Card information

Information relating to the kind of cards your opponents may hold can be gathered in three main ways. They are as follows:

1. Carelessness
Information revealed by a player either unwittingly flashing his cards (usually after he has lost interest in them) or talking about them.

One of the fundamental rules of Poker etiquette is that when you are not playing in a hand, you keep you cards to yourself, your mouth shut, and your folded cards folded.

Even after the hand is played out, showing disappointment at the way you played can reveal your strategy. Listening carefully to what is said by non-participants throughout the course of a game can often prove highly beneficial.

2. Tells
The romantic literature of old time Poker stresses the importance of being able to pick up on your opponent’s intentions by watching their body language. This is, however, greatly exaggerated and you would be a fool to bet the house on your opponent’s habit of scratching his left ear when he is bluffing. Not only is most Poker table behaviour nothing to do with card holdings, but even when it is, it can be so easily manipulated by giving out psychological red herrings, that to take much notice of it is usually to court failure.

3. Inferences
Reading something about your opponent’s cards can vary from being quite easy to being very subtle. It is what professionals call putting an opponent on their hand. Here are some familiar examples of easy to make inferences.

In Hi-Low games, multiple card draws almost always indicate potential high-hands, while standing pat, or drawing one, usually signifies a low hand.

In 7 card stud, a player staying in against a showing pair that has bet almost always has the hole cards higher than the rank of the pair.

In Hold’em, a player raising before the flop is very likely to hold either an ace or a king (or both), or a high pair.

Inferences are, of course, only educated guesses and are never guaranteed. But such educated guesses are usually a better guide than the bare probabilities of certain holdings.