Texas Holdem Poker Strategy Books - Understanding Player Behavior

This section will focus on observing and predicting player behavior – that means YOUR behavior, the behavior of other players and even how the behavior of players and the tone of a game can change with fewer players as well as tables where there are eight or ten players.

All of these factors will influence how much you win and how well you can analyze your game and change your strategy.

For starters, we will offer you a little tip about online poker. You may find this helpful in identifying players and matching a name to a profile or style of play.

Many people turn off the avatars or icons that other players use to identify themselves during play. These images can be pictures of anything or anyone but the player has chosen that picture to give themselves on online identity.

When you meet a person face-to-face, you couple what you know about them with their face and you remember them for those characteristics.

It is much easier to remember a player and their profile if you have some image to remind you of that person’s behavior and persona. It is like attaching a face to a name when you meet someone on the street.

If you want some practice in understanding human behavior, you can try to play a game of solitaire poker.

Keep track of your moves and go back and analyze how you played the game. Were you loose or tight? Did you consider the odds when you were faced with a decision to fold?

Most studies on gambling reveal that the average player overvalues their own hand and undervalues the hands of their opponents.

As you play your game of solitaire poker against the virtual players, see if you can guess how each player is playing it and whether they have a good hand, a so-so hand or a poor hand.

If you play with an eye toward the behavior or the other players and keep the odds in mind, you will win more games.

Try to guess the hole (pocket) cards of the other players based on their playing behavior.

Then try playing in free online casinos to see if you can sharpen these skills. Take notes and write down what you are thinking and doing at each decision point and analyze your behavior to improve your style and strategy for real games.

When you become a student of human behavior at the poker table, you will take the lessons you have learned about odds and sharpen your game more by learning to read visual, verbal and other cues.

But what happens when you can’t SEE the people with whom you are playing? How do you read behavior when you are not in the same room with the other players?

How long does it take for player to respond to a bet or raise?

Does the player seem uncertain or does she/he play crisply and decisively

Does the player seem to change strategy or his/her approach often?

Does the player always raise in a certain situation?

Does the player seem to use the same pattern on every hand regardless of what the odds might tell them to do?

For example, do they always raise and then stay, then raise and then stay and ultimately chicken out and fold? Or do they perhaps play with abandon, never seeming to consider the odds?

To get some practice thinking about moves in a particular situation, consider these scenarios:

What if the player is betting very aggressively in spite of the fact that the flop was pretty bad? Perhaps they are trying to keep things moving in hopes of bluffing their way out of a bad position.

But what if there was a re-raise? Would they change their behavior or fold? What do you think?

Everyone folds on the turn with a big pot at stake, because an obvious draw was missed. But one person stays in. Is that person bluffing? If so, you could understand why if the pot is big enough.

This is when you have to assess the player’s previous behavior, decide whether they have a good hand or they are bluffing and look at YOUR hand to determine the odds of you winning in this contest of the wills.

What if it is down to a very small table but you suspect that a player is bluffing. Again, you must look at the history of their play and see if you can figure out what they have by their playing behavior and style.

If the flop doesn’t have any draw and a player bets, they may have a good hand. Do you know this player will enough to figure that out?

What if they bet on the flop and checked on the turn? If there was a draw and it did not hit, that player may just be buying a free card. Try betting back and see what happens.

How about when a player bets on the flop and the turn and checks on the river? Again, they probably just wanted to see the free card. Bet right back at them and see what they do.

If a player gives you advice on their own bet, e.g. “save your money”, the chances are that they are trying to create a smoke screen.

Great players, and players with really strong hands do not feel the need to puff out their chest and scare away the competition. Great players let their hands speak for them! Go ahead and re-raise!

There is so much data available from online casinos and it can tell us much about human behavior and provide us with some general strategies that will work well in many situations.

While these observations may not apply to every person at every table, if you can use them to predict a general flow of play, you will be ahead of the game (especially as a novice).

The idea is to use the guidelines to get you started and then, within the confines of each table and each game, to take notes and make observations like Sherlock Holmes and his trusty sidekick, Watson!

Become your own sleuth and you will find it easier to predict behavior. Not everyone is the same but there are certain common behaviors and reactions that will make your life easier if you understand and use the guidelines.

When playing against a loose table, aggressive play is usually a winning strategy. If everyone at the table is playing loose, no one will win. Players will swat pots while the casino rakes in the cash.

Betting pre-flop on every hand allows you to come away with a medium-sized stash.

However, if you bet on every hand, eventually, the other players may catch on, so if that strategy starts to flag, don’t be afraid to change.

If you are at a large table, with a lot of fish, they are not likely to figure out your strategy.

On the other hand, pre-flop RAISING is probably not a good idea. It will reduce your profit and it will get more and more expensive to see the board as the game progresses. That gets very expensive when the flop doesn’t hit and you have to fold.

With three or fewer players at a table, you can also make some money by being aggressive. If there are four players or more, you’ll want to back off on that strategy or you will lose a lot of money.

Hands with strong odds can double in power, even if they are not huge hands. If you can get the table down to a few players, you can increase the power of your hand.

Watch the stacks of other players. Tight players tend to lose chips in small increments, and will seesaw between moderate and larger stacks.

If you are playing against a lot of tight players, you can bluff all night and you won’t get far. Watch the stacks to get important information about the player’s style and use that information to your benefit.

Loose players will swing a lot farther in both directions. You don’t want to get caught in the cross-fire.

You can read players on your right a lot more easily, and it is great if you end up with an animal or a maniac on your right because you can let them do the work for you by eliminating players with so-so or draw hands.

Loose players are either novices (fish) or they just play to have a good time and don’t really know the game. They will take chances and wander all over the place so it is usually pretty easy to tell that they have NO strategy or knowledge. They bet more and build the pots for the better players.

If you sit down at a table with ten players and half of these players are better than you are, you are bound to lose.

In the beginning, a loose table is a great way for you to learn and win a little at the same time.

Find a loose table by observing the play for 10-15 minutes at a minimum – 30 minutes is even better. Take notes and find the loose players.

Assess your odds of being able to play with the people at this table and be sure there are loose players you can beat as you begin your learning journey.

Try to play at tables where most of the players have less experience and ranking. It is easier for you to learn and make a profit on their mistakes and lack of knowledge.

If you think you are facing a tight player, know that they are more likely to call a bet than to re-raise, even though they may have a strong hand.

You may be able to scare them into thinking you have a great hand and buy free cards even if they have the positional advantage.

A tight game, where few players are calling before the flop, and fewer are staying in until the final showdown can really reduce your profit.

Some players prefer a tight/passive game because these players are pretty predictable and you can probably steal more pots by making others folds.

When you are playing at a tight table, you should understand that the casino will win if EVERYONE PLAYS it tight. Players will lose less, but no one will really win.

The more seasoned players will therefore tell you that if you want to win more money you should play tight in loose games and ONLY play in loose games if you want to win more money.

The play will tend to get tighter as players drop out. If the game gets too tight, find a better table.

Distracted players are an interesting breed. They play more than one table at a time, read email, watch TV and talk to others in the room.

Remember that online play allows the player to sit at a computer and do other things while they are playing poker.

While any player may lag at a particular time because they are calculating odds or handling a temporary distraction, the inattentive player is especially annoying because they slow down the play and because they just don’t seem all that invested in the game.

You can take advantage of this if you assume that the player is not paying full attention and thus is probably not that familiar with the other player styles and what is happening in the game in general.

Play a straight ahead game without worrying about whether this player can read you. You can probably gain some advantage later in the game because of the player’s inattention.

When you log on to an online site, you should choose your table by spending time looking at tables and players and assessing the best location for you and your skills.

Use a simple numerical system to assess each player and the overall strength or weakness of the table:

Assign a one (1) to the tightest players – those who win consistently and resist bluffing from others, those who make good decisions and are willing to fold when it makes sense to do so.

Assign a ten (10) to those who are loose players. These players may be novices or perhaps they just don’t care enough to learn the rules. They bet inconsistently and illogically, raise for no apparent reason and seem to love bluffing.

At the showdown, these players often reveal a hand that should have been folded early in the game.

Use the numbers in between (2-9) to rank players with degrees of loose or tight behavior.

Then average out the table to see whether this table and the players at the table will allow you to win. If the average is 6-10, DO NOT play at that table.

Anything less than an average of five will be a good table for you to play. The lower the average, the better!

Once you choose a table, try to position yourself in a late position from the two best players.

There are other tools you can use to get a jump on player behavior and they are featured in most online poker rooms. These tools allow you to see:

How many players are seeing the flop.

Those players who fold a lot on the first two cards are the tighter players.

Players who NEVER or almost never fold on the first two cards, even when it costs them money, are the loose players.

When picking a loose/passive game, choose a table with a fairly high flop percentage and a good pot size.

There is no doubt that it will take time and experience to know what type of table and mix of behaviors will be best for you.

Until you improve your knowledge and skills and get better at reading the odds and the players’ behavior and style, you can stick with a loose/passive table to ensure that you will make SOME money.

Another behavior that often plagues Texas Hold ‘Em online poker players is the “stick to it” philosophy. “I lost money here, I need to win it back”.

If a table is not working out for you and you are suffering with players who are too tight or too experienced, GET UP AND MOVE TO ANOTHER TABLE! Let the other fish in the pond stay on to be eaten alive again and again!

What about the ‘behavior’ and flow of a table? Do numbers count in the game?

Ten Players - Since most online tables seat ten players you will have to play a tighter game and consider your position at the table. Call before the flop with good cards or a good drawing hand.

Remember that you will have more competition so you’ll have to showdown more hands.

Six Players – You can play it looser here and you will see wider wings and variances, so you’ll have to watch your stack.

Three or Less Players – At short-handed tables, you are likely to see the flop more often and have more chance of winning the pot.

It is important that you understand raising behavior. Most new players start out playing in low-limit, loose games.

Some experienced players love to take advantage of the fish and they prefer the loose/passive play at the low-limit tables, but others may have trouble playing against players with consistently bad hands and poor playing skills.

A fish may not know enough to fold when a more experienced player raises against them.

Fish can sometimes win by “sucking out” with an poor hand against a really solid hand like a pair of aces.

BUT, if you raise before the flop and keep betting after the flop, all but the fastest and loosest maniacs will fold because your betting will be too aggressive.

If you are playing aggressively to discourage those maniac fish who don’t know enough to quit when they have a bad hand, you will drive out enough players at the table to increase your odds of winning with a moderately good hand.

The one cautionary note here is to be sure that you keep the odds and rules in mind. Don’t become a maniac yourself by betting and raising on a terrible hand.

If you have a good hand, and you feel you have a handle on those fish and know that they are bluffing or just out of control, go ahead and raise to get rid of them. Most of them will eventually panic in the face of those aggressive raises and they will fold.

Statistics show that bad players will raise with a draw, an over-card or a so-so pair.

If you call the bet and you are prepared to call to the river, you should be OK as long as the board (community cards) doesn’t get too crazy.

Use your head and calculate the pot odds to see if you are justified in continuing to bet.

If your opponent raises to three bets, you should reconsider your strategy. An average low-limit player will not raise at this point unless he/she has a good hand.

Study the board and try to figure out what your opponent may have in his/her hand.

It is wise to avoid the re-raise unless you have “the nuts”. You can call to the river without the “absolute nuts” but you should be careful to consider your moves.