Pockerroom.com – Gauging The Strength of Your Hand
www.pockerroom.com – In many circumstances when we are involved in a pot, we will be desperately striving to know where our hand stands in relation to that of our opponents. misjudging this situation, can of course cost you all of your chips, and so it is a key aspect of the game of pocker to get these decisions right.
You may be asking how we can know exactly what cards our opponent has and whether they beat our own. The answer is that you cannot be 100% sure, but you can use your own powers of deduction to make a good estimate. Personally I feel this type of estimate is made much easier if you raise with a hand preflop, because you can immediately narrow your opponents possible hand down. We do know that different types of player might call different sized raises with certain hands preflop, and you must take this firstly, into consideration.
As an example, if you raise strongly preflop with (J,J) and one opponent calls, you can make the following move on a flop of (Ac,8s,3h), that being to put out a reasonable bet. If you are reraised, you have to feel your opponent has (A,Q) (A,K) or perhaps even (8,8) or similar, for a set. (A,J) and (A,8) are also possible if your opponent is a loose player, but the point is that all these likely hands beat yours.
The set is also a possibility if you are flat called, as there is no danger forthcoming from a straight or flush, and this could invite your opponent to slowplay in such a position. Either way, when we think our opponents actions through logically, we must muck the (J,J) immediately if we are reraised, in my opinion. Remember that you do not need to guess your opponents exact hands, you simply need to narrow their possible hand down enough to see that their most likely hand possibilities, beat yours, and fold. You must be steadfast in doing so, even with a hand that showed much promise at first.