When you’re trying to read an opponent’s hand on the river, it is of paramount importance to consider his play throughout the entire hand. I often see players misinterpreting their opponent’s river action when in fact, if they were to reconstruct the hand from the beginning, the correct play would be relatively simple. The following hand – in which I raise my opponent’s river bet and make him lay down the best hand – illustrates this principle. If you were to look at the river action in isolation, my bluff would appear to be somewhat reckless, and at best lucky to have worked. However, if you consider my opponent’s river bet as part of his play on all streets, my bluff could almost be considered obvious.
The game was six-max no-limit hold’em with blinds of $25/$50. It folded to me in the cutoff and I raised to $150 with pocket Threes. My opponent called from the small blind and everyone else folded. The flop came down Q-Q-6 rainbow. My opponent checked to me and I bet out $275 into the pot of $350. My opponent called.
Reading the action
At this point, I could put my opponent on any pocket pair from J-J down to 2-2 (this player almost certainly would have re-raised me before the flop with Queens or above), a hand like 7-6 or 6-5 suited, or a monster like any Queen or 6-6. Note that the board was completely dry, so it was not possible to put him on any draw and this opponent was not the type I thought would ever float a flop with nothing, especially out of position.
The turn card was an Ace, completing the rainbow. My opponent checked to me again. Almost certainly holding the worst hand here, I would sometimes bet here to represent an Ace that had made a continuation bet on a missed flop but had now hit the turn. However, my opponent was a strong player, and he was aware that I might use the Ace to bluff. He also knew that if I really did have an Ace I would likely check back on the turn to play for pot control, since he had called my flop bet on the paired board, as I could always call a river bet or bet if checked to on the river. Therefore, I did not think it was likely that I could move him off his hand with a bet, so I just checked back.
The river card appeared at first to be an awful card. It was another Ace, making a final board of A-A-Q-Q-6, which totally invalidated my hand, and I was now in fact playing the board. At this point, my opponent led into me for $700 into the pot of $900. Now here is where the reconstruction of the hand is so important (and indeed won me this pot).
If you want to discover how I won the hand, read the second part of the series, ‘Hand-reading (part 2): The answer’.
Read Part 2...
Niman 'samoleus' Kenkre is a highly succesful online poker player and part of the Bluefire poker team - you can use your PKR Points to subscribe to this hugely popular poker training site.