We’ve talked about betting patterns at various points in this course so far. It’s time to look at it in a bit more detail.

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List of discussions in the Tournament Poker section, which is a part of the Poker Strategy category at Cardschat.com. The Tournament Poker forum has discussion on: Discuss both online and live. Vince also co-authored the fictional poker novel, “The Picasso Flop,” with Robert Randisi, which hit shelves in February of 2007. Beyond his achievements in the entertainment industry, Vince is a remarkably talented tennis player who competed professionally through the mid-1980s. While online poker players don’t have the luxury of watching out for trembling hands or nervous ticks, the key to online poker tells is watching out for deviations in betting time and reading betting patterns.

Betting Patterns are where we can watch our opponent’s actions and use them to build up a story to help us work out what hand our opponent has and what he is up to.

The story that we build up from tells and betting patterns is what we use to make the correct decision before our action, so it’s an important subject that directly impacts our profit.

Build up the Skill

It can be overwhelming to start with to watch all the players at a table all at the same time. This will be a skill you build up over time and eventually it will become second nature to you.

To start with, concentrate with the players at the table that will be most important to you:

• The two players to the left of you – which act after you
• The player to the right of you – who acts before you

Once you feel comfortable then you can start to branch out to the other players at the table.

Observation & Betting Patterns

Betting Patterns are where we look for common patterns in our opponents actions which help us to identify what they are trying to do and what hands they might have.

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So what should you be watching for:

• What kind of hands are they raising with?
• How often are they slow playing hands?
• How often are they bluffing?
• How do they act with certain types of hands e.g.: big pocket pairs etc?
• What size bets are they making with particular hands?

For example, if you observe a player who is very tight, doesn’t raise very often, never slow plays hands, never bluffs etc, and he comes in with a large raise, then you can safely put him on a big hand and you may want to get out of his way in that hand.

Lets take a look at a few more examples of the kind of things you should be watching for:

How many hands do they play

Seeing how many hands they play will give you an indication of the kind of starting hands they are willing to play with, someone who plays a lot of hands is unlikely to have premium hands each time, so that shows he is willing to enter a pot with more marginal hands. And the opposite is also true; a player who plays few hands will be waiting for premium hands to enter a pot. Vital information to give you a head start in trying to work out what hand your opponent might have.

What hands do they show down

This really is a wealth of information, if you see their hand in the showdown at the end, think back to how they played the hand. Did they slow play with a monster hand, or were they aggressive with a weak hand? Make a note of this information, it will come in handy next time your in a hand with this opponent.

Callers or Raisers?

Do they like to enter a pot by raising or do they prefer just to limp in? A Player who enters with a raise a lot means you should be more wary of playing marginal hands in front of him, as he may well raise and force you out of the pot. A Caller is more likely to be a weaker player

The One Bullet Gun Bluff

Some players who are aggressive before the flop, will be aggressive again after the flop with a continuation bet, but then if they get called will fade off and not bet on the turn. This is a huge betting pattern tell as once we have identified it we know exactly what sort of hand our opponent has. If he is the aggressor and then suddenly doesn’t bet on the Turn then the pot is ours for the taking, if he does bet on the turn, it probably means he actually has a hand.

The above are just a few examples of types of things to look out for with betting patterns. The key is to piece together the information your opponent is sending you and try and decide if it all makes sense, then try to work out why your opponent has acted like that, is it a trap or a genuine sign of weakness? Does something smell fishy, can you sense a bluff?

Time to Up the Stakes

If you have been following the Poker Bankroll Challenge you should have now turned your initial $25 stake into over $100, which is great and has allowed you to put your new strategy in to practice.

Now that you are comfortable using your strategy we are going to step up your poker bankroll from the low stakes to the next level and start to really rocket your bankroll towards the $1,000 target we have set ourselves.

Up until now we have been playing on quite low stakes tables at 2cents/4cents. During the next stage of the bankroll challenge we are going to move onto slightly higher stakes tables, but don’t be intimidated, we’ll move up in stages and build your bankroll as we go, you have a very powerful strategy and as long as you stick to what you have learnt in this course, you will be just fine.

Continue to look to select the most profitable table by looking at the Players/Flop statistic but as we move up in the stakes this will naturally start to become a lower percentage and at these increased stake levels anything over 20% is a good choice. From now on as well you should also pay attention to the AvPot (Average Pot Size) statistic as we also want to select a table with a high average pot size.

Poker Bankroll Challenge: Stage 7

• Stakes: $0.05/$0.10
• Buy In: $10 (100 x BB)
• Starting Bankroll: $103
• Target: $50 (5 x Buy In)
• Finishing Bankroll: $153
• Estimated Sessions: 5

Use these practise sessions to really start to observe your opponents, can you spot any betting patterns on show? Each time you are not in a hand, watch what is going on and try to predict the outcome and the hand players have got, and each time the cards are shown see if you are right.

Do you like fish? I hope so, because this poker lesson will not only feed you some tasty morsels that will keep you satisfied for short-term, but it will also teach you how to fish so you can feed yourself for the rest of your poker career.

Later on in the lesson we will provide some common betting patterns that you will see in many low and mid-stakes poker games. Recognizing these patterns will certainly help you improve your skills. But learning how to read your specific opponents is the most important skill that can help you become successful in the game of poker. If you can determine individual patterns and how someone plays in certain situations, you’ll unlock the door to the magic room where all their poker secrets are held.

Learning to Read

How do you learn to get inside your opponents heads? You must develop the two important skills of observation and empathy. The power of observation simply comes from opening up your mind and paying attention to everything going on around you instead of just paying attention to yourself. Empathy, which is understanding others feelings, comes into play when you simply ask yourself, why? Much of this comes through years of experience at the poker tables, but you can even short-cut this process by practicing these skills in everyday life.

When observing play at the tables and to start the process of reading, you have to first ask yourself questions about your opponents:

• How experienced are they?
• What level are they thinking on?
• Do they understand all the factors that go into making a decision?

You can usually pick a lot of this information up by just watching the first few orbits of the game. Are they making common beginner mistakes or do they seem like they know what they are doing? If you are playing poker live, listen to table talk and see if you can pick up if they use poker lingo or if they are new to the game. If you’re playing poker online then do some homework to pick up knowledge of your opponents, how long they have been playing and how successful they are.

After you have a general idea of whether your opponents know what they are doing or not, you should start taking notes on their patterns in common situations:

• How do they play pre-flop? Do they limp marginal hands and only raise with their strong hands? Do they steal the blinds often in late position? How often do they 3-bet? Do they seem to steal from under the gun often?
• Do they often check/fold if they miss the flop after raising? Do they bet once and give up on the turn? Are they capable of double barrelling / triple barrelling?
• How do they play their draws? Do they semi-bluff? Do they check/call? Do they ever check-raise?
• What happens when they hit their draw? Do they slowplay? Do they bet it hard? Or do they go for small value bets?
• How do they play their big hands? Do they bet hard? Do they slow play?
• How do they play their marginal hands like top pair/weak kicker or middle pair? Do they call once and fold? Do they call all streets? Do they check-raise to define their hand? Do they donk lead the flop out of position or check?
• Do they tilt easily when things don’t go their way?

So that’s the observation part of the game. Now add the layer of empathy. Why did they make that decision? What does this say about them as a player and their overall game? These answers will help you determine their poker personality and an appropriate strategy to use against them.

Common Betting Patterns

Now that you’ve learned some ways to improve your reads, here are some specific examples of betting patterns to watch for. Obviously these can never be 100% accurate and you should base your decisions on reads you’ve picked up from your opponents, but the following is a short-cut guide to some common betting patterns from beginner and intermediate poker players that you will see in no-limit hold’em:

Same bet size on the turn as the flop

By not increasing their bet size on the turn, this is often a sign of weakness. The feel like they should bet but are afraid to commit too much. This is often a hand like middle pair or top pair with a weak kicker. You can often raise this bet and take down the pot.

Check/call, small bet on the turn

When someone checks, calls and then all of a sudden bets into you on the turn really small this is often a “blocking bet” on a draw. They may have had the draw on the flop or they have a weak pair and picked it up on the turn. The small bet is designed to allow them to draw for cheap, so charge them more!

Check/call, check min-raise

Ever wonder how to read if someone has a set? This is a very common line for a set or other big hands. This is especially true on really dry boards like . They slowplay the flop and when you bet the turn again they realize you have something, but don’t want to bet too big and cause you to fold.

Check/insta-call, check/insta-call…pause on river…bet

Can you guess the river card? Yes, it put a third flush card out there. Guess what… they have a flush! When someone calls really fast it often means they don’t have to think about their decision. For example, they already decided to chase the flush and once it hits they all of a sudden start thinking. If the flush card doesn’t come, this pattern is often indicative of a missed draw that is now bluffing.

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Min bet, min bet, big river bet

This betting line often happens in limped pots when there is a draw on board that doesn’t hit. For some reason, people will bet the minimum as a semi-bluff on two streets and then when they miss their draw, they decide to bet big to get their opponents to fold.

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Pre-flop raise of 4x+ from someone who usually limps or raises 3x

This is much more common in live play and is often the sign of someone with a hand they don’t want to see the flop with. This is most commonly JJ or AK, but can also include other hands in that range like TT, QQ, AQ and even AA from a player who is scared of getting them cracked.

Pre-flop open limp from an aggressive player who always raises

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You don’t see this as much online these days, but it is certainly something to watch for live. It’s highly likely that the player has AA or KK and doesn’t want people to fold.

A player who always continuation bets the flop and now checks

This is very similar to the thought process behind the aggressive player who limps aces. If someone is continuation betting almost 100% of the time and now decides to check, this is a sign of a very big hand and you should proceed with caution.

Conclusion

Now that you’ve got a taste of some common patterns, see if you can pick up others yourself. Remember that poker is a game of observation and betting patterns will evolve over time. It’s also worth mentioning that betting patterns will also change as you move up in stakes – so be prepared to adapt when this happens. If you remain observant and learn to pick up on patterns whilst asking yourself “why is this person betting this way?” you’ll be on your way to poker mastery.

By Donovan Panone

Donovan started playing poker in 2004 and is an experienced tournament and cash game player who has a passion for teaching and helping others improve their game.