Hello.

I'm a begginner, currently grinding in $1,50 single and multi table tournaments in poker stars.

I got this book on tournament poker called "kill everyone", by Lee Nelson, after learning the basics on fish exploitation, as an effort to get to the next level.

Around page 36, describes the following hand as a bluffing example:

"blinds are 50/100, you call a preflop raise to 300 from an early position raiser off a stack of 10.000. You're on the button holding 98 of spades and have around 10.000. The flop is Ah, 9C, 3H. Your opponent bets 500 into the 750 pot. He may have hit the ace or may be just bluff c-betting; you call. The turn is the 6h, putting 3 hearts on the board. Now he checks and you bet 1.000. If his initial bet was a continuation bet and he doesn't have an ace, he'll likely give you the pot right here.

But say he has an ace with a good kicker, like AK-AJ. He calls your 1.000 turn bet, the river is the 3s, and he checks again. Now you move in." [and the author explains:] each action you took in this hand is congruent with the hand you are representing, the flush (flat-calling, betting, and moving in).

Then he says that is likely to work because your opponent is representing an ace, which he probably has; and it can't be the ace of hearts, since it's on the board. That makes it extremely tough for him to call with top pair, according to the author.

Here starts my question. I know the hand that the author puts the villain in, top pair good kicker, is very possible, given his actions. However, there are other hands that could also fit these actions. What came to my begginer mind is KQ of hearts.

It's a strong enough hand to justify the opening; cbetting with the flush draw on the flop is pretty standard; in this case, when you call and the turn is a heart, he made his flush. He check-calls, slowplaying the nuts. The river is a brick and he checks again because, since we've been showing interest in this pot, we are giving him a good spot to trap.

The point is: whenever i try to make these kinds of reads, a bunch of possibilities come to my mind, and they seem equally likely. (In this case, AKo or KQs would both emerge as possibilities and i'd feel lost, not knowing if should try to bluff or not). How do you guys estimate which case is more likely? And please don't answer just "by having a good read", because that is precisely what i'm trying to figure HOW to do.

thanks in advance!

I'd say it's an ace, as most people would doube barrel when hitting their flush. It's just instinctive (at least to me) to keep barreling once you hit it, and check calling with an ace when the board gets scary but you may still have the best hand.

To be honest, most people play their hands fairly face up. This is just how most people would play a decent ace/compared to slow playing nut flush anyway.

you're thinking about this half right already.

so you've realized that Vs play more than one hand the same way. that makes you better than live pros and their "put you on 99" crap.

from that point on, what you need to do is try to find out every hand that V would play that way, and call that his "range". then, you can do the math yourself, or use a software like pokerstove, which is a lot easier, to figure out your equity in the hand.

to put it simply, to succeed in poker you need to be able to assess if the bets are worth the prize. in order to do that, you calculate how much you need to call, and your chances of winning the hand.

if, for instance, there's 1x on the pot, and you need to pay 0.5x, you need to win the hand more than one in every 3 times to make this a winning play.

was that understandable, or did it just sound like i rambled? I can explain it differently, if you'd like that.

admittedly have never read this book, but that sounds like some 2003 logic right there. hes just as likely to bet an ace for protection as he is to barrel off a flush. checking back seems like a fairly poor line with any hands really.

pretty sure most breakever+ micro players will be crushing you if you take this line on this run out

I'd say KQs is definitely in the range of hands they are holding so that's good you recognize that. What I think the author is driving home is the line the bettor chose. The standard PF raise, followed by a standard c-bet, the check on the turn displays weakness which he seems to want you to exploit. This is a very common line and way to take down pots. I think for the purpose of what they wrote that's what they were trying to express without getting too deep into reads.

Betting turn makes no sense. called by better fold out worse... and if your going to overbet jam bluff the river at least have some blockers to the nutish hands(ie big hearts). I heard that book was decent. I must have been mistaken.

I wouldnt put him on KQh since that means the only flush you could ever represent would be a jack high flush, and you'd have to be pretty crazy in his eyes to go allin with the 4th nuts. If he thinks you are capable of paying off this light, then he'd probably lead the river and just expect you to call. In fact this is what most players do on the river whenever they have the nuts, they just lead out because they dont want to risk you checking behind. Therefore, when someone checks the river, chances are they in fact do not have a great hand.

The simple truth is all you are really doing is putting them to a much bigger decision than normal by setting up a large river bet in an otherwise small pot. Players are much more hesitant to call off their stack on the river if they have only invested 30% of it on the previous 2 streets. Think of it as a "small small big" betting strategy. You also very credibly represent a very strong hand. I mean afterall, who has the stones to bluff the river allin like this?

To have a good read you have to study ur player. I dont play for money online but for starters i dont think that players at 1.50 sng are gonna play like the books say.

First thing i do at a sng is play tight first few blinds. And watch players. For example if somebody raises early position and check folds the flop two or three times u know he has a wide range.

But if after 3 levels u see a player that hasnt played much raise early he has a really good hand.

Then look at betting. If a player always min raises and min bets u know hes weak .

If ur just learning , play tight, people will give u chips with no fight. And just watch peoples patterns . You wont know exactly what they have , but you will have a good idea.

Another thing is , im reading people say he has kq or this or that and checking the turn is weak is bullsht. You have to watch how they play before u think that.

I might bet an ace early position one hand and the next hand check it on the flop . The next hand after that il over or under bet. Poker is a mind fk . The more u u fk with someones mind the more ul win.

He misses a key point its player dependant we need to know enough about him the guy is betting into us we call and he checks. If villain is a good player and he knows we are aggressive he's going to trap on the turn. And call us even without the flush.
And if lee nelson is going to give that much credit to players then this in itself is exploitable

I am a beginner as well so take my post with a grain of salt. I believe that good hand readers first of all have a lot of experience playing poker. You have to be able to know the villains tendencies through observation, be able to put them on a range of hands and then through intuition and possible card combinations figure out what the most likely holdings are for the villain. In your example not all possibilities are equally likely due to the number of combinations possible and due to the way a villain plays various holdings. I would suggest that you check out Flopzilla and a book like "How to Read Hands At No Limit Holdem" to get more insight into this.