Psychic abilities claimed, not proven

A trio of tales from yesterday's Day 1-D of the 2008 WSOP Main Event, all as told by the fine team of bloggers at PokerNews. See if you can spot what they have in common:

I Knew What You Had

On the turn, with the board showing Qs-10s-6d-Ks, Jennifer Tilly
checked to a player in the cutoff, who bet 1,000. Tilly called. On the river of
the 3c, the cutoff player bet out 1,250 and Tilly again made the call....

The cutoff showed As-4s and Tilly mucked. She told the player, "I knew you
had the flush. I pay you off on the turn and the river." She looked clearly
disappointed.

After the hand, Tilly is down to 12,000.


Lederer Better Than Yu

We recently passed by Blue #1 and saw that Howard
Lederer was all in for 13,400 against one opponent, Charles Yu of Dover,
Delaware, on a board of 3h-Jd-10h-2c. With the cameras rolling, the table talk
commenced.

Yu: "I know you don't have it."

Lederer: "Oh, I have it."

Yu: "Maybe you should bet 10,000 and I'll call."

Lederer: "OK, I bet 10,000." He reached for his chips to take some back,
then smiled and left them in the middle of the table.

A minute or so passed.

Lederer: "If you knock me out, they'll probably put you on TV."

Yu: "OK, OK. I fold. But I know you don't have it. If you had bet 5,000, I
would have called."

As Lederer was raking the pot, he chuckled. "I like that he claims he would
have called 5,000," said Lederer to the player on his left.

The discussion continued a few hands later, with Yu still not convinced
that Lederer could beat king-jack, the hand Yu claims he folded.

"You should have made the hero call then," said Lederer. "You could have
told all your friends to watch you on TV." Then he turned more serious, and
said, "I raised you from first position, I raised you on the flop, and I moved
in on the turn. Do you really think your jack was good?"

Yu had no response.

(Before I move on to the third story, I just want to add that there were about three more posts throughout the day of ongoing verbal and card clashes between Lederer and Yu, with Lederer coming out on top of all of them. For a guy who is usually nearly silent at the table, he did a splendid job using a few well-chosen words to (1) sell his image, (2) confuse his opponent, and (3) manipulate his opponent--which, by the end of the day, he had clearly done. Just based on those few reports, it was a virtuoso poker performance by a guy that I've come to think of more as a behind-the-scenes administrator than a serious player.)

More Hot Set Over Set Action

On a flop of Q-8-4, Jeff Weil moved all in with Q-Q and was called by his
opponent, holding 8-8.

"I KNEW it! I KNEW it!" wailed the poor soul with the pocket eights, as
most of his stack was shipped across the table to Weil and the ESPN cameras
swarmed.

"If you knew it, why didn't you fold" wondered Beth Shak aloud.

OK, it's not too hard to see the thread those stories share, especially given the big hints I provided in this post's title and photo.

I don't think I've ever blogged about this (though I discussed it briefly in my little contibution to Episode 4 of the Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show), but "I knew you had that" (or close variations) is one of the more common stupid things that people say at the poker table.

Beth Shak asks the most obvious question that gets at the heart of what's so stupid about it. How can you claim to have known that an opponent had you beat, yet still call? If Jeff Wile's anonymous opponent really knew that he was on the bad end of a set-over-set situation--e.g., if Wile had turned his cards face up--he clearly wouldn't have called. If Jennifer Tilly actually knew that she was up against a flush that she couldn't beat, she wouldn't have called.

There have been countless times that I have heard an opponent fold while telling me, "I know you have [some very strong hand]"--and they've been wrong.

We never know what an opponent has, in any meaningful sense of the word, until the cards are revealed. We can have varying degrees of confidence, assigning an opponent to a range of possible hands that make sense, sometimes a very narrow range. But there's always the possibility that the opponent is doing something completely irrational, so that the clues available lead to an erroneous conclusion.

It is quite rare that I experience such a high level of confidence in a player's exact holdings that I will be surprised to see him turn over anything else. Such occurrences are usually when I'm not in the hand (for reasons that aren't entirely clear to me, it tends to be easier to accurately gauge what's going on when one is not participating; this may be why poker dealers often overestimate their poker-playing skills, finding that their ability to guess players' cards erodes substantially when they're participating as an opponent rather just watching than as a neutral observer), and usually only after all of the action is completed, so that I'm operating with maximal information.

One time at the Hilton I was watching a multi-way pot develop. Barry, an off-duty Hilton dealer, was one of the contestants. When he made a big bet on the river, I had the highest degree of confidence in what exact two cards he had in the hole that I have ever felt in any poker situation. I would have been positively floored if he had anything else, because only one possible combination made sense. In fact, I'm ashamed to say that I blurted out, "I know what Barry has," with a little laugh. I instantly regretted it, because it could easily have queered the action. (He had the nuts and was wanting to get paid off.) It's the only time I've violated the rule about talking about the hand in progress in a way that could unfairly influence the betting and/or help or hinder another player. It blurted out of me because I thought it was so painfully obvious what he had, that, for that split second, I imagined that that conclusion must be equally apparent to everybody else, so what harm could there be in saying something? But then just as quickly I thought better, realizing that it might not be so clear to everybody. Indeed it wasn't, and Barry did get paid by one of the lesser hands. When it was over, I apologized profusely and repeatedly to both Barry and the whole table for injecting myself.

Anyway, the point is that that degree of pinpoint clarity is really, really rare in poker. And even then, it still doesn't reach what I would consider to be "knowing" what somebody's cards are.

It's another in the long list of stupid things to say at the poker table. Try to refrain from it.