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Texas Holdem reading skills shown in the movie
” Raise, professor raise $ 20 “, a group of lawyers, professors with a strange look at him, the first impression of this is quite sunny young man at this time’s actions but provoked these “high intelligence” some disgust.
” Half of the cards are not dealt, you are not gambling? “
“Professor Abe, this kid is squandering your money, are you sure this is wise?”
Mike had long forgotten his identity at this point, smugness written all over his entire face.
” This is certainly wise, we know our cards, and we know your cards “
This is a classic scene from the movie “Rounders”, where an unknown young man uses his superior card reading skills to shock the big boys at the table with their high intelligence. Although the movie shows the card reading skills are a little too exaggerated, but in a layman’s view, the professional poker players “card reading” brings no less shock than the movie scene.
The actual fact is that you will be able to find out the best way to get the most out of your own home.
Many poker players want to master the skill of accurate “card reading”, but they don’t know where to start, after all, it’s hard to share this kind of skill with anyone.
Establishing macro logic
Before we start to read the opponent, we need to have a macro concept of card reading, in which some knowledge is essential:
- Linear law (Linear): The range becomes narrower or parallel as the game progresses, but never expands. 2.
- Logical: Your opponent’s logic may be completely different from yours, but logic is logic, and it is more important to pay attention to your opponent’s logic than to your own. 3.
- The Law of Learning: Learning here is not a lesson. Rather, it is how to reverse and optimize your reading through misjudgment and new valid information.
Once we have mastered the 3L’s rule, we have established a macro framework for reading cards, and then we can proceed to the second step.
Learn the various ranges
As we already know from the previous study, the battle of card power is actually a confrontation between ranges. Before studying various specific or dynamic ranges, we’d better learn the characteristics and logic of each range itself.
These include, but are not limited to, open-raise ranges, 3Bet ranges, call 3Bet ranges, 4Bet+ ranges, post-flop ranges, and so on.
Each of these ranges has its own logic, and you can download the various preset range tables from the PokerLogic course as a basis for your study.
Scaling down ranges as the game progresses
As the betting round changes and your opponent’s moves increase, his range starts to decrease from the initial range, and the more moves you make, the smaller the range will be. Also you need to use again the opponent’s tags, how he would play the hands in his range in different situations (position, scoreboard depth, deck structure). Take a look at the following example.
For example, an opponent open raises in middle position, at which point we would first set an initial range for him. The opponent will only bet consistently on the flop with top pair or higher and strong listening hands, so when the action takes place on the flop, we can logically remove some of the hands that don’t fit his action from his initial range and form a new range.
We can use the “flop veteran” to visualize this. After the pre-flop range and flop circle cards are selected, we select top pair and above and flush hear in the filter, and we can see that some gray blocks appear, which are the combinations of the opponents we eliminated on the flop. As the game progresses, this range will become more and more precise, possibly even down to the last few combinations.
Texas Holdem Poker Tips – Constant adjustments
Adjustments can be divided into two parts：
- Correcting backwards: At the end of a particular hand, we are likely to find that we have made a mistake in our analysis – our opponent has revealed a card that is completely unexpected. No matter, we just need this information to constantly correct our reading and rationally conclude, “did we make a mistake in our initial preconceptions about our opponent, or did we not expect our opponent to bet consistently with such combinations as well”.
- Further study: After we have mastered all the macro concepts well, we need to learn some finer knowledge. For example, how to read a hand holding JT in K72, how to read a hand holding KQ in K96, etc.
With the increase of information, correct your reading of the opponent, and keep on further training, you will be more and more accurate in the long term game.
