Actually, no - it’s the opposite actually. Teachers have to adapt and change all of the time to remain relevant in today’s ever-changing world.
I don’t know why I even bother.
You can’t help who doesn’t want to be helped
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Nonsense. There always. The magical word.
Force.
Geek, stop being a buzzkill 
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What!? That really is true about teachers! 
Well, hard read is basically going all-in.
It’s always interesting to come into these discussions hours later and see how quickly they go downhill 
I think your question got answered in the first 5 posts @MaruMDQ. For myself, I don’t actually make any distinction between a “read” or a “hard read.” They both just mean that someone went for something risky in a situation they couldn’t react to, because they “thought it would work.” If it’s super risky or punishable I might say “hard read”, but that’s really more a context thing than a definitional one for me.
And yes, you’ve made hard reads, and no, “hard read” does not imply that something worked. Wakeup counter in the absence of an imminent attack is a hard read, as is any counter breaker attempt. There is no prior stimulus you can react to that says “this person will break here” - you simply believe that he will, so you try for a counter breaker.
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..and in a game of poker that is a HUGE risk and is in no way 100% guaranteed.
So, for the most part, you agree with me then?
That a read is a read? More or less.
About your vigorous parsing of the presence or absence of “hard” in front of it? Not so much.
As I’ve said elsewhere, I think there is little purpose in arguing the particulars of any given FGC term. I’ve called things reads, I’ve called things hard reads, and I know the subtle differences people mean when they use each one. It’s far more important to be able to understand the terms and how they are used to than spend your time and energy shouting into the wind about why they call something X instead of Y.
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A read is a prediction of something your opponent will do. Neutral jumping someone’s throw is a read. Reads can be wrong (if someone neutral jumps and gets hit instead, that is magically not less of a read). Generally, it carries some risk but usually you can get away with it if you’re wrong.
A hard read is when you do something generally super risky (and sometimes unwise) to capitalize on your read. Doing meaty DP on your opponent’s wakeup for some reason. Hard reads can also be incorrect (if someone DPs on my wakeup and I block, they made a hard read and now they get punished).
I think of “hard read” as the ultimate trump card. The one that means not only did I think I might hit you, I did one of the riskiest, highest-damage options because I was so convinced I was right I don’t even care about the punishment that might come. There are usually safer ways to make a read, but making a “hard read” is a) fun and b) does mental damage to your opponent, which can make him play a lot worse really quickly.
Also, in general, for something to be a hard read, the opponent has to have an easy way to avoid it. Like in the meaty DP example, just blocking on wakeup stops all attempts at your hard read. There’s no backup or failsafe plan if your read fails.
I’d say in the KI context, an example of a hard read is knocking someone down and then doing shadow wind kick, or forward dash twice, because you think they will backdash. Any other reasonable action, like blocking, wake up throw or wake up button, gets blown up, but sometimes you have to represent these options depending on the matchup.
In a SF(4) context, something like Abel doing half screen ultra pre-emptively, because he thinks Guile will throw a sonic boom, is a hard read.
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I just don’t like the idea that a read is something that can fail, because IMO, the very name suggests that what you did was correct - you were able to read or otherwise successfully predict what your opponent was going to do. With this line of thinking, however, it means it can’t be a read if you’re wrong - and this is MY line of thinking (and yes, I know it’s obviously not the same line of thinking as everyone else). If you’re wrong, it’s simply a mistake.
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A read is a prediction. Predictions can be wrong.
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It means guess
it means yolo scrubbing
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I knew someone was going to say this.
…and I disagree. But I’m not going to go into detail as to why, because that would just give everyone a great big headache (again). Just know that the way I view a lot of things isn’t necessarily incorrect - it’s just different or more open-minded (I’m looking at the bigger picture, as I always say).