Not everybody rechecks

I just started watching "The Best Damn Poker Show." I've had to download the episodes from a site of questionable legality because my dumb cable service doesn't include Fox Sports.

The show would be more accurately titled "The Most Annoying Damn Poker Show," because the producers apparently think that Annie Duke and Phil Hellmuth arguing with each other makes for great, great television--better than actually watching poker. Wrong. It makes me never want to spend a minute with either one of them.

The players are typical amateurs, making lots of weak, unsound plays. The only redeeming quality of the show is Phil and Annie when they are civilly debating the merits (or lack thereof) of various plays. IMHO, Annie comes off better in these exchanges because she is more flexible, willing to acknowledge value in what would normally be dubious moves, when there are special circumstances. Phil, predictably, is far more rigid about what is proper play.

On the second episode, there's a hand in which one player flops the nut flush in position. His opponent bets into him three times. Mr. Flush smooth-calls twice, then moves all-in on the river. When Phil and Annie critique the aggressor's play, they both agree that he should have taken a clue from the fact that Mr. Flush didn't recheck his hole cards when three hearts came on the flop. That, they said, should have been the key clue to figuring out that he had flopped the flush.

Now, it's certainly true that many players are less likely to recheck their cards when they are suited and make their flush or flush draw than when they have hole cards of two different suits. This is because when they're suited, they have already formulated a wish for a flop with two or three of that suit. With offsuit cards, they tend not to hope for a flush in their immediate future, so when the possibility arises, they don't remember for sure whether they have it or not, and so recheck.

Still, it seems a bit much to me for Phil and Annie to make such a big deal out of the fact that Mr. Flush didn't recheck his hole cards. Isn't it possible that he's somebody who never does, who has managed to teach himself to devote a couple of brain cells to memorizing his two cards before the flop, precisely so that he never gives away a tell by needing to recheck them after the flop? A few of us can pull that off. It's not exactly difficult.

I am frequently surprised, in watching televised poker, how many top-flight poker professionals have not made a habit of this, and genuinely don't know, without rechecking, whether their red ace was a heart or a diamond without looking again after three diamonds come on the flop (or whatever). I'm far, far from a poker savant, but I make it a habit to recheck and memorize my cards just before the flop comes so that I never have to check them again when doing so might give away information about whether I have a flush or a flush draw. It just isn't that hard!

That said, I'm capable of getting confused occasionally between what I am holding and what I am hoping to see, particularly when I have connectors and there are two or three cards in the same neighborhood that might make a straight for me. In about four years of playing I have on five occasions believed I had a straight when I didn't, because of exactly that mental misfiring. It almost happened again last night, when I couldn't remember on the river whether I had 8-9 for one pair and a missed straight draw, or 7-8 for two pair, because the brain cells that were silently calling out to the poker gods to deliver specific straight-making cards got their signals mixed up with the cells that were supposed to be devoted just to remembering my down cards. But having been punished for that mistake several times, at least this time I recognized that there was a state of confusion and checked again, rather than plunging ahead into disaster. Something akin to this happens maybe once a month or so. Since I play roughly 120 hours of poker a month, that's pretty infrequent.

Which means that if players follow the Phil-Annie advice, and assume that when I don't recheck my hole cards on a single-suit flop that means that I have flopped the flush, well, fine, I get to make them think that I'm stronger than I really am.

I just don't think it's nearly as reliable a piece of information as they're making it out to be.