Best Poker Hands

con't from winning poker hands.

 The best poker hands probably held by each opponent.

This comes even closer to the expert level, and if (as in stud poker) it involves discounting all cards that you know about, it becomes super expert. To give a simple and oversimplified example. In a stud game, you have a pair of kings. Your opponent has an ace showing. What is the chance that he has a pair of aces? are these likely to be the best poker hands at the table? If you have watched all the cards that have folded, and if three aces have shown, you know that the chance of the best poker hand is zero; if two aces have folded, you know that the chance is a remote one; if one ace has folded, you know that there is a distinct danger and he may have the best poker hand; if no ace has shown, there is a probability that your opponent has aces. All of this is modified by your appraisal of the opponent himself. If he is a player who probably would not have stayed unless he had an ace in the hole, then regardless of the mathematics of the case he is likely to have aces. The true expert in a stud poker game must watch every card dealt, know the possible best poker hand, remember every card folded, and judge every opposing hand in accordance with the cards that the opposing player cannot have or probably does not have in the hole.

What the opponent thinks he has.

This again approaches the highest degree of expert skill. After all, your opponent may bet into your three aces when he has queens up, because he honestly thinks that queens up will be the best poker hand. So remember, when the opponent bets, that he may be wrong! Your bets and especially your calls will be based on your estimate of how good a hand the opponent thinks he has.

How to fool or outguess the opponent.

This is as far as you can go in poker skill. It is the highest expert or superexpert level of skill, and it probably cannot be taught, cannot be measured, cannot even be denned. Anyone who has the knack or ability to outguess his opponents probably has such an aptitude for poker that he doesn't need a book to help him win. Furthermore, he probably knows quite well that he consistently  plays the best poker hands, doesn't need a book, or my advice, and no doubt if he and I played poker together he could beat me.
 To illustrate this, I will cite a couple of the chestnuts of the game, the classic stories that don't lose their validity because they are so classic or because the situations involved are so rare.

First Poker Chestnut

Five-card stud. Table stakes. Last betting interval.
Player A has Q, J, 10, K showing, plus hole card.
Player B has 6, 10, 8, 4 showing, plus hole card.
Player A has taken the lead throughout; Player B has played along, outlasting other players. Player B has a six in the whole, giving him a pair of sixes.
On the last card, Player A bets out, perhaps half his stack.
Player B knows that there are six cards that would give Player A a cinch hand: A, K, Q, J, 10, or 9. But Player B taps.
Player A calls and loses. His hole card is a seven.

There was nothing unusual in the fact that Player B figured the bluff of Player A. Every sucker in the land does that several times per session. The significance of this case is in the fact that Player B tapped and that Player A called.
The unimaginative player, in B's position, would be proud of the fact that he had detected the bluff, would call, and would win the pot. This particular Player B went further. He trusted not only his own judgment but also his estimate of his opponent.

Put yourself in Player A's position. You have bluffed in a case in which the odds heavily favor your having a cinch hand. Your opponent, who has stuck around through three previous rounds of betting, has not been content to call you but has bet everything he has. Why should he do this if he has simply detected your bluff? He could content himself with calling and take in an easy pot. So the only logical explanation for Player B's bet is that he has detected the bluff, but unfortunately he cannot beat the board. Therefore his only chance to win the pot is to let you know that he has detected the bluff in the reasonable expectation that you, being caught in your bluff, do not hold the best poker hands, will fold your hand and give up.

On this basis, Player A calls and fully expects his K-Q high to beat Player B's king in the hole.
As I said before, this is a matter of inspiration. The exact circumstances will probably never present themselves to you if you play poker all your life. Nevertheless, you should not underestimate the value of knowing about this and dozens or hundreds of other poker situations that some previous good player has encountered and mastered. They are all part of the well-rounded education that the finished poker player must have.

Second Poker Chestnut

Draw poker, jacks to open. $10 limit. Ante is $7.   ($1 each).
Player A (next to dealer) opens with two aces. Player B plays. All other players drop.
Player A draws three cards and makes four aces. Player B draws one card.
Player A bets out, Player B raises, Player A reraises, Player B reraises, Player A drops.
This is the only case on record in which a player dropped four aces after raising once. It is unlikely that it could ever actually happen, because poker players are human beings and a human being with the best poker hand would not drop four aces, but the situation is entirely logical.

Player B would not have stayed on a simple draw to a straight or flush, and he would have raised with two pairs, so he was marked with a draw to a straight flush. He knew that Player A knew this, so that he would not have given his second raise if he could merely beat a full house, on the assumption that any full house by Player A would be better than his (because Player A went in with a single pair of openers). Consequently, it must be figured that Player B made his straight flush and Player A's four aces are no good.

It is all inescapable logic, however unrealistic it may be.