In football, anticipation is critical. Defensive backs live to anticipate quarterbacks and receivers. They love correctly reading a situation, and making the moves necessary to make an interception before the ball is even thrown. More importantly, sometimes they must make their move before the ball is thrown, or they won't have the time to make the interception. Baseball outfielders do this too.
Poker is often similar.
We make money by anticipating our opponent's actions. This idea most regularly comes into play when we are out of position, first to act. We have to do something before our opponent does. When out of position, it sure is a great, profitable thing to have some idea of what our opponent is going to do if we check and what they will do if we bet. No matter how short a time you've been playing with your opponents, they will have given you some information, in code, that you should have been looking for, that you should have tried to decipher, that you should be able to use to better anticipate their action.