Originally Posted by chardrian

While the ability to see hole cards has made poker televisable (is that a word?), the next great idea for televised events IMO will be to display only the chip stacks and blind levels when hands are being shown and then to reveal the hole cards only after all of the action is completed.

Originally Posted by Ultimate George

I'd love to see this happen, but I'm afraid the general public wouldn't like it. They used to have poker on TV with this format, and except for hands that saw a showdown or all-in confrontations it was ridiculously boring to watch. "Jim, Dan Harrington just raised on the button. This could be a steal attempt or he may actually have a hand here. Okay, lets see what everyone else does...Okay, everyone has folded and Dan Harrington takes down a pot. Wow, what exciting poker we have going on right here!" You'd never know if he was raising crap or AA. For some reason that just doesn't seem like fun TV to me.

I don't think it'd be much more interesting if you had everyone's hole cards *after* the hand, either...You'd see people betting, maybe having a hand take 2-3 minutes to be complete, and only then you'd know why people were doing what they were doing.

It'd be fun for us poker dweebs, but not everyone is like us.

Originally Posted by Irisheyes

I think the best you can try to do is put someone on a range of hands and try to guess at which hand combination is the most likely for that person.

eg.

You are the button with AJ, there is two limpers before you and you limp in too.

Flop comes 36J with two hearts.

BB and first guy check, second limper min-bets and you raise to 3/4 the pot. At this point the BB and first limper fold and the guy who min-betted calls.

Now you think about his guy:
1) You think he is a fish because he plays a lot of hands and likes to gamble.
2) You check your notes on the guy and they say you've seen him show down Axs.

What else do we know:
1) You know from experience that fish like to play sooted cards.
2) You've read that lots of really bad players like to min-bet draws in the hope that other players wont raise.
3) You know that the flop has a possible flush draw and low straight draw.
4) You know its unlikely he has the straght draw because though he is a bad player is is unlikely that he is playing 45.
(This would be different if the big blind was playing against you, he could have anything)
5) If he has the a jack then his kicker is lower then yours so you arent to concerned about that. You also remember that fish love to call down with TPNK so is a strong possibility that is what he is doing.
6) Fish don't mind chasing without pot odds.

Now keeping all this in mind, we watch as the 2 of hearts hits the turn.

Villan thinks for a few seconds and checks.

What do we know:
1) His two most likely holdings are a pair or a flush draw. He also could have 2 pair or a set but they are hard to detect so we wont worry about them for the minute.
2) We know that bad players like to slowplay strong hands.

Okay, so at this point we are slightly worried that he has the flush. So we bet for information.

We aren't trying to defend against draws so a 1/3 pot bet should do.

We bet 1/3 the pot and the villan thinks again and calls.

New info:
1) Again villan likes to slowplay so we are still thinking he could have the flush even though he didnt raise.
2) The probability of him having something like a pair increaces a little bit because we know that fish like to call down with pairs.

River comes 2c

This is a card which is unlikely to have helped anyone except a set which is now a full house.

Villan bets 3/4 the pot.

Now we think:
1) His most likely hands were a pair and a flush.
2) He wouldn't produce this big river bet if he had a pair. It doesn't follow the standard fish calling down pattern. A pair is out.
3) It's possible he had a set or two pair but I think he would have raised the turn because my bet was so small. We give this a 20% probability.
4) Its always possible he is bluffing, according to Harrington on Holdem this should get at least 10%.
5) Its still possible he is playing a pair in a weird way. 20%
6) The most likely possibility is that he has the flush. 50%

So we fold.

So, considering all the above we deduce that his most likely holding is a flush. Congradulations, we've put the guy on a hand.