In a follow up to my last article, Reading Your Opponents, I’d like to talk about reading opponents who have a better than average read on you.

I have a weekly home poker game, as most of you know. It started off with rather unskilled players (myself included) and has since developed into a game of highly skilled players who are always working on improving their game. The table is getting harder each week.

A situation came up this week, that I thought was interesting and exemplifies a point I brought up in a previous post a few months ago, Playing Your Gut.

It was in the third round of the tournament game. The blinds were $20/$40. I had about $800 and was in the SB with A 8. Everyone, including the button, folds to me. With only one person to act behind me (my girlfriend at that), I decided that perhaps I should just try to take the pot right there. I raise 3x the BB, making it a $120 total to go.

Now, my girlfriend is a very good hyper-aggressive player in her own right who kindly listens to me ramble about poker on an almost daily basis. There probably isn’t anyone in the world who knows how I play better. She’s just watched everyone fold to me and for to make a basically textbook play of raising out of the SB, so she calls.

The flop comes A Q 6.

Okay. Not too bad for my hand. I’ve got top pair with a lousy kicker, but she probably would have raised had she had an Ace. Again, I play it by the book and make a standard continuation bet of another $120.

The BB calls.

So… she caught a piece of that. Now I put on my thinking cap. What could she call with? I put her on a Queen… maybe QJs or even KQs. I think she would have probably raised preflop with any Ace and definitely AQ, so it’s not that.

The turn comes 7.

Now, as much as she knows my play style, I know hers. She aggressive with mediocre hands when she senses weakness, so I check with that thought that if she bets, I’m probably coming over the top.

Course, she knows me too well. She checks.

The river now comes up as an 5.

I check again… that check on the turn worried me worse than her betting. A check is something I could expect if she had two pair or a set and trying to trap. My hand hadn’t improved. Hopefully she’s just check it down and we’d flip our cards over.

Course, like I said, she knows me too well. She goes all-in and smiles coyly.

I only had her covered by about $40 so this sent me to the tank. I know she knows how I play and she knows that I know she knows, etc etc… it’s was like a loop in my head. What could she have!?

The dealer called timed and gave me a minute left to act, so I went back to the only thing I thought I could rely on her was all the actions before the river:

• She just called my pre-flop raise
• She only called my continuation bet
• She checked the turn

Out of all the possible hands she could be playing, it kept adding up to me that she had a pair of Queens and she thought I had an Ace.

At the 10 second mark, I finally call and watch the smile fade from my girlfriend’s beautiful face. She had Q9 (yes, another Q9 story! LOL)

Later, she said that I often over analyze a situation and that with just top pair, I was very likely to talk myself out of calling her. But, I knew she knew that. So, in the end, I went with my gut (something that she advised that I do more often, BTW). On the flop, I thought she had a Queen. My gut was screaming Queen by the way she played the hand until the river. I knew the way she played and I knew she played that way because she knew the way I played, which made me fearful of trap, but allowed me to narrow down her hand range correctly in the end.

Bookmark to: