Making Reads and Winning more at Poker!

Posted on December 4, 2015December 10, 2015 by Admin

Most popular poker player types you’ll face! Making Reads at Poker:

PRE-FLOP REG	ONE AND DONE	BARRELING
3 FOR FREE	WAY TOO EARLY	STICKY FISH
YUMMY FISH	NUTBALL	NIT’S GRANDMA

Winning poker is all about making good quick reads. Especially if you’re on a poker site like bovada poker, where you will have limited data on your opponents. That’s why it’s critical to know what kind of opponent you’re facing and how to make the proper adjustments.

List of Abbreviations (Brief Overview)

ATC (Play any two cards) – Whenever a hand goes to showdown it’s always good to note what hands your opponent was playing and from which position. This always provides a lot of insight into how they think about the game. When you see someone play 95o from middle position, you can label them as ATC. The more you see this from them, the more solid your read will be.
FC (Flush Chaser) – A lot of opponents love to chase flushes. When you see someone calling large flop and turn bets with an obvious flush draw, but they fold to a small river bet, you can be pretty sure they were chasing their flush. Also if you see an opponent calling large bets and then connecting with his flush, you’ll want to note this. It’s also important to note whether they CHECKED their flush on the end or bet it.
SOOT (Likes to play any two suited cards) – This is similar to FC except there are some players who also like to play any two suited cards from nearly anywhere. You’ll see opponents play K4s from early position, or J6s from middle position, you can be pretty sure they’re a suited player. This is good to know if there’s a flush draw on board and you have a marginal hand, but they’re still calling large bets. It’s also good to note if they call raises with these hands too. Some people will call large raises with Q8s thinking that they will bust you if they hit their flush. We love to play against these types of opponents.
AK (Will bet turn unimproved) – Nearly all people will bet the flop with any two cards if they raised before the flop. Not everyone however will bet the turn unimproved. This is very good to know if you’re holding a marginal hand and your opponent is still firing. This read will be a bit harder to make because you definitely need to see a few showdowns to confirm this for sure.
CRW (Calls raises with weak hands) – This opponent will call large raises, for example, with QT out of position, or perhaps even a re-raise with KJ or some other dominated hands. They could also call a large raise with A4o or even a more speculative hand like J8o.
LAF (Will lead into pre-flop raiserand fold to a raise) – Some opponents will call raises out of position with the intention of betting the flop to steal the pot. Some opponents will do this with small pocket pairs, and some will do it with air. If you get a chance to make the distinction between the two, it will be very helpful with your flop play. However, when you see someone do this, then you’ll want to make some generous raises on the flop when you don’t have a hand.
SVB (Slim value bettor) – You’ll see these guys often betting middle or weak top pair on scary boards for value. Really important to note bet sizing in these spots because a lot of these guys will have betting tells in these situations, such as betting marginally weak in these spots (especially at micro and small stakes). It’s typically better to raise some of your bluff catchers against these guys instead of call since their bet / calling range generally isn’t very good unless they are extremely good hand readers and have a good read on you as well.
Ax (Will play an ace from anywhere) – A lot of opponents fall in love with the ace. If you see someone playing A3 from early position or A8 to a raise, or a hand like A9 out of position to a raise, then you have an Ax player. This just adds more insight for you as to how your opponent understand the game and you can also get away from your pocket kings if this opponent is sticking around on an ace high flop because they’re not folding their weak ace.
NPR (Will raise a non-premium hand) – Some opponents will raise a non-premium hand from anywhere. The extreme to which they take this will let you know how loose and aggressive they are. It’s a worthy note to take if they are showing up with hands like J7o from early position, Q9s from UTG, or 37s from middle position. Some opponents will just about never do this, some will occasionally, but NPRs will do it anywhere from semi-regularly to regularly.
CBB (Continuation bet bad boards) – Some opponents like to continuation bet no matter what. They raise before the flop, and they want to fire the flop no matter how bad the flop texture is for their hand. I like to take a note of these guys because it will help me to know spots I can float and represent a big made hand on draw heavy flop textures that most missed over cards should be check/ folding on.
LA (Look-up artist) – This is a very profitable opponent to play against. They will typically call nearly any flop bet you make, but will fold to further aggression. They tend to like to see how you’ll react after they call your first bet, but tend to fold a large percentage of the time to a second bet.

Best poker reads – ATC

Posted on December 10, 2015December 10, 2015 by Admin

ATC (Any Two Cards) – Make the best poker reads

Players who literally play any two cards are divided into three types of players and you need to be aware of the differences between these players. The frequency at which you see these variations depends on the stakes you are playing. Typically you will only see ATC 1 & 2 at small and mid stakes.

ATC 1 (No grasp of hand strength) – The first group of players who play any two cards really has no solid grasp of hand strength, position, or why to play certain hands in some situations and not others. These players are typical also called “fish” because they’ll put in too much money with weak hands and pay off against dominated hands. These are players you should like playing with, but you need to be aware that if you miss the flop, they may have hit it and they may also call you down with any piece of it. So you don’t typically want to bluff players in this category unless you see them folding a lot to a second bet (or third). You do however want to value bet your made hands against them as they will nearly always pay off with weaker hands or dominated hands.
ATC 2 (Some grasp of hand strength) – You’ll see a lot of these players primarily in short-handed games, but they do also show up in full ring games. These players will play any two cards, but they typically won’t invest too much into the pot unless they have a good hand after the flop. They’ll commonly call raises with a hand such as K6o on the button (note this is different than CRW – see above) with the intention of either bluffing you out of the pot OR nailing a big hand hoping to bust you with your large pocket pair. These players will be very visible because they’ll be involved in a lot of pots, and they’ll usually be fairly aggressive. If they have some grasp of hand strength, then they are getting involved in a lot of pots for a reason, and that reason is usually because they believe they can bluff you out of the pot, or bust you with their unusual T4o hand. These opponents can be more dangerous, but a lot of times they will still go too far with a top pair hand thinking you’re bluffing (even though you have a better kicker then they do). You want to bet into them when you have a strong hand and hope they don’t believe you and make a move in the wrong spot. Make your bets big and strong against these opponents, because they tend to not believe people betting into them. You really don’t need to slowplay against these opponents.
ATC 3 (Good grasp of hand strength) – These opponents are almost non-existent at small stakes, you will sometimes see them at 50NL/100NL and above at 6-max. This player can legitimately be called a solid LAG (loose-aggressive) player. They play nearly any two cards because they know how to read situations well and win a lot of hands even when they have the worst hand. They can also read well when they have a good second best hand and minimize their losses. Playing this style requires excellent hand reading and making a lot of difficult decisions. For these reasons you’ll typically run into a lot of people that are of the latter two types of ATCs described. Some will be ATCs that have some concept of hand strength that think they are good LAG players, but really they aren’t.

So when taking notes make sure you know what type of ATC you are facing. Make the appropriate additional note. When you are playing against an ATC 1, you know this opponent is just basically “fishy” (bad player). When you are against ATC 2, this player tends to be more on the aggressive side. They are usually in a lot of pots because they are impatient and are “action junkies.” If you happen to be unlucky enough to see an ATC 3, just try and stay out of pots with them unless you have a good hand or until you’ve developed your post flop skill to a high level.

In the above example both you and your opponent started with effective stacks of 100 BBs in a full ring cash game. Everyone folded to you in middle position and you raised 3.5x the BB with AcQc. The action folded to the button who called the raise and the blinds folded.

You look at your notes and you notice that you put down that your opponent was an ATC 2. You don’t have any other notes beyond that and you’ve only played 8 rotations with this opponent. The flop comes: 7c3dTc and you make a ¾ size pot bet with your nut flush draw and two over cards. Your opponent then mini-raises you on the flop and you call the raise. The turn comes the 6c giving you the 2^nd nuts. Do you slow down? No, you should continue to bet this hand aggressively against this type of opponent. It’s very likely that they may try and represent the flush by raising your bet. You don’t however want to bet too aggressively in THIS particular situation. A half size pot bet will invite a possible raise which is what you want. Give your aggressive opponent a little room to hang themselves, but don’t get fancy and check. Just continue to bet into these opponents.

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Best Online Poker Tells – Flush Chaser

Posted on December 10, 2015December 10, 2015 by Admin

FC (Flush Chaser)

A lot of no-limit Texas Holdem players just love to make flushes. There’s something about looking down at J8s that looks so much better than J8o to a lot of opponents at small and mid stakes. We know however that the suited cards only out perform their off suit counterpart by 2% when going to showdown, but our opponents don’t seem to mind, or more accurately, don’t know that.

Now let’s not get confused between the FC player and the SOOT player. The FC player likes to chase his flush, but that doesn’t mean that he’ll play any two suited cards. You may have an initial read of FC, and then later find out that the player is really more of a SOOT, but make sure that you make the distinction because it matters.

Most FC players will still play reasonable cards, but they’ll call large flop bets (pot size or more) with their flush draws, which isn’t terrible on the flop. But they will also typically call large turn bets with their draws, which is bad. It’s bad for them but good for you. When you see a person checking and calling and then check/folding the river to a bet, you can be pretty sure they were chasing and you can make a note of it (and I suggest putting a question mark next to the read meaning it’s not confirmed yet, but you suspect this to be the case).

If you are lucky enough to get to see a showdown and their cards, then also make a note whether they chased with a flush that had likely over card outs, or they chased with just a flush draw that likely had no over cards. An example of this would be if they held 8d9d and the board on the turn read AcTd4d2h. If they are calling large bets on those kinds of boards when they only have as many as 9 outs, then you can put an exclamation on their FC note because they are a definite flush chaser.

SOOT (Likes to play any two suited cards)You’ll run into these opponents a lot at micro and small stakes, but there are some at every buy-in level. These opponents have so fallen in love with the flush that they’ll play any two suited cards, and often from any position. If you happen to see someone showdown a J4s from early position, you can rest assured you’ve found one of these opponents.
If you get involved in a hand with a SOOT, and there are flush draw possibilities, bet the hand hard. Sometimes even over betting the pot (on flop and turn) is appropriate if you have a strong hand. Don’t be afraid of chasing them away, they’ll continue on if they have any hope if hitting their flush. If you have a marginal hand, bet the flop and turn harder than normal, but always make sure not to go too crazy. Just because you’re in a hand with a SOOT and there’s a flush draw doesn’t mean they absolutely have a draw. Make sure to always exercise caution, but look for the tell tale signs of a draw, such as your opponent checking and calling.
When you have position on a SOOT with a good hand and they’ve limped in front of you, make sure you isolation raise them pre-flop with a wider range of hands than normal. You want to make them pay as much as possible for trying to hit their improbable hand (you flop a flush less than .08% of the time). SOOT players are always fairly loose, so you want to maximize your advantage by getting in a nice raise before the flop.
Also if you’re involved in a hand with a SOOT and a flush draw comes in, don’t pay it off. They won’t know that you have this kind of read on them, so they likely won’t be bluffing you. Again, if your opponent is checking and calling and a flush draw completes, and they suddenly bet, or check-raise, you should fold. Same thing if you’re out of position and they’ve been calling your bets and a flush draw completes on the river, it may be best to consider folding unless they bet a very small amount.

In the example both players start with 150 BB effective stacks, a noted SOOT limps into the pot and you pick up AdQh in the CO and raise to 5 BBs. Everyone folds back to the limper who calls the raise. The flop comes as shown: 2c9hQc. The SOOT checks to you and you bet 10 BBs. The SOOT calls and the pot is now 21.5 BBs. The turn comes the 7d. The SOOT again checks and you bet 18 BBs. The SOOT calls and the pot is now 57.5 BBs. The turn now comes the 3c and the SOOT bets 50 BBs. You should fold.
If this were any other kind of player, you may consider calling. Since you know however that this opponent plays a lot of suited cards and he was checking and calling the entire way until the flush hit on the river, you should let it go. It’s very unlikely that he’s aware that you know he plays a lot of suited cards. It’s also unlikely that he checked and called all the way with some weak hand like QJ or worse and now decided to just represent the flush and lead the river. When you make a read, trust it and go with it. You will save yourself money, and also make much more money in the long run.

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