Exclusion and Ranging in Reading Poker Hands

Reading the hands of other players in poker is one of the popular topics. But few players understand this as involving the processes of using ranges and exclusion.

Reading poker hands is not putting other players' hands in a box and giving them a name there. Let's say, we see this player and guess that the player's hand is a KK and we put him in a box in our mind labeled "KK." It's a bit more complicated than that.

We actually place an opponent on possible hand ranges. The player probably holds an AA, KK, QQ, or perhaps AQ, or AK. Those are the hand ranges. Based on how the opponent plays and bets, we lay out possible hand labels for the player.

Then we observe the player's play closely. As we gather more information on this player, we gradually eliminate other factors not compatible with how this player plays and soon we narrow down the field.

This is the process of elimination or exclusion. For instance, we see that this player is not very aggressive and just calls or checks pre-flop. The player must have a lower hand. So, all the AA, KK, QQ, JJ and other high pairs are excluded and we begin to think of lower hands, or probably connectors.

As the game progresses we get more information on the player until many factors have been eliminated except a few data. Then finally we have pin-pointed the range the player falls into: a 2-10. That's when we start to play really aggressively, with consideration to how a 2-10 should be played against safely. Hence, a systematic reading of poker hands is done this way. Assign possible ranges and eliminate hand groups as the play progresses.

Another thing to consider here is how easy a player can come up with a hand. If the player seems to hold AA or AK, then we look at AK more because this hand can be formed in 16 different ways, while AA can be formed only in 12 different ways. So, combining the ranges, exclusion, and combination probabilities, we get a safe reading of the kind of hand an opponent has.

Hopefully, armed with this sizing up tool for reading hands, we can have a good idea of what hand an opponent is holding within the pre-flop play. Accordingly, average players are able to decide what to do within 5 seconds after a move takes place. Hence, analyses is a a must in reading poker hands.

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