As for your question, I think it's a very difficult one to answer. Maybe I'm just not good enough to be able to answer it, but I don't think you can read people using a set of rules...
"Oh, he made this bet in this position preflop and now did this after a flop of this this and this with two of this suit - Well, then, he must have this."
I think reading people comes from experience. Different players play differently in different situations.
I think the idea here is that as a hand progresses, a story is being told, and your job is to work with the data you have and figure it out all. You should put your opponent on a range of hands, and as you gather more information (past experience/betting patterns, each bet/check he makes during the hand, each card on the board, etc), you should be able to narrow down that range. Too many players try to come up with an exact hand when reading their opponent, and there are times when you can, but I think it's better to come up with a small group of possible hands your opponent could be holding and then assign %s of likelihood to each of them. Once you have and process all this information, you should be able to decide what the correct play for you to make is.
|