Learn How to Analyze Your Hands Once and for All

20 Nov 2024

Intermediate

This material is for medium-skilled players

I see many people studying poker incorrectly, especially when reviewing their hands. To me, this is a big waste of time. If you are dedicating part of your day to study, make it productive and get the most value out of it.

“Okay, Max, you're saying most people study wrong. So, how should we study a poker hand?”

To analyze your poker hands effectively, you need to follow three steps. These steps will help you learn and improve.

To illustrate, I’ll analyze a hand played by Juliano — a member of my community. I’ll show what he did right and what he did wrong.

Step 1: Every Decision Matters

The first step is understanding that every decision matters. Whenever you analyze your hand or share it with a friend or in a study group, NEVER jump straight to the moment you had doubts.

Step 2: Provide Information About Your Opponent

The second step – and this is something I often see people getting wrong – is providing information about the opponent you were playing against. Who was the player?

• Was he a regular?
• An aggressive recreational player?
• A nitty player who barely plays any hands?
• Did you have any history with him?
• Do you play against him often?
• Do you already know each other?

There are many things we can say about a player, and in a game with incomplete information like poker, every detail matters.

Understand this once and for all:

I see this happening every day. In my games, there are many hands where I would bluff against one type of player but never bluff against another.

Step 3: Think Beyond One Specific Hand

The third and final step is not just to think about one specific hand but to consider all the possible hands that you or your opponent could have — this is called range thinking.

Now that I’ve explained the three steps, let’s get to the practical part. I will analyze not only Juliano’s hand but also the way he shared this hand. A double dose of analysis — let’s go!

Hand Analysis Example

Juliano's comment:

"Only 19 hands played with the opponent, but in these few hands, I noticed he is a maniac with VPIP 100%, PFR 41%, and 3-bet 25% (2/8). He likes small bets on the flop and turn and overbets on the river. I saw this line 4 times in 19 hands: 3 were air, and 1 I don’t know.

Standard flop, I usually c-bet 1/3, 100% IP.

On the turn, I think this small donk bet from the opponent seems like a block bet with a flush or straight draw. Since stronger hands like TT, 99, 22, and T9 probably would have check-raised on the flop, and as played, I don’t think these hands would make a small donk bet. It would more likely be a check-raise or a higher donk bet on the turn. So, I decided to raise for value/protection. This opponent probably won’t fold much.

On the river, at first glance, this  was a disaster. But considering the data I had on the opponent and the blockers I hold, I chose to call. However, it was not an easy call. If instead of the  I had  or , I would have folded."

How to Read Hand History

How this hand should be read?

Here we have:

• poker room where Juliano played: PokerStars;
• limit: NL2, or simply $0.01/$0.02;
• maximum number of players at the table – 6-max;
• type of game – Hold’em, also known as No Limit Texas Hold’em.

Below that, we see the information about the positions and the chip stacks of each player at the table.

“Hero” is the term used to identify the player who played the hand and is sharing it. This means we will analyze the hand from this player’s perspective.

So, Juliano was on the BTN with 142bb.

• Tip: Always analyze hands in big blinds, like he did here.

Now let’s understand what else happened in the hand:

In the image above we identify that Juliano's hand was  .

Below, we see the pre-flop action: “fold, MP raises to 3 BB, fold, Hero raises to 9 BB, SB calls 8.5bb, fold, fold”. Let’s break this down:

The first fold refers to the first player to act – in this case, UTG – meaning he folded pre-flop. The next player, MP, raised to 3bb. The following player, CO, folded. Hero re-raised to 9bb.

Then we see that the SB decided to call, which we call a “cold call on the 3-bet”, meaning he called a 3-bet without being involved in the hand.

After that, there were two folds, meaning the next two players to act (BB and MP) folded.

Now let’s go to the flop:

Flop:

We have 22bb in the pot and two players: BTN (Hero) and SB. Since the SB was the first to act, his action is shown first. In this case, he checked. Juliano bet 6.5bb, and the SB called.

Now to the turn:

Turn:

35bb in the pot, SB bet 12bb. Juliano raised to 38bb, and SB called.

Now to the river:

River:

The pot is 111bb, SB bet again (this time all-in), and Juliano called.

Now that we know what happened in the hand, let’s analyze how Juliano shared it in the community.

How to Share a Hand

I really like that, first of all, he talked about the opponent tendencies. As I mentioned in Step 2, this is essential for hand analysis.

Even when we don’t have information about the opponent, we can talk about their stack size or actions in previous hands. Every detail is information.

He said that even with only 19 hands, he noticed that the villain played 100% of them (VPIP=100). So, this player is clearly a maniac (playing way more hands than he should).

Again, I will praise Juliano.

With 19 hands, we have more than enough information to know this player is playing far from what he should.

Another point to highlight is that Juliano also gave information about the opponent’s past hands. So, preflop, I have no complaints. Juliano scored 10/10 here.

Now to the flop.

Flop Analysis

I personally don’t like the words “standard” or “default” to describe an action because if you took a specific action, you did it for a reason. So, I would describe it like this:

“On the flop, I bet 1/3. This is my general strategy in this situation for several reasons: 1) because I believe it won’t deviate much from the mathematically correct play; 2) because using this small bet size encourages more mistakes from my opponents.”

Although I don’t like how Juliano described the action, I agree with what he did.

Now to the turn.

Turn Analysis

I really like how he wrote about the turn. He explained what he thought the opponent was doing and gave great reasons for it. He also created hypotheses about other actions the villain could have taken.

However, once again, I would add a few things.

Something like: “In this situation, I will have different types of hands. With my strongest hands, like my JJ here, I will raise. With medium-strength hands, I will just call because I believe he is bluffing more than he should. With hands that have no equity, I will simply fold.”

Do you see how this makes our thought process more refined?

I really like this process of trying to put opponents on a range of possible hands. However, against maniacs, we cannot do this. As Juliano himself mentioned, the opponent was playing 100% of hands. When he put him only on a flush draw or straight draw, he ignored many hands the opponent could have, simply because he is a maniac. These hands are so random that we wouldn’t even think about them when building a range, but the opponent could still have them.

“He is playing an absurd number of hands preflop, so he will reach the turn with many natural bluffs in his range. My hand is still a bit vulnerable, so I should raise,” would be a more accurate analysis.

Now to the river.

River Analysis

This is the point in the analysis where Juliano made the biggest mistake, because he could have gone deeper. Why would you fold with  or ? Why was  a disaster?

Juliano should have expanded a lot more, explaining the reasons behind his conclusions. This would help him in two ways:

• The thought process would be clearer. When we have to break down why we think certain things, we often find inconsistencies in our own arguments. This makes us realize that what we thought was true might not have been entirely right. We can spot flaws in our thinking and evolve without needing someone else’s help.
• If something is wrong with the justifications, the poker coach (or whoever is analyzing) can understand and correct the thought process. If you don’t explain why you took a certain action, you might be doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, which isn’t good. Basically, you could just be lucky. But this can only be identified when you explain your reasons.

To wrap up, let's go to the technical analysis.

Here we have to call with any bluffcatcher (hands that win only against bluffs) for the same reason we raised on the turn — the villain is a maniac. He has so many possible hands in his range that, even when trying not to bluff, he won’t be able to and will bluff too much.

So I would write it like this:

"Since the villain is a maniac, he bluffs more than he should in almost every part of the game tree, and here wouldn’t be any different. So I call with any hand that beats bluffs, in this case, any pair – since my JJ is a pair, I call with the certainty that my call is very profitable."

Now you know how to analyze a hand in poker. It’s a lot of work, right? But remember, if poker were easy, everyone would have millions of dollars in profit from this game.