How To See Opponents Cards In Online Poker

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Marking the Cards to Figure Out What Your Opponents Have. Two years ago, during the World.

Robert Woolley

Does he have it?

One of the frequent puzzles you have to solve when playing no-limit hold’em is the situation in which you have either top pair on the flop or an overpair to the board, but by the end of the hand you have to figure out whether your opponent made a flush.

If I could do this correctly every single time, I’d be rich. I’m not rich, so you can be sure I don’t have a 100% accurate formula worked out. But there’s a tell involved in this situation that arises frequently enough that it’s well worth knowing about.

Multi-accounting means that a player has several real money accounts at a single.

A couple of years ago, I was playing my usual game, $1/$2 no-limit hold’em, at what was then the Imperial Palace in Las Vegas, now renamed The Quad. Early in the session, I was in the small blind with -offsuit, and after one player made a small raise and another called, I decided to call as well. (If you want to question the wisdom of that call, I won’t fault you, though it worked out well this time.) The flop was a delightful , with two hearts.

I decided to fast-play this situation, and made a lead-out bet. The original raiser folded, then the other player called. His most likely hands were a , an , or a flush draw.

The turn was a third heart. Before I acted, I noticed that he rechecked his hole cards. A-ha! That strongly suggested that he did not have a flush draw that had just come in.

Why do I say this? Here’s why.

Most recreational players don’t memorize the suits of their cards. They retain a visual memory that they have either two red cards, two black cards, or one red and one black, but they don’t know the suits with any confidence.

If he’d had two red cards, he would have rechecked them on the flop to see if he had a flush draw before deciding whether to call. But he didn’t. He only rechecked them on the turn, suggesting that he had one red card and one black card. He was checking to see if he now had a backdoor flush draw that he might make on the river.

After he called my flop bet, I was planning to check if a heart came on fourth street, thinking that the draw was his most likely hand, but when I saw him check his cards again when the third heart came, that changed my mind. I bet and he folded.

I think he probably had a black king and a smaller red card. Most likely, he discovered that his red card was a diamond, or it was a heart but too small for him to have confidence that his flush would be the winner even if the river brought a fourth heart.

The key to this tell is understanding that players want to know if they have a flush draw — it makes a big difference in deciding whether to call. Having done so, they no longer need to recheck their hole cards once they actually make the flush. For the many players who exhibit this particular tell, then, the trick is to know that the “suit check” is intended to determine whether they have a flush draw, not whether they have a made flush.

If a player’s hole cards are the same color (red or black), he’ll tend to recheck them when the board has two cards of the same suit in that color. If his cards are of different colors, however, he’ll usually check them only when the board has three of a suit in that color on the flop or turn.

This tell is common enough to be highly profitable and worth watching for, but is no more universal than anything else in poker. Some caveats:

Some players always memorize the suits of their down cards, and never need to recheck them later in the hand. (I recommend this practice to you.)
Some players do memorize their suits, but when their flush comes in they want to reassure themselves that they didn’t misread their cards, so will recheck before committing a lot more money to the pot.
Some players are aware of the tell I’ve described and are smart enough to use it deceptively against you. Such players will check their hole cards when a third suited card hits the board in order to make you think they only now have a draw, when their flush is actually made. Or they will check their cards when the flop has two of a suit in order to make you think they have the flush draw, so that they can bluff when the third suited card comes. But this species of player is relatively rare in low-stakes games.

Remember that a player rechecking his cards is most often looking for a flush draw rather than a completed flush, and you’ll be well on your way to knowing how to play your big pair against him.

Robert Woolley lives in Asheville, NC. He spent several years in Las Vegas and chronicled his life in poker on the “Poker Grump” blog.

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Introduction

Opponent Poker is a video poker variation I noticed at the Red Rock Resort on December 17, 2006. The first five credits bet plays like ordinary video poker, and the second five credits are pooled together with two computer opponents, the best video poker hand takes all.

Rules

The player may bet 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 10 credits.
If the player bets 5 or fewer credits the game will play like ordinary video poker.
If the player bets ten credits, five will act as a normal video poker bet. The other five credits will be used to play against two computer opponents.
Assuming ten credits are bet, after the initial five cards are dealt both computer opponents will indicate which cards they will hold. According to the game rules the opponent strategy is 'a standard poker strategy.' I do not know this strategy, but based on playing Opponent Poker myself it is usually, but not always, optimal video poker strategy.
The player will choose which cards he wishes to hold.
The player and both opponents will be dealt replacement cards from the same 52-card deck.
If the player has a higher paying video poker hand than the other two computer opponents then he shall win the video poker winnings from all three hands.
In the event two or three participants tie for the highest paying video poker hand then the pot of combined video poker winnings shall carry over to the next hand.
In the event of a tie between hands the player may opt to split the pot. Split pots will be rounded down to the nearest credit.
The pot will automatically be split if there is a dealt royal flush, the player cashes out, or the player switches games.

Strategy

I don't know what the 'standard poker strategy' for the computer opponents is so I can not quantify an optimal player strategy. I tend to think that if the player followed optimal video poker strategy for the given pay table his return would be greater than that of conventional video poker. The player should not always play the same way as the computer opponents. As one example the hand on the deal wasKAQ89.Both computer opponents held the queen, king, and ace. Optimal video poker strategy is to hold the king and queen only. Holding the same cards as the computer opponents always results in the same expected value as conventional video poker. In this case holding the three high cards has an expected value of 4.560592 credits (2.280296 credits for both the video poker and opponent bet). Holding the queen and king only has an expected value of 4.863301 credits (2.397471 for the video poker hand and 2.46583 for the opponent bet). This just goes to show (1) the opponents don't always follow optimal video poker strategy, and (2) you should not always play the same way as the opponents.

Return

As stated in the strategy section I don't know 'standard poker strategy' and thus can neither quantify either a perfect strategy nor the maximum return. All I can do is indicate the return tables for the video poker tables observed at the Red Rock Resort. I do believe the maximum return is slightly higher than the returns below.

'9/5' Jacks or Better