I don't try to put people on specific hands, I jst try to get a feeling for whether they like their cards or not. That's kind of difficult to do in online poker becuase you can't see any body language.

Any help with this is appreciated. I've never really paid attention to this aspect of online poker before because I figured any decent player would vary his play so much (I try to, or I at least try to bet the same regardless of my strength, which I guess is varying your play in a different way.) I was amazed at the accuracy that I was reading this guy...I've never even tried that before.

Trons

It really is a learned skill that is boosted by natural ability. You can read hands online, it is mainly about betting patterns and deviations from their normal actions. It just takes practice and a keen eye to get the hang of it....

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I don't know this who this guy is or how he played, but establishing a pattern for your opponents bets (and getting your opponents to respect your bets based on previous hands) is a massive part of the game.

Once patterns are established the good player will mess with them in order to induce a call or fold as appropriate (your guy may have been skillful enough to only show the hands where he had strength and may have been betting lesser hands in a similar fashion in order to induce folds when required).

The main thing is that although varying bets is a good thing, there are certain sizes of bet for certain hands that pay off the most in the long run.

Limping AA is occassionally the right thing to do and may land a big pot, but it's real value is when raised between x and y times the big blind.

Similarly there are occassions when it is worth raising low pocket pairs and Axs, but generally seeing a cheap flop and hoping to hit is the way to make them pay.

If you know what the optimum way to play each hand is from each position and can peg how your opponent plays, you can reduce their possible holdings to a few options in most cases.

(that got long quick and may or may not be coherant )

here is a link i like about putting players on a hand, http://www.pokerpages.com/articles/archives/spath23.htm

basicly it says you 1st think what hands would he do that with pre flop? and put him on a fairly wide range of hands.

then after he acts on the flop you decide, with what hands would he do that pre flop and then do that on this flop? and narrow the range of hands. and so on.