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QUICK INDICATORS
To do well at poker you need to be able to accurately assess your opponent’s play. The first step in this task is usually to gather some evidence concerning their general level of expertise. Naturally, it behooves you to be above to do this quickly. The ability to do this actually comes with minimal effort as you develop enough knowledge of poker to recognize opponents’ mistakes.
But to help you on your way, I’ll outline some tip-offs in holdem that better players look for as indicators of an unfamiliar opponent’s general level of skill. This should provide not only a look into one small area of the thinking of a skilled player as he plays, but also some items you can begin to monitor in your own game to see how you measure up.
If you see in your own play any of the tip-offs of the “unschooled” player, it may suggest that your game needs some work. With one exception, the indicators I provide are elements of play. There are of course more superficial indicators to be noted in a player’s appearance and behavior, but those are of relatively little value since you will know whether or not to discount them after the first few minutes of play.
One hallmark of the “unschooled” player is the tendency to call raises cold more often than the best players do. In general, you need a very good hand to play against a cold raise – a better hand, in fact, than you need to raise with. Under typical circumstances these hands are usually good enough to reraise with. And in fact, this is just how better players most often play them. Now, there are certain hands with which it more often does make sense just to call a raise. There are also situations in which you should just call with the usual reraising hands. But watch a number of expert players and look at what they do when they decide to poker play a hand against a raise. Most of the time you’ll see them reraise. Moreover, when they observe a player who more often calls raises cold it’s a serious tip-off to them that he will likely be weak or mediocre in his play.
I will point out that there are little pockets of theory, subscribed to by knowledgeable players, which advocate just calling raises more often than this. But you will run into these players fairly rarely. They are exceptions. So rather than debate the merits of such an approach, I simply want to point out that, statistically speaking, this aspect of play can be the basis for a good initial guess as to how well a new opponent is likely to play. Note too that if you actually get the chance to see a preflop cold callers’s cards, you’ll have even clearer information. If you see that he’s calling raises cold with hands he should reraise with, that’s bad enough. But if he’s calling with hands like
Or
that’s another (very large) step down the ladder in his apparent understanding of the game.
A skilled holdem player will play far more tightly early than he does in later positions. On the other hand, many weaker players play as if oblivious to position. They’ll play a as easily under the gun as they will on the button because “It’s two big cards for heavens sake!” Pay particular attention to what he shows down from early positions. There are really only a small number of hands that are profitable from these spots, so it stands out clearly when you see a player repeatedly show down hands that no one is good enough to profit from in an early position. Be aware, though, that a good player may occasionally play a seemingly goofy hand early just to add mix to his play and induce incorrect reads on the part of his opponents.
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