ITH Poker Forum

[BobBarker]

One of my friends that plays on occassion asked me is there to much guessing to win in the long run?

[nsidestrate]

If you are doing too much guessing to win, you probably shouldn't be playing.

[BobBarker]

Should he stop playing?

[Misunderstud]

He should stop guessing and start learning.

[the_hawk]

Learning how to guess well?

[Misunderstud]

Yes, though I'm guessing that once he's learned to guess well he'll stop calling guessing guessing and start to call it hand-reading.

[BobBarker]

Guessing seems like a good term I dont know why your offended if someone called it that. Does hand reading apply if a player could be bluffing or overplaying there hand?

[the_hawk]

I see no offence here - a touch of possibly uncalled-for sarcasm perhaps.

"Guessing" is a actually a pretty loaded term in my view. In some sense one could argue we're always "guessing", it's just a question of how informed our guesses become (hence Mis' comments).

The form of most of your posts, Bob, indicates to me that you might consider "guessing" to be something like "decision-making in situations where there isn't an obvious formulaic answer to the question" (do correct me if I'm wrong). If so, then I'm afraid there is a hell of a lot of guessing in (limit) hold'em.

"Hand reading" to me means placing your opponent(s) within a range of hands, and making decisions against that range. One can rarely pin down opponents' holdings with great accuracy. So no, it doesn't just refer to bluffing or hand overplay - it refers to the whole gamut of decisions that (you think) opponents can make, given the (range of) holdings (you think) they might have.

[Misunderstud]

No one is offended. Guessing is a central part of the game. Every time you make a decision in poker you are basing your action on a guess as to what the other guy has and/or will do in response. But I think your friend is using the word more in the sense of random chance over which he has no control, much as you might guess the outcome of the spin of a roulette wheel. Using the same analogy, hand reading would be more akin to the ability to predict that the roulette ball is going to land on one of a certain range of numbers; you're still guessing, because you won't be right every time, but the more you can narrow down the range, the better you'll do.