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Poker Hand reading begins before the flop and there are a number of factors you can use to base your decision-making on. If you are observant of the other players at your poker table then after a number of hands you will start to get a feel for how they play and whether you should regard them as a tight or a loose player.

If you start out playing small stakes games, as most poker players do, you’ll likely see a lot of erratic play that is not consistent with what you are learning about good poker strategy. This is because you are playing with a lot of inexperienced players, and also some for whom the money at stake is not significant enough to induce them to put effort into playing well.

Such erratic behavior often leads to the mistaken belief that these players could have anything, and that there is therefore no sense in trying to read their hands or make plays based on judgments about what they may hold. However, throwing up your hands in frustration will mean a quick dead-end to your poker career. Instead, you should take a deep breath and realize that information is everywhere — you just have to know what to look for and what to do with it when you find it.

In this two-part article I will address hand reading specifically and make some suggestions about how you can glean information even from the seemingly erratic and random behavior of your least sophisticated opponents.

A Couple of Misconceptions

I want to begin by addressing two common misconceptions. The first is one at which I’ve already hinted. The fact is, your opponents are not truly random with their play, and it’s not true that they could have “anything.”

Their reasons may not be your reasons and their reasons may not be good reasons, but unless they are literally throwing a die to determine their actions or going all in blind every hand then there is some method to their madness. There are some hands they’ll fold, and there are some hands they’ll never fold. Your goal is to find that method, or at least deduce enough about it to figure how to exploit it. More on that in a moment.

The second misconception has to do with the term “hand reading,” which is really a misnomer. You may have seen Daniel Negreanu on television naming the exact suits of the cards in his opponent’s hand, but that’s not your real goal.

What you should be aiming for might better be called “range reading.” Your goal is not to figure out which exact two cards your opponent holds — this is usually impossible even for the best hand readers — but rather to get a sense of the entire set of hands he would play in the way that he’s played so far. In other words, it’s not about “What exactly does he have?” Rather, it’s about “What are all the things he could have?” and — more to the point — “What should I do to get the best average result against all of those possibilities?”

Once you learn to frame questions regarding what your opponents might have like this, a little bit of information can go a long way. Let’s look at an example.

Hand Reading in Practice

Suppose that you raise with in early position, and several very loose players call you. We’ll stop right there — what can you say about their ranges?

This is a situation that often leads to frustration and complaints about bad play. When your opponents play half of the cards they’re dealt, how can you ever figure out what they have? You can’t, at least not with any precision. But you can probably say a couple of important things about what they don’t have.

For example, most players will reraise with or better, so the fact that no one reraised means you probably aren’t up against those hands. That eliminates some significant threats for you after the flop. Perhaps you can also say that although these players will play any remotely suited or connected hand, they won’t call with unsuited garbage like . After all, players who will call with half their hands still fold the other half, and what could that folding range look like if not unsuited, unconnected junk hands?

With nothing more than those tidbits of information, you see the flop, and it’s a great-looking , giving you top pair, top kicker. But still, with four or five loose players seeing the flop along with you, isn’t there a danger that someone has outflopped you? Yes, but the situation isn’t as grave as it seems.

Let’s return to the little bit of hand reading we were able to do preflop. Remember: we still have no idea what your opponents have, we just have a rough idea of what they don’t have. You don’t have to worry about overpairs, because we think or would have reraised. Likewise with , not to mention that there are only two queens left in the deck.

You also don’t have to worry too much about an odd two-pair hand. Even if your loose opponents will play any two suited cards, they’d be hard-pressed to make two pair here. You hold the , and the and are on the board, so to have top two pair someone would have to have exactly . They could also have or or .

Sets are a slightly bigger worry, even though we’ve discounted . Your opponents are surely calling with and preflop, of which there are six combinations each given the cards on the board.

All in all, then, there are 16 combinations of hands that could realistically be ahead of you right now, compared to hundreds of combinations with which your loose opponents would see the flop. Perhaps you can see now that flopping two pair is like finding a needle in a haystack!

Importantly, though, we’re less interested in whether you’re ahead now than in whether you will be ahead if more money goes into the pot. So we need to think not just about ranges for seeing the flop but about ranges for putting a lot more money into the pot on the flop. That will be the subject of the second part of this article.

Be sure to check out Andrew and Nate Meyvis on the Thinking Poker podcast, and for strategy articles, reviews, and more from Andrew, check out the rest of The Thinking Poker website.

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Poker hands rankings are depending on the likelihood that you will get them.

As for identical poker hands, they rank depending on the player who has the highest values.

The player with the stronger hand decides which hand ranks better.

You can remember important poker hands through mnemonic.

It is a popular memory device used for poker games.

However, you should not just rely on a memory device to work your way through poker hands.

It is best you understand the basic principles to know your best move.

You cannot have a memory device giving you hints while playing on the table.

Here are some important tips to learn to understand poker hands better and increase your win rate.

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Lower Ranking Poker Hands

Take note that the 0, 1, 2 and 3 comprise the lowest poker hands.

Be careful when having these types of cards in your hand.

Remember that 0 is a high card. When you got 0 pairs, then the rank or value of your hand will rely on your highest card.

Your highest card determines the value or rank of your entire hand.

Do not forget that ace ranks the highest while 2 ranks the lowest.

Understand the following:

• One pair – this means you get two cards with similar value but with different suits. An example would be two of hearts and two of clubs.
• Two Pairs – this means you get two cards with similar value but under different suits. An example would be two of hearts with two of clubs and three of diamonds with three of spades.
• Three of a Kind – this means you get three cards with similar value but with different suits. An example would be four of diamonds with four of spades and four of clubs.

Separate Hands According to Straight

A straight hand can be categorized in between poker hand rankings.

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It is not that high or low in the ranking.

As the name implies, you get a straight if you have five cards in any suit with consecutive values.

For instance, your straight hand may feature cards 2, 3, 4, 5, including 6. So long as you have them in order, the suit does not matter.

You have a straight.

You can also create a straight hand with a queen, jack, king, ace and 10 from any of the suits.

Understand the Highest-Ranking Poker Hands

Memorize the cards creating the highest-ranking poker hands.

You can better memorize if you count the numbers of letters of the hand’s name.

Take note of the following:

• 5: Flush – this means you get five cards under the same suit and of any value. For instance, you can form a flush with any of the cards under the suit of diamonds. Whether it would be 9, 7, 6, 2 and jack.
• 9: Full House – this means you have three of a kind and a one pair
• 11: Four of a Kind – this comes with four cards with a similar value under the four suits. For example, 8 of hearts, 8 of diamonds, 8 of spades and 8 of clubs.
• 13: Straight Flush – this comes with five cards under the same suit and in consecutive values. For instance, you can form a straight flush with 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 of spades.
• 18: Royal Straight Flush – you can form a royal straight flush using an ace for the high card including 10, jack, queen, king and ace of spades. This hand is unbeatable.

High Card

Given a hand cannot be considered in any category then the card with the highest value will decide its rank.

For instance, if the set of cards got the Queen as the highest, then the hand ranks in relation to the queen.

If another player has a similar card then you get the second highest, if not then the third, fourth or even fifth will be considered.

This may be confusing at first, but you will get the hang of it once exposed to some high card situations.

Community Cards

As mentioned in the previous sections, a poker hand consists of five cards.

Depending on their variations, you can reach a certain position or advantage over other players on the table.

The five cards will come from what you have been dealt with or what you have chosen.

For instance, under Texas Hold’em, every player will get two private cards.

However, they can also choose from five community cards.

All players are given the same access. To an extent, all players get equal opportunities at creating a strong hand.

All in all, you can work with seven cards, but you can only choose the five best cards to proceed with the game.

If you are new to poker, then you have to read through the list again.

You cannot get a good grasp of all the rankings unless you go through the list repeatedly.

It also helps to do practice games so you will become familiarized with the hands naturally and slowly. Nothing beats knowing the hands or card arrangements by heart.

You need to study the type of poker game you are playing.

Some poker games assign different values to hands.

On others, it might be different which hands decide the winner.

You will understand the real value or strength of the cards as you play along. If possible, play as many variations as you can.

final word

This can help you master how to create and manipulate cards whenever you can.

There are also many cheat sheets or PDF listings you can access to download hand rankings and images.

It can be helpful to memorize the hands if you can see pictures attributed to the rankings.

Some people are visual creatures.

They learn better from what they see. It may do the trick for you.

Go through your chart constantly.

These are just some of the ways you can improve your poker game.

Take some time to master them before taking other lessons.