Betting Patterns: A Logical Approach to Poker

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.

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 helps guide our decisions, which can influence our overall strategy and outcomes.

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.

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 raises often may force you to play more cautiously with marginal hands, while a player who calls frequently may be more inexperienced or unpredictable in terms of their hand strength.

The One Bullet Gun Bluff

Some players who are aggressive before the flop may continue their aggression with a continuation bet after the flop, but if they get called, they may become more passive on the turn. Identifying this pattern can give you valuable insight into their likely hand, though it’s important to remember that individual player behavior can vary.

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’ve been following the Poker Bankroll Challenge, you’ve been working toward the goal of turning your initial $25 stake into a bankroll of over $100 — a target designed to help you practise and apply the core concepts effectively.

Now that you’re more comfortable with your strategy, we’re moving from low-stakes tables to the next level — with the goal of building toward our illustrative $1,000 bankroll target as part of this structured challenge whilst sticking to responsible bankroll management.

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.