POKER HAND #47

SOME SUPER SYSTEM: From Bobby Baldwin's discussion of limit hold 'em. God bless Super System. The title of the chapter is "How to Read Hands."

The main methods I use in figuring out what a man made on the last card is reconstructing the hand from the Flop. If I can't figure out what a man could have called with on the Flop - in order to make the hand he seems to be representing on the last card - I'm going to look him up.

Suppose I have the 7s-7h.

And the flop is

10s-7c-2d.

It's checked to me, I bet, and a player to my right in middle position calls. The next card off is the 6c.

He checks again, I bet, he calls. On the end comes

8s.

Now he leads into me and I have to stop and think. Naturally it looks like he's got a Nine. But how? If he had 10-9 or 9-9, he probably would have led at the flop, considering his position. If he had 9-8, he made his hand on the fourth card, so why didn't he play it there? I don't think he would go to the last card with J-9 or 9-6, and since I have two sevens, 9-7 is an unlikely possibility. I can't get away from my hand UNLESS it's a player whom I have never seen bet anything but the nuts on the end. In that case, I know he must have slow-played his straight on the fourth card, and had his planned check-raise ruined when the Eight fell. With this amunt of doubt, I'm going to pay it off.