My ability to read hands has also greatly improved. It takes experience. It takes paying attention. Sometimes, it takes not playing lower stakes because people there often have no clue what they're doing, so you see some crazy things.

Every bet tells a story. Search for AOK's piece where he describes the betting that goes on in poker as a "conversation" between however many people are involved in the hand. Every bet has a reason, and it's either to gain information, to represent (or misrepresent) a hand, etc...

Quote 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.
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.