How to Get and Use Information at the Poker Table

What makes poker so much more interesting than a game like chess or go is that it’s a game of incomplete information. You’re always making decisions, to some extent, in the dark because you don’t know what cards your opponents are holding and you don’t know which cards are going to be dealt next.

If you had all this information, the correct play would be obvious in every situation.

In fact, Sklansky explains poker strategy with his “Fundamental Theorem:”

Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponents’ cards, they gain; and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose. Conversely, every time opponents play their hands differently from the way they would have if they could see all your cards, you gain; and every time they play their hands the same way they would have played if they could see all your cards, you lose.

If this is true, it should become obvious that the closer you can get to guessing what cards your opponent has, the better you’ll do at the table.

That’s why being able to get and use information at the poker table are so important.

Just Pay Attention

I’ve mentioned this Yogi Berra quote before, but it bears repeating:

“You can observe a lot by watching.”

This seems obvious, sure, but so many players focus on something other than the game that’s happening at the table that opportunities abound.

The kinds of information you can get from just watching the other players at the table is how often they fold versus how often they call, how often they raise versus how often they call, how often they check-raise, and so on.

It doesn’t take many hands to realize who the loose players are and who the tight players are.

It also doesn’t take long to see who the aggressive players are and who the passive players are.

You can eventually grade every player at the table on both categories and put them into 1 of 4 buckets:

• Tight – aggressive
• Tight – passive
• Loose – aggressive
• Loose – passive

From a pure profitability standpoint, loose passive players are the best opponents you could hope to face – best for YOUR bankroll, that is. You want soft competition, not hard competition.

Be Active (Not Just Passive)

Just watching your opponents play and listening to what they say is one way to get information, but it’s passive. You can also DO things to get information. That’s an active means of gathering data on your opponents.

One way to get information is just to check, bet, or raise. These are ways of managing your hand, yes, but they’re also means of getting information from your opponents. But these ways only work if you watch what your opponents do and say immediately after you take your betting action.

You should also act on the information that you get. If you place a bet or make a raise to find out how well your hand probably is going to do against your opponents, but then you call every bet at every other state of the hand, you’re not acting on the information you’ve gained.

You shouldn’t just try to get information during the hand, either. You should also try to get information before and after every hand, too.

Of course, the information you gain before a hand can only relate to the other player’s demeanor and stack size. These are things you should be paying attention to.

But you can also find out things about what your opponent was holding after the hand, too.

Don’t Be Afraid to Speak Up

It’s not against the rules to talk during a hand – at least not if you’re still in action. If you’ve already folded your hand, though, it’s rude to discuss the hand. Don’t do it. The reaction will be unpleasant.

I’ve often given the advice that you shouldn’t pay much attention to poker pros and how they play on television. Those games are heavily edited and bear little resemblance to what you might experience at an actual poker table.

But one thing you will see pros do on television is talk during their hands. In fact, you’ll often see them ask their opponents what they’re holding. You can and should do this, too.

Many new poker players aren’t comfortable doing this. I don’t much enjoy it myself, at least not when I’m on the other end of it.

But asking questions is a valuable tool to have in your arsenal.

Your goal by asking questions isn’t necessarily because you can trust your opponents’ answers. It’s to see what kind of reaction you get from your opponent.

The easiest way to ask a question at the table is to put your opponent on a specific hand and then ask her if that’s what she has.

For example, if she raises preflop and a king hits on the flop, you might have her on AK. You can ask her, “So, you have big slick, huh?”

Her reaction can inform your decisions.

How to Gauge Your Opponents’ Reactions to Inform Your Decisions

Whether you’re betting to gain information or engaging in conversation to gain information, you need some kind of approach to gauging what your opponent does so that you can make better decisions. One of the things you’ll want to do is pay attention to what your opponent does.

If you put your opponent on a straight on the flop and ask her if she made the straight, pay attention to what she says or doesn’t say. If she says, “Yeah, I did,” see if you can get to the showdown with her. If she flips over the straight, you’ll know that at least sometimes she means what she says.

On the other hand, having shown down a hand that she told the truth about, she might realize that she can lie next time and get away with it, running you out of the pot.

If you don’t know your opponents, you might think about what Mike Caro suggests about tells. Weak means strong, and strong means weak.

In other words, if your opponent acts like she has a strong hand, she probably has a weak hand, and vice versa. This is true about 75% of the time, but it’s not true 100% of the time.

As you get to know your opponents, you’ll get to know more about their reactions and what they mean. This is what makes poker – especially live poker – so much different from a game like chess, which is a game of perfect information.

The Different Kinds of Questions You Can Ask

You can ask yes-no questions, but you don’t have to ask them on every hand. It can help to sound friendly when you ask these questions.

Examples of yes-no questions include, “Did you hit the flop hard?” and “Do you have the straight?”

You can also make statements that are really questions. You can say something like, “You obviously have a straight here.” Or “You’re bluffing.”

Again, you’re looking for a reaction, not an honest answer.

You can also ask questions in a friendly manner just to get general information about your opponents’ levels of experience and attitude about the game. You might ask someone, “How long have you been playing poker?” or “How often do you make it here to play in a live game?”

You want to know what your opponents’ general feelings are. If they’re new to playing in a live poker game in a casino because they’ve only played online, you can use that information to your advantage. You’re more likely to get answers to these kinds of general questions, too.

Ask your opponents why they made a specific decision at a specific point in the hand, too. That will tell you more about how your opponent thinks and plays than almost anything else. If you’re a little deferential and act like you’re hoping to learn something, many players will be more than happy to share their thought process with you.

And you can use that information in subsequent hands.

Making Friends and Influencing People at the Poker Table

It’s not a bad idea to become a good conversationalist. It’s not hard to do, either. Find a copy of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People and pay attention to what you learn there.

Here are some suggestions he makes for being a good conversationalist:

• Don’t criticize your opponents.
• Don’t complain about your opponents or about how things are going at the table.
• Offer some compliments but be sincere about them.
• Smile.
• Be interested in other people.
• Learn your opponents’ names and use them.
• Make other people feel important.

Of course, that’s just the briefest of summaries of the points Carnegie makes in his book, and they related directly to poker players. It’s worth buying your own copy and studying it. Even if you quit poker for good, having these skills will help you in other endeavors.

Conclusion

Gathering information about your opponents involves the usual poker actions of betting, checking, and raising. Just watching and listening is a way of getting information, but the real pros are more active than that and ask a lot of questions and engage in a lot of conversation.

I think you’ll make more money playing in a friendly game where everyone is having fun because you’ll get more action in such a game. So, try to get information from your opponents, but do it by being a friendly guy that other poker players enjoy playing with.