Poker Workbook: Hand Reading For Live Players Vol 1

233 Pages·29.917 MB·English

by  James Sweeney, Ed Miller

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Poker Workbook
Hand Reading For Live Players Vol I
Copyright © 2016 SplitSuit LLC
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including
photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval without permission in writing from the
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Limit of Liability and Disclaimer of Warranty: The author has used his best efforts in preparing this
book, and the information provided herein is provided “as is.” The author makes no representation or
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disclaims any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose and shall in
no event be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage, including but not limited to
special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. Poker comes with an inherent element of risk,
and the author specifically disclaims liability for any financial losses sustained in connection to the
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ISBN-13: 978-1530932061
ISBN-10: 1530932068
Author Information
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at [email protected]
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Dedicated to
This book is dedicated to my wife and son.
Your endless-support has allowed me to become
the person I am today. Thank you and I love you
both more than either of you know.
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If you get stuck at any point in this book, I invite you to post your
questions on the Red Chip Poker Forum.
Our friendly community is extremely helpful, kind, and ready to both
answer your questions and receive your feedback.
Join us at www.redchippoker.com/forum
I look forward to seeing you there!
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword ....................................................................7
Preface ........................................................................9
The Power Of Hand Reading ..............................12
The 7 Rules .............................................................14
Section 1 ................................................................. 18
Section 2 ................................................................. 68
Section 3 ...............................................................178
Recap......................................................................223
Challenge Mode ..................................................226
Glossary .................................................................227
More Resources ...................................................232
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FOREWORD
BY ED MILLER
Hand reading is the essence of poker. It’s what makes playing a challenge.
It’s what makes every pot a new puzzle. It’s what makes the game sexy.
In popular culture—television and movies, for instance—when we see pok-
er hands, typically we see one improbably strong hand beat another. “Oh
you’ve got four kings? Well I’ve got a royal flush! What’s that you say?
We’re playing with five kings in the deck? Just shut up and give me the
money.”
It’s a shame that television and movie producers often depict poker this
way, since it really misses the point of the game. Poker isn’t about how
lucky you can possibly get.
One movie that really cuts through this superficial treatment is Rounders
(1998). In the scene that opens the movie, the protagonist, Mike, describes
his thought process in a hand.
“I just got top two pair on the flop, and I want to keep him in the hand.
Against your average guy, I’d set a bear trap, hardly bet at all. Let him walk
into it. But KGB’s [Mike’s opponent] too smart for that. So what I’ve got to
do is over-bet the pot, make it look like I’m trying to buy it.”
“My guess is Teddy’s on a flush draw.”
“Now I hope a spade falls and Teddy makes his flush. That way he’ll bet
strong, and I’ll beat him with my nines full over aces.”
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Unfortunately in this hand, Mike makes the most fundamental of hand
reading errors. He narrows his opponent’s hand range down too much (by
“putting him on a flush draw”). Then at showdown, Mike gets a nasty sur-
prise when KGB shows him not a flush, but a bigger full house.
Rounders did very well to focus on the hand reading aspect of no-limit
hold’em—flaws in the protagonist’s thought process notwithstanding. Be-
cause hand reading is where the real drama in poker is.
Despite the fact that hand reading is fundamental, there aren’t a whole lot
of books written specifically to teach this critical skill. James Sweeney has
been producing top-notch poker strategy content for years, and this book
fills a critical gap in the poker literature.
With a step-by-step approach, the book will show you how to avoid mak-
ing the sort of mistake that Mike made in Rounders. You’ll learn the logical
process to read hands. You’ll learn that reading hands is not really about
identifying the exact hands your opponents hold, but rather about esti-
mating the reasonable range of hands they can hold. And you’ll learn how
powerful your analysis can be when you focus on ranges of hands match-
ing up against other ranges.
This book will take you behind the curtains and show you exactly what
makes this beautiful and fascinating game tick. It could forever change the
way you think about poker.
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PREFACE
For a game played with just two hole cards, up to 5 community cards, and
a rack of chips - NLHE is an extremely complex game. This complexity is
compounded even further given the large divide between theory and prac-
tice in poker. It is very easy to find theory and strategy in books and videos.
And it is very easy to find a poker game to practice your skills. But to bridge
the gap you need a way to test your skills in a guided environment where
mistakes do not impact your bankroll.
This workbook is that bridge.
A common issue I run into with students is they say “I just bought Flopzilla.
This is great software, but I have zero idea what I am supposed to do with
it.” Owning Flopzilla is great, but putting the software to use and getting ev-
ery last drop of value from it is where the magic is. When you use Flopzilla
so often that you gain an intuition for how your opponent’s range likely hit
the flop - you give yourself a huge edge over your opponents who bought
Flopzilla just so they could say they own the software.
This workbook is not just a companion for Flopzilla - although admittedly
it is one. This book aims to help you become a technical player. The pok-
er world is polarized between the math-based players and the feel-based
players. Feel-based players rely on their ability to read their opponents and
look for physical ticks, timing tells, etc. Math-based players have a great
grasp on concepts like pot odds, calculating equity, and estimating EV in
real-time.

But a technical player is an advanced version of both. A technical player
considers clues from tells and timing to deduce a player’s range. A tech-
nical player consults things like pot odds and equity before ever making
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a play. And a technical player understands hand reading on an incredibly
deep level.
As poker continues to mature and evolve, the game will get tougher. The
edges will no longer come just from simple adjustments like stealing wider,
defending your blinds at a better frequency, and avoiding fit-or-fold strate-
gies postflop. As the average player in the game implements those same
changes as well - the edges will come from technical proficiency.
You will be forced to improve your ability to understand ranges from a
mathematical point of view, to correctly identify frequency inaccuracies
in your opponent, and to use range analysis to find situations to properly
widen or tighten your ranges.

Even when players acknowledge the value in becoming more technical
in this game, once they realize the amount of work that is necessary to
achieve it, they typically shy away from it. This work can be complex. It
is very number-heavy, and it requires a lot of time. But like many skills in
poker it can be front-loaded - and once learned it can be used in every
single hand while being refined and iterated over time.
I wrote this book for two major reasons:
1. I wanted to always have something to point students towards when
they requested homework.
2. I want to help players become more technical and enjoy the game
on a deeper level.
I know many players dislike the second point. There are a large number of
poker players that have zero interest going into the math and frequencies
like this. Heck, during a webinar I gave a player said something to the effect
of “if everything is this mathy I would rather not even play. How is poker
even fun at that point?”
I personally love poker. But I largely love it because I love solving problems.
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