Hand reading is one of the most important skills a poker player can develop. It allows you to put your opponent on a range of hands and gives you a massive advantage in the game. It also enables you to value bet thinner and bluff better, both of which are key factors in winning more pots. Learning how to read tells is one of the best ways to improve your hand reading, but putting a player on a range requires more than just observing their tells. There are a number of different tells that players use to give away information, but some are more reliable than others.
When learning how to read poker hands, it is important to start with an open mind. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that your opponent must be holding either the nuts or a complete airball, but this isn’t always the case. The reality is that there are a lot of hands in between these extremes, and your opponent’s range needs to make sense at every decision point.
The first step to deciphering an opponents range is to look at their past actions and think about what types of hands they could be holding in that particular spot. For example, if a player raises the blind from early position, you can assume that they are likely holding a pair of fives, A-9 offsuit, or A-8 suited.
You can then work out what the range would look like as a visual representation using tools such as PokerEquilab or Flopzilla. This can help you to familiarize yourself with how a range works and how it interacts with certain board textures. Once you have a rough idea of your opponent’s range, it is important to take note of any changes in their action or how they play the hands that they do hold. For example, if an opponent calls your preflop raise with K7s, you should assign this hand as weak in their range moving forward.
It is also important to take note of how a player’s behavior after betting with a strong hand changes. For instance, if they tend to avoid eye contact and look down after betting with a good hand, it is an indication that they may be trying to hide the strength of their hand.
Once you have a feel for how to read a player’s range and their tendencies, it is time to learn some poker tells. While many poker tells are false, some can be very useful in detecting the strength of a player’s hand. One of the most common poker tells is a player’s hands shaking or trembling while they are handling their cards or chips. This is a tell that is often interpreted as weakness, but it can be useful in detecting bluffs as well. It is important to note, however, that a player’s hands will not shake if they are holding a very strong hand.