A compliment unique to poker

I had an unusual experience last night with my two-fer, playing first at South Point and then at the Orleans: In both places, an opponent that I had spanked made a quite conspicuous move to take a seat to my left.


South Point: An early-position player (the guy on the right in the Esfandiari picture a couple of posts down), whom I had quickly pegged as being the smartest, trickiest opponent I had to deal with at this table, raised. I was on the button with 4-6 offsuit and called, hoping to hit something entirely disguised.

The flop was K-K-4, rainbow. My opponent bet $25. I called. My initial thought was that he probably didn't have a king, and a smooth call here would lead him to think that I did have one and that I was therefore trying to let him bluff again. In games at this level, most players in early position in such a situation will fire once on the flop, but not again on the turn unless they actually have a king. Basically, I was floating him, hoping to take the pot away when he couldn't keep firing at it. However, pairing the 4 did give me some "plan B" alternatives if needed.

The turn was an offsuit 10. My opponent pushed out a stack of $100, which was just enough to put me all in if I called. This was not what I had expected, and it made for a very difficult situation. With one of the more straightforward opponents at the table, I would pretty much have to conclude that he did, in fact, have a king. But this guy was definitely smart enough to get inside my head and, recognizing me as a fellow smart and potentially tricky player, know that I could make that flop call very light with an eye toward stealing on a later street. Therefore, he could simply be countering that move, even though he missed the flop.

Look at it from his point of view. He could expect me to have one of the following:

1) A true monster, like K-K or 4-4.

2) A nearly certain winner, especially A-K, with which I'm hoping he'll put in more money.

3) A king with a weaker kicker (K-Q, K-J, K-10), in which case my flop call was saying, "I like the trips, but I'm worried that you have A-K, so I'm reluctant to put it all in."

4) A pocket pair lower than the kings--maybe 8s or 9s, in which case my flop call was saying, "I want to see if you really have a king by watching to see what you do on the turn." An A-4 in the hole might be similar.

5) Complete air, floating him.

He understandably would have discounted (1) and (2) as improbable. Once he limited my range to (3), (4), and (5), putting me to a test for all of my chips was a very smart and bold move, because if I made my decision based on card strength alone, it was more likely that I couldn't call than that I could.

I took what I'm sure was at least two full minutes to think about this--maybe the longest I've ever kept a table waiting. It was one of the rare situations in which I had to do the thinking-one-level-deeper-than-one's-opponent thing. I finally concluded essentially what I just outlined above about what he would be thinking about me, and why he did what he did.

I didn't think he had a king, because if he had a king it would almost have to be K-K, A-K, or maybe suited K-Q to explain his early-position pre-flop raise, and with those big hands I doubted that he would lead out betting. Rather, he would check and either check-raise if I bet or let me have a free card to get something that I could call him with on the turn. I thought that A-Q or A-J was his most likely holding. I did have to worry some about Q-Q or J-J, etc. However, I thought it more likely that after my flop call he would try to keep the pot smaller and go passive to try to get to a cheap showdown with such hands.

It was risky, but I finally felt best about assigning him A-Q or A-J, a standard continuation bet on the flop, and a smart analysis of what I would be holding and thinking in order to make the big bet on the turn. If I was right, then calling was the thing to do. It took a lot of courage, and was one of the most difficult hero calls I've made since living here, but I pushed my chips out.

The dealer put a blank out on the river (a 7, I think). My opponent said "ace-queen," and then showed the same. I flipped over my cards--bottom pair with no kicker--and tapped the 4. The chorus from the table of "Wow" and "Great call" was almost as rewarding as the money. OK, not really, but it was nice anyway. Actually, now that I reflect on it, I think my own personal satisfaction at having analyzed the situation so well and having had the stones to act on it was better than the admiration of the table. (Hey, nobody can admire me as well as I can admire myself!)

What's weird is how this hand would look to an player with a little experience--maybe one who has watched a fair amount of televised poker but not played a lot. Except for the long thinking pause, it would look exactly like a donkey call: idiot sees a big pair and an overcard on the board, with an opponent showing strength, and still thinks his bottom pair might be good.

The truth is that it was a deeper level of play than is usually seen (or is usually profitable) at these limits. My opponent made an excellent read of what my range of cards could be and what I would be thinking he might have, and made a strong attempt to exploit the card weakness that he correctly guessed I was stuck with. (At least I think that's what happened. Of course, I don't really know what he was thinking. It's possible he wasn't thinking much at all. But based on watching him for a couple of hours, I'm comfortable attributing to him a pretty sophisticated game.) I, in turn, was able to make a slightly better play based on figuring out what he thought I would be thinking. I earned the pot not only by having a better hand, but by getting inside his head a little bit better than he got inside mine.

But now I'm straying from my original point. I didn't really mean to get into a deep analysis of the hand (though I think it's an unusually interesting one). Getting back to the story, it was just a few minutes later that I busted Mr. Esfandiari, and my opponent in the hand in this story quickly got up to claim that seat, two to my left. I assume that he decided that I was a player on whom he wanted to have good position.


Orleans: I started off at a must-move table. My second hand after moving to a regular game I had J-Q in late position. A middle-position player put in a standard raise. He's somebody I've played with once before at the Orleans. (By the way, I don't have a phenomenal general memory, but I'm pleased that my ability to remember specific opponents and their tendencies has grown tremendously since I've started this gig. I have a long way to go in that department still, but the fact that I can remember this guy from a single session several months ago is a lot more than I would have been capable of two years ago.) He's smart, aggressive, and potentially tricky. He's a poker dealer somewhere else (can't remember where), but not very prone to the common maladies of play that I see most dealers succumb to. I called, though not really liking the situation. J-Q is way too prone to being second-best and it too often makes for painful decisions later in the hand, because it's close to but slightly behind the range of cards commonly used for making the initial raise.

Flop was 9-10-x, giving me an open-ended straight draw. He bet again. I called. The turn was a brick. He checked and looked concerned. I bet about 3/4 of the pot. He thought a long time, tried to ask me questions about what I had, etc. He finally folded.

A few minutes later, the guy on my immediate left packed up and went home. The player I had just beaten in this pot made a beeline for the now-open seat. It's hard not to conclude that he moved because of me. After all, if he just hated the 10 seat, he would have moved to the 2 seat (where I was) before I got to the table.

Maybe 30 minutes later, he was obviously still obsessing over the pot we had contested, and he asked me what I had had. I remember him as being a pleasant, polite, and friendly guy from our previous session, and, besides, I knew I would be leaving soon, so I decided it was OK to tell him the truth: I had a good draw, position, and a bit of moxie. He believably told me that he had had 8-8 in the hole. Assuming that's true, I had 12 outs (four kings and two more 8s to make a straight plus six cards that would make me a bigger pair), so I probably would have played it the same if his cards had been face up, which is always a nice thing to realize after the fact. Rather than either berate me for a stupid bluff or kick himself for not calling with his better hand, he said, in what struck me as a sincere voice, "Then it was a really nice move. I wanted to call, but there were too many ways you could have had me beat. I thought you probably had jacks."


So there you have it. One of the highest compliments one poker player can pay another is both silent and unparalleled in any other area of human activity: Moving to a different seat so as to gain a positional advantage. It is, in effect, saying, "Sir, you are a handful to deal with, and I'm going to need whatever edge I can get on you."

Thanks, guys. I'm flattered!


(It has not escaped my attention that another reason one might move to a particular player's left is that chips tend to flow clockwise, so, all else being equal, one would like to have the seat to the immediate left of the biggest donkey at the table, in order to catch as much of his chip-spewing as possible. It's possible that I'm suffering from a self-delusion of being pretty good at this game, when I'm actually the live one at the table. That seems objectively doubtful, though, based on a couple of years of a winning record. But it is certainly possible that one or both of the players in these two stories were thinking not so much, "He's the best player and I need to get a positional advantage on him," but more like, "What a moron--let me move to where I can best profit from his idiocy." It's better for my ego, though, not to consider this possibility too strongly.)