Hand Reading

It sometimes amazes me how bad the common player is at these stakes at hand reading opponents. This hand happened last Saturday night against a pretty loose aggressive, maybe slightly losing Romanian player named Gabriel.

It was your normal Saturday night 1-2 game, the entire table was EXTREMELY loose-passive. This particular hand is limped around 5-6 ways and I complete from the sb with Qs10s from the 9 seat. Not a particularly good hand to be completing with from the sb, as I look to be dominated a good majority of the time. But I really like playing suited connecting cards in spots like this for the stacking potential, and I'm pretty confident that I can outplay this group post flop. I had about $450 in front of me.

$12 in the pot

Flop:

Qc 8c 10d

That's a pretty good flop for me, the board is extremely wet though with both flush and straight draws. I lead out for $15 into the pot. At $1-2 overbets of this size go pretty un-noticed by the field. If they have a hand such as KJ, 97, AQ, KQ or any flush draw they aren't folding to that, which is exactly the behavior I'm looking for. It's spots like this that make $1-2 live so much easier to play then online poker, where the villians are a little more savvy.

Mike(with $~150 behind), an older guy from the 10 seat calls, and Gabriel(with about $500 behind) tanks for about 15 seconds and then raises it to $37. The first thing I did was quickly run thru the range of hands he would raise in this spot with. I quickly eliminated an overpair due to the passivity preflop. With the board that wet, I felt that he would've raised more with a set or a flopped straight. That left q10, q8, 810 or a flush draw. I also noticed that Mike(to my left) didn't like Gabriel raise, as he quickly looked down and started fingering out how many remaining chips he had...

It was $22 for me to call. IMO a call in this spot is horrid. If my read was wrong and Gabe had indeed flopped a set or a straight, I wanted him to play his hand face-up immediately. Everything else in his range I was ahead of, plus I didn't want Mike to get a great price on whatever draw he was one. I 3-bet to $95.

Mike then says "I'll gamble" and pushes in $115 all-in. Gabriel then goes in the tank again for 10-15 seconds and just calls, giving me the information I was looking for. He most likely had flopped 2 pair as well. The action came back to me having to call an additional $20 and at this point I did something that I rarely do, but I think is shows alot of strength when I do it. With only $20 to call, I knew the action was closed, but I looked at the dealer and said "All in". The look on Gabe's face was instant disappointment. The dealer informed me that I couldn't move all-in, I could only call. I grumbled disgustingly and called.

Turn:

8s

The board pairing on the turn didn't alarm me at all as I knew no one would play a set in this manner. I insta-shoved all-in for another $180 and Gabe went into the tank again. After a good minute he folded and I tabled my top two-pair. Mike showed 10c 2c for a flush draw and middle pair. He bricked and I scooped a decent sized pot. Gabe reached into the muck and showed Q10 as well and looked at me and said "nice play".

This got me thinking about hand reading. Did Gabe put me on a hand? What was it? How could he not call my shove with his hand?

With my action, the ONLY hand I could have is the exact same hand he did. If I had flopped a straight, I wouldn't have insta-shoved when the board paired. I flopped a set and turned a full house I wouldn't have insta-shoved either! I wanted to ask him what he thought I had, but that's just bad etiquette so I didn't say anything. I did however get up from the table and walk around for a bit, replaying the hand in my mind from his point of few and trying to figure out how he could possibly lay that down.

I came to the conclusion that hand reading just isn't a skill that's valued at this level. Level 1 thinking is what most play with and anything beyond that is only used when villians hold over pairs and are scared of flopped sets.

Very interesting...