Over Reactions to Reading Poker Opponents

Reading poker opponents is a popular tactic to take advantage whatever it is the opponent is reacting unawares. This is supposed to give away lots of information about the opponent for our benefit. But most reads on opponents' reactions are actually nothing.

When reading poker opponents is based solely on the player's physical reactions, chances are, what we have are nothing but pretended reactions. They're plain scare tactics that mean nothing except to intimidate us. So what if we detect that the opponent is intimidating us? Is that information important? How can it possibly help us get an idea of what the opponent's situation actually is? A player may choose to look intimidating regardless of whether the player is winning or not.

Take this poker tournament for example. One player, a known pro, had a losing hand. But he had to raise the bet of the opponent. The opponent had already a good idea, by the end of the game, that the pro had a very weak hand and that the player's was the winning hand. So before raising, the pro stared at the player for 5 full minutes. The pro was obviously trying to look intimidating, though both of them knew who was going to emerge the winner.

The player didn't pay attention to the pro's stares. The player just waited nonchalantly. The player didn't have to study the behavioral tells or stares of the pro because the player's assessment of the pro's betting patterns has made the player sure of what the pro holds—and even the most intimidating stares won't change that ever.

Still, in another incident at the Mirage, at a $10-$20 table, 4 poker players tried to act pro. Yet, all they did all night was watch each other's physical reactions—breathing pace, restless eyes, twitching in the chair—those sort of things. They never bothered about who called from what position or who raised or re-raised when and in what kind of board cards. They gave long stares at each other no matter if they were in the hand or not. For all we know, they probably didn't know that there ought to be a betting patterns emerging among players that we should watch out for.

A good poker reading rule should be learned in all these: it's the hand and play reads that matter in the hand. And these could be gleaned from betting patterns (85 percent), and some from behavioral patterns (15 percent).