Low Stackes Cash Game
Analyzing Texas Holdem Poker Hands
STEP 1. Put your opponent on a preflop range
Whenever you want to analyze any poker hand, you should start by analyzing preflop action first. You have to take into consideration your opponent’s position because it is a good indication of possible holdings. A player who opens from the first position (called UTG –under the gun) is not going to have hands like Q3s or 85s while someone who is opening from the button can easily have it. Thus, it is pretty clear that you have to play differently against such players and identifying which poker hands they could have is the first step.
Players from later position will be playing more weak poker hands and much wider ranges, so you have to remember it.
However, knowing the position is not enough. You need to determine are you up against a passive or aggressive player as well. If you are playing against a nit, he could be opening only the best poker hands, like just 15% of all holdings from the CO position while the more aggressive player could be playing 35% or even more and as you can see in these poker hands chars, the difference is massive.
As a result, the one opening 35% will have weaker holdings in his range, and you should be willing to play more hands against such an opponent as well.
However, you should not forget to remove some of the unlikely poker hands from his range, based on a different action. If you open UTG and everyone folds to Big Blind who decides to 3-bet, you will not see many weak hands in his range.
For the most part, a player who is in the position to close the action in the big blind and is guaranteed to see the flop if he calls, will be simply calling with most weak and speculative poker hands.
Therefore, if he chooses to 3-bet he will be doing it with the top part of his range. PokerSnowie suggests such a range in the 6-max game from BB versus UTG open.
STEP 2. Reduce his likely holdings based on the flop action
You must learn how to reduce the likelihood of your opponent holding one hand or another after he makes an action on the flop. Obviously, to get more accurate you have to put a decent amount of practice on and off the table.
Probably the best way to learn this is to study the theoretically right approach to any given situation so that you would know what hands your opponent should be betting or checking and make your decision based on that.
There are many poker tools and software that can help you with this, but the easiest one to start off is probably Poker Snowie because it has a clear and user-friendly interface so you will instantly know how to use it.
After you study strategy and learn when your opponents should be betting or checking, you will be able to easily remove unlikely poker hands from his range based on his action.
STEP 3. Take into consideration bet sizing and poker stats of your opponent
Bet sizing can give you a lot of additional information, so you should take notice of your opponent tendencies.
For example, recreational players will rarely bet small for value and most of the time will go for a big bet, so you can easily exploit that.
Obviously, that is just a general rule and it will vary a lot based on your opponent. Thus, in order to make the best adjustments, you should observe other players to see how they play different poker hands on different boards. Try to remember what action they take after seeing a showdown, even the one where you are not involved. You can easily use that info later on because players rarely change their tendencies. Therefore, you have to notice those tendencies whether you are playing live or online.
If you are playing live, you have to observe other players and whole table dynamics to get as much information as possible and that is probably the only way to be aware of different opponents at your poker table.
However, that changes a lot when you are playing online because you can get a ton of information from different players and adjust your strategies versus different players.
When you know the approximate range of your opponent, you can make decisions that are more educated postflop and choose your action based on the board texture.
Let us take a quick example. If your opponents open 15% of hands from the CO, he is going to have a good draw, middle pair or better around 57% of the time on QT7r. However, if he is opening around 35%, he will only hit those hands 35% of the time on the same board so his range will be much weaker.
You can counter that by bluff catching or even bluffing yourself, and there is no way you could know that without using poker tools to learn.
STEP 4. Reduce unlikely poker hands from his range based on Turn and River cards
Just like on the flop, you can easily make educated guesses of your opponents range based on his action on later streets and community card that came. Most players will have tendencies that are easy to guess and play most of their poker hands without adjusting to the situation.
Meaning, if they are checking the second pair without a kicker on the turn one time, they are likely to be doing that almost always in similar situations. Therefore, after seeing it once, you will be able to remove these hands from his range when he makes a bet in a similar spot later on.
This can be applied in many situations, and you do not need to see how every opponent plays poker hands that he is dealt, because you can judge a lot from population tendencies and many players will be doing the same thing over and over again.
Obviously, you need to learn what is the right strategy in most common situations as well to see how other players are deviating from that and it will become a very big weapon. You will notice when other players will start making mistakes and can easily exploit that.
These are the most important things to take into consideration when analyzing Texas Holdem poker hands, and if you will be able to put your opponent on an accurate range, the half job is done already. Just remember:
Put your opponent on a range based on his position and stats or your observation of his strategy
Identify if the flop is better for you or your opponent
Make decisions and play based on these facts and against his whole range. Not just one hand you think he could have.