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Reading Hands in Poker Tournaments |
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The community cards or board cards in Texas hold'em play a huge role in the playing of most hands, and they can help you get a read on your opponents hold cards by simply knowing what's the best possible hand on any street is. Then you just simply figure how likely it is your opponent can have that hand, and if not start working backwards for the next possible hand strength, until you find some plausible holdings that can be matched to what your opponent has done in the hand.
First things first, you should get in the habit of really reading the board and recognizing what the best possible hand is at any given street. There's a great little handy drill that you can use to do this at home. It's called "The Best Hand Drill." The best hand drill is an exercise that keeps you sharp in terms of knowing who can be holding what, what players may be drawing for, and what the best possible hand is at any given moment.
You don't get a lot of time between moves in online poker, so you don't really want to be taking too long to figure out basic board reading skills. Do this in your spare time, when you're not playing with a real deck of cards at home. You would through the deck a couple of times, and you notice a vast improvement in the speed of recognizing board chemistry.
So in this video you can watch me do the best hand drill, and then also watch as I worked backwards in a hand trying to decipher my opponents hold cards based on his actions. This is a very interesting and valuable exercise, which you should do even if you're not in the hand. |
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