Thank you, Daniel Negreanu! (non-grumpy content)

I promise that this blog will never become a platform from which I primarily discuss specific hands that I've been involved in. I realize that, for the most part, reading about somebody else's play is a lot like listening to a proud parent tell you all the details of what their kids are doing in school, or being forced to sit through a slide show of their recent vacation--you just don't really care. But once in a while, something stands out and seems to be a story worth telling. And for those who play just recreationally, maybe there's something to be learned here.

I was one of the ten players that started up a new $1-$3 no-limit hold'em game at the Palms last night. I took my usual favorite seat, #10, on the dealer's right. I didn't recognize any of the other players. (Well, I thought I recognized one, because she was the spitting image of Jennifer Love Hewitt, and it took me a while to convince myself it wasn't her. She could have a career as a JLH impersonator, though.) It was a young line-up; I believe I was the second-oldest player there, after an Asian woman in her mid-50s in seat #1.

It's only about the third hand we've played, so I have very little information on my opponents. I'm on the button and find the two black 9s. (This is the exact hand with which Phil Hellmuth won the World Series of Poker main event; I don't like being reminded of him by getting dealt this hand, but it would be a little silly to express my dislike for him by refusing to play it.) Five players all limp in ahead of me. I would sometimes raise in this spot, but I prefer playing conservatively while I'm still feeling everybody out, so I join the $3 crowd, as do both blinds.

The flop is 10h-5d-4h. Not a bad flop for my pocket pair. Everybody checks to me, so I bet $10--about two-thirds the size of the pot. The only caller is the Asian woman in seat 1. In theory, she could have any two cards, since she was in the small blind in an unraised pot. I think she probably doesn't have a pair bigger than the 10 on the board, because I would expect her to have raised before the flop with jacks, queens, kings, or aces. I don't think she has a 10 in her hand for top pair, because I would expect her to lead out betting with that if she had it, or maybe even go for a check raise (if she thought I was just putting in a position bet from the button after having missed the flop completely), though if she had a weak kicker (e.g., 10-2), she might do a conservative check-call to keep the pot small. Overall, though, I'm reasonably confident she is on a draw, with hearts being slightly more likely than a straight draw--but I'm going to be cautious of either one hitting.

The turn card is the 4c. This looks like a safe card for me, because it couldn't have completed any draw my opponent might have been on. To my great surprise, however, she bets $25. I really have to stop to think about this, because it doesn't help me clarify which of the possible holdings I had mentally assigned her she has. It's a confusing bet. If she had something really strong on the flop (three of a kind, two pair, or even a monster draw such as a simultaneous straight and a flush draw), I would expect her to do one of three things: lead out betting on the flop, check-raise me on the flop, or check the turn in anticipation of putting in her check-raise there. From out of position, it's distinctly uncommon for a player to check-call the flop, then lead out betting on the turn. Basically the only time that happens is if the turn card was exactly what the player needed.

But how could that be? As I said, it definitely didn't help her if she was on a straight draw or flush draw. It could only help her if she had a 4 in her hand, and had now made three of them. That's what I spent most of the time focusing on: what cards could she be holding, one of which was a 4, that would prompt her to check and call on the flop? It would be impossible for her to have both a 4 and a straight draw, or a 4 with a flush draw. What if she had something like A-4? In that situation, she might call a not-huge bet on the flop, hoping that (1) she'd get lucky and hit two pair or trips, or (2) I'd show weakness later and she'd get an opportunity to steal the pot away with just bottom pair. I certainly might do such a thing, so I assume she could, too. But if that had been the plan, why bet out on the turn? She would, in that situation, feel quite confident that her hand was now best, and I think most players would be far more likely to go for the check-raise, turning my anticipated continued aggression against me. It's as if her bet was proclaiming, "I have three 4s"--except that no rational player would want that fact to be obvious to an opponent yet, not until it was time to spring the trap! A final possibility was a pocket pair, like 6s or 7s or 8s. Again, though, it didn't really make sense for her to change from a passive check-call mode (perfectly reasonable with such a middle pair) to aggression.

Apparently other players watching the action had approximately the same thought process, because the guy sitting next to me said quietly, "Weren't expecting that, were you?"

I picked up nothing in her body language that gave me a clue as to how strong she was feeling, and my ability to scrutinize her was severely limited by the dealer sitting smack in between us.

I just couldn't put her on a hand. Nothing fit what she had done.

At this point, I had a flashback to something I read long ago from Daniel Negreanu--probably one of his Card Player columns, though it was way early in my serious interest in poker, and I don't have a clear memory of where it was. (Here's one in which he makes the same point, though I just can't recall whether it's the one that planted the idea in my mind for the first time: http://www.cardplayer.com/magazine/article/15262. He occasionally makes a similar comment during a televised match, something like, "Well, I can't figure out any hand that makes sense for you to have, so I'm supposed to call in that situation.")

Negreanu had said that the key to a successful bluff was telling a consistent story, such that everything one has done in the course of the hand playing out leads an opponent to a conclusion about what one is holding (a false conclusion, of course). If an opponent can't discern a consistent message from your bets and other actions, he will likely call your bluff just out of curiosity and/or stubbornness. This is what most people new to poker mess up all the time, and why their bluff attempts tend to get picked off rather easily by more experienced players. This is also why it doesn't work to try to bluff bad players, because they haven't yet learned to piece together the clues you're giving them so as to deduce that you have a hand they should be afraid of.

Anyway, one of the lessons I learned from Negreanu was that when there is no hand an opponent could be holding that is consistent with what he or she has done during the hand, that's often reason enough to call, because there's a good likelihood that a bluff is being run on you. It's a good piece of advice, but a scary one to follow, because confusion is not a state of mind you want to be bringing to a psychological battle. Nevertheless, I tucked it away in memory long ago, and it has occasionally been the piece of wisdom I have needed in particular situations. This seemed like it might be another such spot.

So I called the $25, but I wasn't one bit thrilled about it.

The river card was the 3 of clubs. My opponent pushed forward $50, again in a way that I couldn't read for being either especially strong or especially weak. That card wouldn't have helped her flush draw. If she had exactly a 6-7 in her hand, it would have completed a straight, but her leading bet on the turn didn't fit with that being what she had, so I mostly dismissed that possibility. I was back to the same dilemma, basically. She was trying to sell sitting on a 4, but in a way that I thought no good player would have undertaken to play such a hand.

I thought and thought, quite a bit longer than I usually take, because the pieces of the puzzle didn't fit together. I'm not one to call out of curiosity, because if I'm convinced I'm beaten, the little knowledge gained isn't worth what it costs me, and I have no tendency to agonize over what an opponent might have had once it's over with. But I kept coming back to Negreanu's advice about calling when you're confused, when an opponent's actions cannot be made to add up to any plausible specific hand or range of hands.

On that basis alone, I reluctantly took one of my $50 stacks and slid it forward. I admit that I was having a near slugfest inside my brain, with one half saying, "Fold, you idiot! Don't throw away another $50! She just has to have something better than a measly pair of 9s!" The other half was quietly citing Mr. Negreanu's advice. It surprised me a bit that that's the half that won the argument, given how loudly the "fold" half was shouting.

The woman shrugged her shoulders and turned over the Qh-9h. Aha! She had been on the flush draw after all! I suspect that she was planning on just playing passively to see if she got there, but then when the board paired she made a snap decision to represent having made trips. She didn't take time to think through whether she could sell that notion, or how best to sell it. If she had check-raised me, it would have been a far, far harder call to make; with a completely unknown opponent, and a list of about a gazillion scary hands that could beat me--ones that a good opponent would play in precisely that way--I almost certainly would have folded.

This was only a middling-sized pot as these games go. Still, it was, I think, one of the ten or so most difficult calls I've made during the year and a half that I've been trying to make a living playing this endlessly intriguing game. It's one of the "thinnest" holdings I can remember--holding only a single pair, smaller than the high card on the board--for calling two large-ish bets from an opponent on whom I had neither a history of frequent bluffing nor a reliable physical tell.

My heartfelt thanks to Daniel Negreanu for the "assist" on this play. I was disappointed to read recently that he's no longer going to be doing columns for Card Player, because they were consistently insightful and informative. But it's hard to begrudge him the need to do other things instead, when he has already provided a wealth of useful tips.