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Early stages of hand reading & ranging learning
A friend and I have practice sessions where we go back over hands and analyse them together to see if we can accurately put the villain on a range of hands, and to talk through how we’re looking at the board.
An interesting situation came up where our approach to hand reading was very different, so was looking for help on how we should resolve this going forward.
$1.50 Tournament, 300 runners
Down to the last 12/13 runners, 6 handed at hero’s table, 8k/16k ante 2k
Hero UTG ~500k
Villain UTG+1 ~600kTable is playing relatively passively, but not remarkably so.
Hero dealt Ah9h, raises to 32k
Villain calls, everyone else folds
Flop comes out Kd5d6h
Hero raises 25k (we both establish this was an error)
*Villain calls*
So it’s that last action that we differ massively on.
My view is that, assuming ABC basic poker in the absence of any other information, the villain eliminates all Kings from his range: the most premium Kings he’d have 3 bet pre-flop, and the weaker Kings he would be raising post-flop for value and to protect against the draws.
My friend’s view is that there are a lot of good reasons why they might call behind with a King. Looking to get better value on later streets if the turn or river are favourable, using their position and superior stack to trap the hero, etc.
So what is best here for our practice methods? Should we assume ABC poker, and any deviance from that is new information for later hands against that player? Or should we assume all styles of play, giving weight to the most likely, and refine that understanding when more information becomes available?
The hand never went to showdown, so we can’t get clarity on our assumptions.
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3 Replies
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We are 6-handed so we are the lojack and the villain is the hijack. I like to start by establishing the villain’s calling range preflop. Does he call preflop with any king? Does he always 3-bet preflop with premium kings? An optimal player will play a mixed strategy sometimes calling sometimes raising and sometimes shoving. You didn’t mention ICM but I assume it plays a factor. In that case what often happens is a downward drift in aggression. In ICM situations raises become calls, big bets become small bets, and small bets become checks. He can definitely have a King that prefers getting to showdown cheaply. Hands like KQs-KTs of hearts would be comfortable just calling. The KQo with the Qd could also call here. I agree with your friend especially since the villain has position on you.
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We’re playing a $1.50 game though, so with no other information available (stated this earlier), why would we assume they’re well versed in ICM or any other strategy or concept?
And I still don’t see the showdown value in allowing your opponent to draw out on you for free/cheaply when you’ve likely got the best hand right now.
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You can make some basic assumptions about villain based on population tendences. At $1.50, the two most common mistakes players make are:
1) Playing ranges that are too wide
2) Not playing positionally
So it wouldn’t be surprising at all to see a villain at $1.50 flatting in UTG+1 with hands like KQ, KJs, KTs…even AK if the player is passive or just trying to be “tricky.”
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