Reading Oppenants: Tells and Bet Sizes

One of the advantages I realise I have in live poker is the ability to guess my oppenants holdings.
This is done by taking into consideration a number of factors, for example; player betting patterns, physical tells, player type and oppenant stack size are just a few of the factors that can provide clues into what your oppenant is holding.
The other day I had an epiphany while playing, and it's pretty simple. When I'm not in a hand, to keep myself entertained I will try and guess the holdings of players who are in the hand (I think it is a game called Ghost in a previous book I read). The epiphany was, I should be in more hands and use this to my advantage!!
If i can guess so well my oppenants holdings, then I should play more hands with weaker holdings and use it to my advantage, because I know when they are going to fold, call, check or raise and how much I need to bet achieve my goal (e.g. to make them fold, or call with a weaker hand, or charge out a draw)

So I've been trying to do that more, and here's an interesting example hand from yesterday's game, I've had to rush it and not re-read it as I normally would because I got to get ready for the next tournament, poker fans enjoy:

We are around 60 minutes into the game, there is 70 runners started and around 65 remaining. The stakes are 85$ buy in at Ceasers Palace Casino; we started with 7500 chips and i'm currently on 8500 chips from winning a few small pots early on, the blinds are 25 minutes.

The blinds are at 75-150 and I have a good read on my table, I like to associate my oppenants with poker books that I have read as that details to me the level the play they are capable of. My table consists mainly of "Dan Harrington, no limit tournament hold 'em" players, the most straight forward tournament poker book. This basically means they rarely bluff and play straight forward poker based on their 2 hole cards, position, stack size and their oppenant. These are my favourite type of oppenants as they are the most predictable, it's generally associated with middle aged men. There is also one wreckless guy and a clueless woman at the table, but they are not involved in this hand.

The blinds are 75-150 and I'm on big blind, everyone folds round to one of the button who limps - I straight away assign him a range of limping cards, basically any suited ace, any ace with a good but not premium kicker (e.g. AT), any 2 high cards (e.g. KJ) suited or unsuited and any pair 9's or lower. I would have expected him to raise with starting hands stronger than those just listed, especially in an unopended pot.

Seeing as I'm confident he is a Dan Harrington player I don't think he would be capable of playing any strong hands in a tricky manner, the table is pretty timid also so I don't think he would limp with premium hoping that someone else will raise.

The button also limps and I assign the same analyse although he could potentially be weaker as he is limping behind a limper and is in an even later position (which means there are less people to act behind him so he will be less worried about someone raising behind), and the small blind completes for another 75 - he could have any 2 cards, I won't worry about his holding until I get more information at a later stage.

Each player has around their starting stack of 7.5 behind and I have Q8 offsuit on the big blind, I elect to check. There is no point raising to protect my big blind as the amount I figure I would have to raise to make my oppenants fold, would percentagely not be profitable relative to how often they call and hit a flop (I figure I would have to bet at least pot to make them fold). I also don't want to play a flop with bad cards, out of position, and with an already big pot especially at such an early stage in the game!

Another advantage of checking on my big blind now is that it may build me some respect for later, when the blinds are bigger and I feel it is worth with trying to punish the limpers with a weaker hand.

The pot is now 600 and the flop brings Ah, Qh, 9C
H=hearts, C= clubs, etc.etc,

The small blind checks he doesn't seem interested in the hand, I check my pair of queens as it isn't very strong and the ace aligns with a lot of the holdings I already assigned to the late limpers.
The first limper raises standard half pot 300 and the button / small blind fold.
This raise instantly makes me think that he has a weak suited ace or an ace with high card (e.g. AT). I don't think he has 2 hearts as the Ace of hearts is on the board, only KJ hearts or KT hearts would align, but then I would have expected him to check hoping to see a free card (doesn't seem like a tricky player). My physical read makes me think he is quite happy with the hand.
I elect to call with the following thought process, I'm confident he has an Ace - kicker unconfirmed but probably no higher than Jack as he would have raised pre otherwise. I think that if a heart comes on the board I will be able to bluff him on the hand on the turn/river as he is capable of folding to a scare card/big bet, and if a Q or 8 comes on the turn/river I will be able to maximise my value bets as I am aware of his holding.
Because we have both have big stacks behind us, I feel the implied odd's make this play worth while, so I call.

The pot is now 1200 and the turn brings 4S (AH QH 9C)

This was not a good card for me as it didn't bring trip queens or 2 pair, and was not a scare card for him (i.e. a heart) - so I check. He takes a while to think about his hand, and plays with his chips on and off for a while thinking about whether to bet or not.
This is quite an obvious physical tell that he is weak and does not have a made hand, generally people know instantly if they want to bet or not and will take chips into their hand as soon as it is there go, but may take a while to decide how much...he was semi confident about raising or checking and after a while decided to bet 500.
Another note is that he was going to bet 600, but chose 500 instead at the last second - this provides me some additional information that he wanted to bet less and was less confident about his hand.
There are only two reasons I can figure why he wanted to bet less:
1) Because he had a premium hand and wanted me to call (i.e. give me better value) or
2) because he was worried about his hand, however felt he should bet so chose to bet less.

I'm about 95% confident it is the latter as this would align with all my anaylse of the preflop/post flop play. This changes my thoughts on his ace holding, I'm pretty sure now he has either KT or KJ of hearts and is chasing the flush/straight, this would align with the preflop action and would explain why he bet the flop (because he has so many draws, granted originally I didn't think he was tricky enough at the time, but with a lot of draws it makes sense even to a Dan Harrington player).

So I elect to call, confident he is holding either KT or KJ hearts and chasing the flush/straight draw, there is no point raising here as I would have to bet a lot to chase him off the hand and if my analyse was wrong or he elected to re-raise it would be a very expensive pot for me that I may have to give up on - this is the one of the major disadvantages of playing out of position, less control of the pot size. With calling I can review the river card and some keep control of the pot size at the same time.

The pot is now 2200 and the river brings JS (AH, QH, 9C, 4S)

This card is 50% of the time good for me, 50% of the time bad for me; depending on whether he has KT hearts or KJ hearts ha. Seeing as I don't know here whether he has the straight or just a pair of Jacks now I elect to check and keep the pot small.

If he raises behind I'm pretty confident he has the straight and can fold accordingly (subject to physical read and bet size) or if he checks behind then I'd expect him to have the KJ and hope to win the showdown, this would be the most reasonable Dan Harrington style play - it makes less sense to bluff the river if you have a chance of winning it anyway, it's only worth bluffing if you think you can make your oppenant fold a stronger hand than yours.

A better player would see past this and consider his oppenants holdings (i.e. me) and also what his oppenant thought he was holding (i.e. I think he has the KJ or KT hearts). He could then complete a success bluff or a profitable check accordingly, for the Dan Harrington player - this is too much to think about (not Dan Harrington himself, he is an excellent player).

He checks behind and shows the KJ hearts, with a pair Jacks from the board. I show my Q8 and take the 2200 pot with my pair queens, he compliments my call on the turn - I laugh and tell him that if he bet 600 rather than 500 I might have folded ;)

I figure if my reads are as good as this for the rest of the game, I'll have a good chance of winning the tournament, and premium result - I won it outright. 1 for 1 so far haha vivaaa las vegass!

Right back to work.

Steve (hopelesglory)