Poker tells on NPR

I heard this story today on "Weekend Edition Sunday": http://www.npr.org/2013/04/14/177204411/a-poker-players-tells-are-in-the-hands-as-much-as-the-face

The audio and transcript will be posted later today.

Selling it

Last night I was playing at Binion's, Seat 1. Very early in the session I saw Seat 4 make a couple of very thin calls on the river (one of which was right and one wrong), and mentally pegged him as a calling station. Value-bet him, sez I to myself, no bluffing him.

Maybe an hour later I had been card-dead for quite a while, so I decided to raise with 10-8 offsuit from the cutoff seat. Most of my winning hands had been raise in position pre-flop, c-bet post, take it down. When the table is willing to let me do that, it obviously doesn't matter much what cards I have, as long as I'm not doing it so often as to arouse suspicion. I hoped that this hand would be yet another small win following the same pattern. The only caller was Seat 4 in the big blind.

Flop was A-J-9 with two hearts. Mr. Station checked. I thought this was a nearly ideal situation. I could represent the ace with a bet and have a high probability of ending the hand. If he called, I had an open-ended straight draw which, if it hit, would be thoroughly disguised, because he would never guess that I had open-raised with 10-8, given my tight image. If he were on a flush draw I could keep betting at any non-heart and likely win that way. If a heart came and he checked it, I could represent having made the flush. Lots of possibilities here for how to win this hand.

So I bet $15 into the roughly $20 pot. I was quite surprised to have him respond with a raise to $45. I didn't recall having seen him do a check-raise before. Yet I didn't get a sense from him of great strength, like a set. It felt more like a guy with an ace saying, "I don't think you have one." Very few players at these stakes check-raise a bare flush draw; rather, they use the check-raise to guard against opponents' flush draws. (The ace was one of the hearts, so he couldn't have top pair and a flush draw.) I considered my options, and settled on a call, hoping to either hit my hidden straight or get a heart which I could pretend completed my flush.

Turn was an offsuit 3. Whiff. I probably would have given up if he had made another substantial bet. But instead he checked. The check-raise/check pattern made me much more confident that, whatever he had, it was not a hand with which he was eager to get all of his chips in, which was a crucial point of demarcation. I took the free card.

River was the 4 of hearts. Now the question was what he would do. If he bet, I would have to conclude that he had flopped a pair and a flush draw, and abandon ship. But if he checked, then it would be much more likely that he hated the third heart than that he loved it.

Sure enough, he checked again. I moved all-in for my last $137. He sat back to think, and was pointedly studying me.

My usual practice when I am putting an opponent to a big test is to say nothing, no matter what. I rest my chin on my hands, remember to breathe normally, feel relaxed, kind of aimlessly look around at the pot, the TVs, the other players, or whatever else may be going on--and I try to do this exactly the same whether I have the stone-cold nuts or "what the little boy shot at."*

Here, however, the situation was somewhat different than usual. This guy was clearly suspicious, both by general disposition and because of the specific situation. Sure, I had played the flop and turn in a way that was consistent with a flush draw. The hole in the story, though, was that most of the time the pre-flop raiser will not have the flush draw when two of a suit come on the flop. The reason for that is simple: There are a lot more raiseworthy hands that contain different suits than are of the same suit, and even those that are of the same suit will be of a different suit than hits the flop three out of four times. If he was experienced enough to understand this truth, he was going to be leaning towards a thin call even more than was already his natural inclination. This was a high-risk, high-pucker-factor situation I was putting myself in. I felt that a little more salesmanship than usual was called for.

Very early in his tanking, he said, "Well, obviously you're saying that you made the flush. The question is, did you?" He quickly followed this with a friendly, "You're not required to answer that." Ordinarily I would ignore this or just give a small smile. But I wanted to stretch the envelope of my normal posture and conduct just a little toward the "I'm comfortable and relaxed" side, without overdoing it so much that he would recognize Hollywooding in me. So, playing off of what he had just said, I turned to the dealer and jokingly asked, "Do you have a player's Miranda warning here? Like, 'You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you'?" The dealer and a couple of other players chuckled, which helped me to smile along with them and, I hoped, look like everything was right in my world.

This all went on for a long time--three or four minutes, anyway. He counted out the chips for a call, and looked at what he would have left if he lost. I watched him intermittently, but remembered not to freeze up in either my breathing or where I was looking, which is one of the more reliable signs of a bluffer. At one point he asked me the classic, "If I fold, will you show?" Again, I usually ignore such questions completely, but this time I fudged just a little on the looking-relaxed side by smiling nicely at him and giving him a "Gee, I just don't know what I'll do" shrug.

I really thought he was going to call. But finally he sighed, looked dejected, took one last look at his cards, gave them that resigned snap with the index finger (what IS that gesture about, anyway?), and passed them back to the dealer face down. Pot to me.

I did not show.

He said, "I don't think you had it." I just smiled. Seat 2 immediately opined to Seat 4, "I think he had you all the way." Seat 4 asked, "You think he could beat two pair?" Seat 2 said, "Oh yeah, he looked really strong to me. I think he was stringing you along." Seat 4 said, "Well then maybe I made a good fold."

Yes sir, you absolutely did. As John-Robert Bellande likes to say, "Excellent laydown!" Excellent for me, that is.

(From the post-mortem discussion, I'm thinking that maybe he had A-9 or J-9, and checked the turn out of worry that I had top two pair with A-J, but that's just a guess, obviously.)

*Wow. I haven't heard or used this phrase in years and years. I don't know why it just leapt to mind to deploy here. When my grandmother taught me how to play cribbage, if one ended up with a nothing hand, that's what she called it--"What the little boy shot at." For a nice little exposition on the history and meaning of this phrase, see here.

When to look at your cards?

Steve Zolotow, in his column for Card Player magazine, June 13, 2012, writes this (page 40):

I hope everyone avoids looking at their cards until it is their turn to act. There are two reasons for this. First, you can't reveal anything about your hand because you don't know it yet. Second, you can focus on your opponents and not on your cards.

I have, of course, heard this argument before--many times, in fact. When I was first learning about poker by watching television shows like World Poker Tour and Celebrity Poker Showdown, I specifically remember hearing both Phil Gordon and Annie Duke explain that looking at one's cards before it is one's turn is an amateurish mistake.

I disagree.

I understand perfectly well the arguments made in favor of waiting to look. But what advocates of this position usually omit, or perhaps do not grasp, is that there are countervailing arguments.

First, waiting to look until it's your turn means that the whole game runs more slowly. That is not a small consideration.

Second, to quote Phil Ivey, "If you have tells, work on them." If you're giving away information by body language or facial expressions when you check your hole cards, that's a problem you need to fix pronto. Whether you give off that information a few seconds after you get your cards or only when it's your turn makes little difference. You need to not be spewing such tells, period. Of course it is the case that your action (fold, call, or raise) will also be giving off information, but that is a separate matter. You don't want your face and body to be saying one thing and your bet a contradictory thing.

Third, if you wait to look until it's your turn, all eyes will be on you as you do so, because everybody is waiting for you to act. Thus, if you do have tells, the way to be sure they get maximal attention from opponents is to wait until everybody is watching you while you check your hole cards. On the other hand, if you do it when most other players are doing it--as they receive their last down card--they're all busy with their eyes elsewhere.

Fourth, if you wait until it's your turn, you're likely to give off information by how long it takes you to decide what to do after looking at your cards. Raise or not? If so, how much? Even if your face reveals nothing, the delay in action can suggest how complicated or difficult your decision is. I say let that decisional time pass while other things are going on.

I don't usually like appeals to authority in argument, but it is definitely not the case that all the best players in the world wait to look until it is their turn to act. These days we are getting more and more live broadcasts of late stages of big poker tournaments. Just watch--you'll see that there is a lot of variation on this point among the greats. Though T.J. Cloutier seems to be pretty much vanishing from the tournament scene now that he is, sadly, in the twilight of his life, I clearly remember him addressing this controversy in one of his books. He said that he likes to give a quick glance at his cards as soon as they arrive, then direct his attention at what how the other players are reacting to theirs. I agree with him. It takes literally one second or less, so you won't be missing much.

I like having my own cards in mind as I watch the other players act. Often my default decision about what to do changes. A completely crap hand becomes raiseworthy if I'm in late position and everybody has folded. Marginal hands like A-8 and Q-J can go from being planned raises to being folds if there is any action before it gets to me, or reraises if a raise comes from a habitually frisky player. And so forth. I would be stunned beyond belief if any of my opponents can read on my face these changes in my thinking as the action unfolds.

For what it's worth, I've noticed that Cardgrrl adopts a compromise position. She looks at her cards when the action is about two seats to her right. There is an argument to be made that this tactic incorporates some of the advantages of both of the more common approaches (looking immediately, or not until it's your turn). It's worth considering.

I don't mind that there are differences of opinion, preference, and style on this question. What bugs me, though, is how dogmatic many proponents of the Zolotow/Gordon/Duke position are about it--insisting that theirs is the only right way and any deviation from it is a clear error. I just don't buy it.

Good read, good call, good courage

My friend Poker Lawyer (PL) is in town. She came with her friend, Texas Cardslinger (Terry). Yesterday all three of us were playing at the same table at Imperial Palace, when an interesting hand came up.

Terry raised preflop to $12. PL called. I folded. Seat 1 was a middle-aged Asian gentleman, extremely quiet, pretty tight. He reraised to $35 on the button--the first three-bet we had seen from him in a couple of hours of play. Both Terry and PL called.

The flop was uncoordinated, 10-high and rainbow. All three players checked. Seat 1 hesitated a while before checking, whereas he usually acted quickly. I thought he was having trouble deciding whether to bet.

Fourth street was the jack of spades, the second spade on the board. Terry led out betting--I'm thinking it was small, like $20, but I don't remember for sure. PL folded. Seat 1 rechecked his hole cards (about which more later), thought about it a while, then called.

Let's pause here a minute and see if we can figure out what Seat 1 has. His very rare three-bet, even with position, drastically narrowed his range: A-K, or pocket jacks or better. Maybe 10s, but that was less likely. The check behind on the flop was a complete surprise. It seemed to me inconceivable that he would check there with any overpair, giving two opponents a free card, when there was already over $100 in the pot that he presumably would like to move to his stack. The only possibilities, really, were A-K that had missed, or, much less likely, pocket 10s slow-playing top set. His call on the turn strongly suggested a draw--either A-K with the gutshot or a flush draw, possibly both.

Fifth street brought a blank--3 of diamonds, or something equally inconsequential. Terry again bet, and this time I'm sure it was $20. Seat 1 again pondered, then raised another $80 to $100.

Huh? That move surprised me even more than his check on the flop had. I was pretty thoroughly convinced that he had A-K and would fold if he failed to hit an ace, king, or spade. What in the world is he doing? And what is he doing it with? And why so much? His bets and raises had usually been on the conservative side--2-3x (though not always--once he had shoved about $55 into a $15 pot). I don't think we had seem him bluff even once, but because I could not come up with any hand with which he would plausibly take this bizarro line, I ended up concluding that my previous assessment was probably still correct, and he was bluffing a busted draw. The sealer on it was a raise size that was screaming "Go away!" rather than "Please call."

I hoped that Terry would call, both because I thought it would be correct with even weakish made hands, but also so that I would get to see whether my read of the situation was correct. I was afraid that she wouldn't, though; what I had seen of her play had been fairly timid unless she had a very strong hand. But after a little thought, she quietly told the dealer, "OK, I call."

Seat 1 said, "Good call," and flipped up his As-Ks. Terry's A-J won the pot.

A little quiet exchange between the three of us (all on one end of the table) confirmed that Terry was not just blindly looking at top pair/top kicker and deciding that was a hand she had to call with. She had followed essentially the same reasoning process I'm describing here. The inconsistency in Seat 1's pattern of betting had definitely caught her attention.

I may be making it sound like an easy call, but I don't think it was. When a player as tight as Seat 1 three-bets for the first time in hours, you naturally assume he has either aces or kings, even if he subsequently plays the hand in a way that would not be expected for those holdings. Also, the flopped top set remained a viable candidate. (10s are, along with jacks, in that range that people hate to have to play post-flop with the nearly inevitable overcards, so some players will three-bet with them in an effort to end the hand early.) A one-pair hand, even if it is TP/TK, is at best a medium-strength hand, and it would take screwing up some courage to call a big river raise. I was genuinely impressed with and proud of Terry's call.

What lessons can we learn from this hand? At least three.

1. A bluff has to tell a consistent story. His river raise was pure desperation, when he realized he had missed his draws and had only one way to win the pot--steal it. He did not stop to consider how his line would look to an opponent. Before you bluff on the river, you have to ask yourself what it is, exactly, that you want your opponent to believe. Once you've settled on that, then you have to review how the hand has been played and see if the hand you want to represent having would have been played this way. Finally, you have to assess whether your opponent is savvy enough to read the (false) clues you are giving to reach the conclusion you wish to suggest. If the story you're telling is not consistent from beginning to end, thinking players will call you from confusion, curiosity, or both. People don't like to fold, especially after they have put a lot of money into a pot. They have to be pretty thoroughly convinced that putting more chips in is throwing good money after bad. An inconsistent story will not accomplish that persuasion.

2. Consider the power of the continuation bet. Had he simply pushed out a stack of, say, $50 when both opponents checked to him on the flop, he would have seen two folds followed by the dealer pushing the pot his way. I would have concluded that he had aces or kings, and I suspect that both PL and Terry would have done the same.

3. The third lesson is about a very specific but useful tell. Note that I said he rechecked his hole cards after the second spade hit. What I didn't tell you was that on two previous occasions I had seen him do the same thing.

The first was soon after I joined the table. I bought the button, paid a little more to call a small raise, and was pleased to see a flop of K-8-8 (with two hearts), which nicely fit my 8-9 in the hole. I bet, original raiser folded, Seat 1 called. He clearly had either a king, an 8, or a flush draw. The turn was another heart. Before I acted, I noticed that he rechecked his hole cards. Aha! That strongly suggested that he had not had a flush draw that had just come in.

Here's why. Most recreational players don't memorize the suits of their cards. They retain a visual memory that they have either two red cards, two black cards, or one red and one black, but they don't know the suits with any confidence. If he had had two red cards, he would have rechecked them on the flop to see if he had a flush draw before deciding whether to call. But he didn't. He only rechecked them on the turn, suggesting that he had one red card and one black card, and wanted to see if he now had a backdoor flush draw that he might make on the river.

I had been planning to check if a heart hit, thinking that the draw was his most likely hand, but when I saw him check his cards again, that changed my mind. I bet and he folded. I think he probably had a king and nothing else.

A while later, PL had been in a hand with him in which she similarly had to decipher whether he had a flush, but again he didn't check his cards until the third spade came, implying that he did not have a made flush at that point. I don't remember enough details of that hand to recount it, and we didn't see his cards, but his subsequent fold again proved that he did not have a flush.

In the hand that is the subject of this post, his check of his hole cards on the turn implied that he had two black cards, though if a third spade had hit the river, it would have been difficult to know whether he had seen two spades or a spade and a club.

This tell is very common among recreational players, but it is by no means universal, so you have to act on it with some care. Some players do memorize their suits, but when their flush comes in they want to reassure themselves that they didn't misread their cards, so will recheck before committing a lot more money to the pot. Others, of course, are aware of this common tell and are smart enough to use it deceptively against you. Such players will check their hole cards when a third suited card hits the board in order to make you think they only now have a draw, when their flush is actually made. Or, conversely, they will check their cards when the flop has two of a suit in order to make you think they have the flush draw, so that they can bluff when the third suited card comes. But both of these species of player are much rarer than people like Seat 1 in low-stakes games.

The Man Who Folds Aces, and other stories from the MGM

Yesterday was another in the roughly twice-yearly series of tournaments sponsored by allvegaspoker.com. This time it was at the MGM Grand, so I headed over there in the afternoon to get registered early and play some cash games before the tournament. There were several things worth reporting.

Oh, Those Kids!

On my way to the poker room, I stopped in a restroom. Access to the only two urinals was impeded by a couple of guys in yellow one-piece outfits, rolled down to their waists, clearly trying to figure out how to accomplish something, though what, exactly, I could not say at first. They kindly yielded to let me take care of business.

While I was washing my hands, they finally got into position for their stunt. I turned around and saw this:

While two friends videorecorded the feat, one of these guys was supporting the other urinating while doing a handstand.

Why? Well, there was some sort of team name written on the rear of their odd outfits, and I overheard them talking about what a difficult "task" this one was. From that, I surmise that they are one of several teams attempting to accomplish a list of fun/crazy stunts first (or best), in order to win some prize. But I didn't stop to ask the details. I just took my Weird Photo of the Day and went my way.

Their mothers must be so proud.

The AVP Tournament

This thing was huge. They ended up with something like 330 participants, which I think is triple what they've ever had before. I have no idea how it suddenly exploded in popularity, but it was pretty overwhelming, given what I had come to expect. These used to be fairly small, cozy affairs where I would know a hefty percentage of the players from the AVP forum, but yesterday I had no idea who anybody at my table was, nor they me.

It was all set up in an area away from the main poker room, next to the lion's den. It appears that MGM has decided to start taking the poker tournament market seriously. In addition to sacrificing a sizable area of what had been slot-machine casino floor space, they invested in a bunch of new tables with very attractive felt:

They have also acquired lovely new tournament chips:

I especially like that they are color-keyed to match what we already expect from cash chips--green for 25, black for 100, etc. Nice touch. My only complaint is that the 1000s and 5000s look too much alike from a distance.

A few minutes into the second level of play, I had A-A and reraised the table's most aggressive player, who called. The flop was bone-dry, 2-5-9 rainbow. He bet at it, I shoved all-in. He looked unhappy, asked for a count, then, shaking his head, said, "I've gotta call you." He had K-K. Which was perfectly fine with me, until another king hit the turn, and just that fast I was out.

Well, at least I didn't invest eight hours in the thing, only to have the same result on the bubble.

Laser Read

OK, I'll admit it up front: I'm telling this story only as a brag about how sick-accurate a read I had on one player in the cash game. There were several limpers--including me one off the button with 3-3--before he popped it to $18 from the small blind. As I've said many time, whenever I see a raise that large, I assume the player has J-J until proven otherwise. Two others called, so I did also, pure set-mining.

The flop was A-J-J. Normally my inclination would be to cancel the suspicion that the raiser had J-J. The probability of hitting four of a kind is just too remote to entertain. But I watched his reaction, and he was clearly confused, trying to figure out whether to bet or check. I had not seen anything like this facial expression on him in the hour or so that we had been playing together. He finally settled on a check, but his look and hesitation sealed the deal for me: He had flopped the joint.

Mind you, this was not just a passing thought on my part. I can't prove this to anybody, but I was so convinced of my read that I told myself, "Even if I get a free card and hit a set on the turn, I'm not putting another dime into this pot." Everybody checked.

I don't remember what came on the turn; it didn't matter to me. Our raiser bet and got one caller, who I thought was being foolish not to have noticed what was going on. I folded.

River came. I don't know what it was. I was too focused on watching the players. Our raiser bet again, got another bet out of his caller, then rolled over his J-J flopped quads.

This was a really strange experience that is hard to describe. There have been a few occasions where, with three of a kind on the board, a betting pattern only made sense if a player had the fourth of that rank, and I have on that basis been reasonably confident in making such a read. But I have never before been even remotely this confident that I was up against a pocket pair having made quads on the flop the moment it happened. This time, somehow, I just knew.

They should fire Norman Chad and hire me to do the Jack Links Beef Jerky wild card hands for the WSOP broadcasts.

Pardon Me, But Your Tell is Showing

I mentioned recently (here and here) Jean-Robert Bellande masterfully using a common tell in a reverse fashion, to perfect effect. Yesterday was one of the occasions when its more usual, straightforward reading came into play.

I had 4s-5s in the big blind and called a middle-position raise. The flop was 10-2-2 rainbow, with one spade. I checked, he bet, and I called. I thought that he most likely had two big unpaired cards and whiffed this flop. My plan was this: If he bet strongly on the turn, such that I believed him to have a big pocket pair, I would fold. If he bet weakly, confirming my impression of big unpaired cards, I would check-raise. If he checked behind, I would lead out on the river if it appeared to be a card that would have missed him (i.e., not a Broadway card).

Fourth street brought the 3s. Now I had an open-ended straight flush draw. My plan stayed the same, except that now I would call any reasonable-sized bet he might make, even if he looked overpair-strong, because hitting either my straight or flush on the river would be marvelously disguised, and I would have a good chance of claiming his entire stack.

He checked behind.

Fifth street was the 3c. Dang. Not only did I miss, but bluffing him just became harder, because he might call holding any ace, on the grounds that I might be betting with a weaker ace, and two pair on the board would result in a chopped pot. I was suddenly unsure whether the chances of my planned bluff succeeding were high enough to warrant risking it.

My dilemma was neatly solved, however, when I saw him grab a stack of chips and hold it off the felt in front of his cards, staring right at me, in one of the most flagrant "I'm gonna call you, sucker, so WATCH OUT!" moves I've ever seen.

I had figured out on my own the implication of this gesture before I got around to reading Caro's Book of Poker Tells, but since it's a classic work and Mike Caro is the master, let's let him explain it (pages 212-214 in the 2003 Cardozo reprint, and photo 89):

Among beginning and intermediate players, this is a common method of trying to prevent a bet. The reason players want to stop you from betting is because they hold weak hands with some possibility of winning. In other words, they'd like to see both hands shown down on the table. Then maybe they can salvage the pot. Reaching for chips is intended to show strength and appear threatening. As you now know, players staring at you are less of a threat than those staring away. So here we have a classic example of a woman combining two tells that point in the same direction (looking at the bettor and reaching for her chips). She is probably holding a marginally weak hand. This gives you opportunities to bet hands you would have otherwise checked.

Caro rates this tell as 97% reliable among weak players, 91% reliable among average players, 73% reliable among strong players.

His over-the-top attempt to stop me from betting had precisely the opposite effect: It let me know that it was safe to proceed. I bet about two-thirds the pot, and he flung his cards away in disgust. I suspect he had A-K, and had no idea how far ahead of me he was. (In fact, I literally had the worst possible hand. Anything he held would beat me.) If he hadn't gone for the intimidation move, I well might have decided a bluff would work too infrequently to be profitable and given up.

The Man Who Folds Aces

Shortly before I left for the tournament, this hand went down. I was in the small blind, Seat 1. Seat 3 was under the gun. He was a classic elderly rock. I had been playing with him for nearly two hours, and he had never, never, put in a pre-flop raise. He was so conservative that he wouldn't even bet a nut straight if a possible backdoor flush had come in. I had seen him be aggressive in only two spots, and he had shown the nuts both times.

So when this guy, first to act, fumbled around with his chips trying to decide on an opening raise amount, you can bet that it caught my attention. He settled on just $7. He's got aces or kings, with very little doubt about it. Apparently other players don't pay attention to the same things that I do, because he picked up several callers. Then the guy in Seat 9, on the button, reraised to $27. I had some small suited connectors and had thought about calling; with so many others in the pot and only $5 more to me, and my call likely to close out the action (assuming the big blind didn't raise), it would probably be worthwhile to try to flop a sneaky monster. But the reraise foiled that plan, not only because the price just went up, but because of the heavy likelihood that our Grumpy Old Man (him, not me) would decide he didn't want to be playing from out of position against such a large field, and put in a prohibitive four-bet. I folded.

Sure enough, GOM made it $49 to go. Now the surprising move: Seat 4 five-bet all-in. This was the same guy who had hit the quad jacks earlier--a 30-ish Asian guy. This folded the field back to GOM, who had way more chips than Seat 4. I anticipated an instant call. Instead, he asked the dealer for a count. It was something like $120 more. He grimaced, sighed, thought a few seconds, then said, "OK, I call."

Based on that, I mentally downgraded him from aces to kings. But even with kings it was kind of a strange hesitation. He could not reasonably think that Seat 4 held aces--practically nobody would play aces that way. It should still have been an instacall. Remember, nobody else was left in the hand, so there was no role for feigning weakness in order to lure more money into the pot. I concluded that I would most likely see K-K for GOM, and a medium pocket pair--maybe 8s or 9s--for Seat 4.

I was pretty close on the latter; he flipped over 10-10. But I was astonished when GOM turned up his pocket aces. I mean, sure, that's what I had initially suspected was his most likely hand, but his reluctance to call when faced with an all-in made no sense.

After the board had played out without an upset, Seat 4 was walking away, and GOM was stacking chips, I asked him, "What was all that about asking for a count of his stack and thinking about whether you'd call?"

His face darkened with resentment and defensiveness. "I wanted to know how much it was--is that all right with you?"

"Sure, but is there some amount it could have been that you would not have called?"

"Yes, there is."

I didn't believe this for a second. "Oh really? How much would have been too much for you?"

"A number bigger than he had."

"Really? You'd fold aces if his stack was bigger?"

"Yes. I've done it many times before."

I dropped the matter there. He was either lying but too stubborn to back down, or he was serious and actually plays that way, and I wouldn't want to dissuade him from such stupidity.

There exist rare but valid circumstances in which it can be correct to fold aces before the flop in a tournament. But there are no circumstances in which it is mathematically correct to fold aces before the flop in a cash game.* Pocket aces are at worst about a 3:1 favorite over any hand that your opponent might have. If you're unwilling to wager all the chips you have on the table as a 3:1 or better favorite, you're doin' it wrong. If you're afraid of losing your entire stack because you can't afford to be without it, you shouldn't be playing.

I still can't decide whether (A) this guy is so unbelievably tight in his play that was actually considering a fold there, (B) he lost track of the situation, thought there was still somebody else in the hand that he was trying to reel in, and was unwilling to admit that mistake after the fact, or (C) was putting on a show for no reason, and bizarrely lying to me about it in self-defense afterwards.

I've gotta say that I'm leaning towards A. Maybe he was leveling me, but my read was that he was being straight, and didn't appreciate having his, um, shall we say, unorthodox, methods challenged.

*I say "mathematically" there because Tommy Angelo has famously written about the amazing psychological results he achieved by folding aces before the flop--just to prove to himself that he could do it, and just to see what it felt like. See here.

Bellande 2

Finally found video of the Bellande gambit I mentioned last night. Here ya go:

Brer Bellande

I was watching this week's WSOP installments earlier today, and saw something unusual that I thought was worth commenting on. Jean-Robert Bellande raised with K-J and was rewarded by flopping a full house. He bet at it, got one caller. As it happened, the caller had 8-4, i.e., nothing at all. Bellande couldn't know whether the caller had caught a piece of the flop or was just floating him, but for his purposes, it didn't matter.

The turn card was something inconsequential. Here's where Bellande shined. He immediately started cutting out some chip stacks as if he were trying to settle on a bet size, but then looked up and checked instead.

I have seen this move hundreds of times, and I have never known it to be anything other than weakness. The player doing it is trying to convey strength to his opponent. The gesture is meant to make the opponent think, "That guy was about to make a big bet, but then checked instead. He must be trying to trap me, so I'll just check behind."

Bellande, however, was using it as a reverse tell, which I've never seen anyone do before. He knows perfectly well that that move is usually one performed by a player feigning strength, so he pulled it off when he was actually strong. It was brilliant. He pulled it off perfectly. I think I would have been suckered in if I had been the one in position against him. After you've seen it done a few dozen times, the move, meant to be intimidating, actually comes to resemble a green light.

That's certainly how the other guy with the big stack read it. He shoved. Bellande called, obviously, and got his double-up.

It was a really nice example of silently manipulating an opponent into doing exactly what you want him to do.

**********

"'I don't keer w'at you do wid me, Brer Fox,' sezee, 'so you don't fling me in dat brier-patch. Roas' me, Brer Fox' sezee, 'but don't fling me in dat brierpatch,' sezee.

"'Hit's so much trouble fer ter kindle a fier,' sez Brer Fox, sezee, 'dat I speck I'll hatter hang you,' sezee.

"'Hang me des ez high as you please, Brer Fox,' sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, 'but do fer de Lord's sake don't fling me in dat brier- patch,' sezee.

"'I ain't got no string,' sez Brer Fox, sezee, 'en now I speck I'll hatter drown you,' sezee.

"'Drown me des ez deep ez you please, Brer Fox,' sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, 'but do don't fling me in dat brier-patch,' sezee.

"'Dey ain't no water nigh,' sez Brer Fox, sezee, 'en now I speck I'll hatter skin you,' sezee.

"'Skin me, Brer Fox,' sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, 'snatch out my eyeballs, t'ar out my years by de roots, en cut off my legs,' sezee, 'but do please, Brer Fox, don't fling me in dat brier- patch,' sezee.

"Co'se Brer Fox wanter hurt Brer Rabbit bad ez he kin, so he cotch 'im by de behime legs en slung 'im right in de middle er de brier-patch. Dar wuz a considerbul flutter whar Brer Rabbit struck de bushes, en Brer Fox sorter hang 'roun' fer ter see w'at wuz gwineter happen. Bimeby he hear somebody call 'im, en way up de hill he see Brer Rabbit settin' crosslegged on a chinkapin log koamin' de pitch outen his har wid a chip. Den Brer Fox know dat he bin swop off mighty bad. Brer Rabbit wuz bleedzed fer ter fling back some er his sass, en he holler out:

"'Bred en bawn in a brier-patch, Brer Fox—bred en bawn in a brier-patch!' en wid dat he skip out des ez lively ez a cricket in de embers."

From Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings, by Joel Chandler Harris, available here.

Pre-flop thoughts

Over the years I have evolved a whole bunch of poker-related routines. Some of these I have shared with you, others not. Most of them are just unforgivably boring, such as why I like one particular style of shirt as my poker "uniform." (No, I'm not going to explain it--like I said, way too boring.) Others might be of interest to some readers. For no particular reason other than that it occurred to me just now, I'm going to try to relate what I think about between pre-flop betting and the flop's appearance.

First I recheck my hole cards, memorizing both ranks and suits. I never want to join the players who see two of a suit on the flop and then look at their hole cards again to see if they have a flush draw; rather, I want to be the one who already knows that, and watches the others to see who is looking.

Next I recheck my position relative to both the button and the others in the hand. Am I going to be first to act? Last? Somewhere in the middle? I count how many are in (dealers are supposed to announce this, but they get it wrong too frequently to rely on) and make a mental note that I'm third of four, or whatever. I also note who is first to act, because my habit is to glance at the flop, then move my eyes to whoever is up first.


Side note: There are lots of players who have learned from various sources that they shouldn't look at the flop as it is being put out, but instead should watch for opponents' reactions to the flop. I understand the reasoning behind that advice, but only partially incorporate it. Maybe I'm just too dull to pick it up, but my experience is that very few players give away overt reactions to the flop. The most prominent exception is the classic tell of how long a player gazes: Longer stares at the board often mean a complete whiff, with the player continuing to look, struggling to find something in the flop to like, such as a backdoor draw. It takes me not more than about a third of a second to take in the flop, at which point I shift to watching the first player--which is why I want to know in advance who that will be, and not have to go searching. This practice not only lets me get most of whatever he might give off, but the set pattern of eye movement helps prevent others from reading anything on me.


But back to pre-flop thoughts. The next thing I do is estimate the pot size. There's no need to be precise to the dollar. If there has been a raise to $10 with three subsequent callers, $40 will be my estimate, and I ignore any limpers who folded, what the contribution from the blinds might have been, what rake will get taken out, etc. Irrelevant details.

Based on that, I decide on an amount that I will bet. That doesn't mean that I will bet; the "whether to bet" decision depends on lots of factors, such as the flop texture, my relative position, whether I was the pre-flop raiser, what I know about other players' tendency to aggression, stack sizes, etc. But I want to have in mind what you might call my "default" bet size, what I will bet if I decide to bet and it's either checked to me or I'm first to act. It's usually in the range of 2/3 to 3/4 of the pot. I always reserve the option to change this if there is some compelling reason to do so. E.g., I might overbet the pot if it's highly coordinated and I want to make a draw more expensive than usual, or perhaps I have a big hand and a suspicious opponent, and I want to look like I'm trying to buy it with air. But the point is that having decided on a default bet size in advance removes one set of mental gymnastics that I would otherwise have to perform while everybody is waiting for me and watching me.

After I have rehearsed my hole cards and relative position, estimated the pot, and settled on a default bet size, if there is still time, I look around at opponents' stacks to remind myself about which players in the hand have the big stacks and can therefore either felt me or double me up, which ones have the short stacks and might shove light but can't hurt me much, etc. To the extent that I can, I also try to refresh what I know about my table image, and what mental state the players in this hand might be in: winning, losing, distracted, bored, on tilt, ready to go home, etc.

The goal of all of this mental scut work is to clear the runway, so to speak. I want all of the above information fresh in mind for instant access, so that I can direct my attention to two other things: (1) Analyzing how the flop lines up against my opponents' likely pre-flop ranges, and (2) watching the action transpire, along with interpretation of whatever I might happen to see. If the basic information required for these more demanding mental tasks--i.e., the things I just listed above--has been clarified and put front-and-center in my brain, then my limited cranial resources are freed up for figuring out the poker. Any mental processing effort that you have to devote to, e.g., checking your position or hole cards or stack size is brainpower that can't be used for performing crucial, more difficult tasks, such as running through lists of possible hands sitting under your opponents' card caps, or noticing and deciphering a player's initial move for chips followed by a check instead. Is that a monster hand and he made a last-second change of plan from a lead-out bet to a check-raise, or is it a phony attempt to dissuade you from betting so he can get a free card? You have to notice it first, then figure it out, and it will be harder to do either one if your attention is on rechecking whether your red cards were hearts or diamonds.

Every day--heck, every hand, practically--I see other players chatting, watching TV, and engaging in various other distractions during what I consider to be critical, precious few seconds of mental time between the close of pre-flop action and the flop hitting the table. I can then watch these same players as they try to catch up: whose turn is it? how much is in the pot? etc. You can see it on their faces as they look around, trying to put together the core information they need at the same time that they're struggling to make an analytical decision. You can see them go on overload and make mistakes. They also give off a ton of revealing information about how much they like their situation, because they're mentally so preoccupied figuring everything out all at once that they have no extra attention to keeping a poker face, and they leak tells. I like to think that I almost never do that.

I'm far from perfect at all of this, but I have had a lot of practice, and the set, prioritized list of things to be thinking about, I have found, is a great boon to keeping my thoughts on topic and disciplined. If you don't have such a pattern established for yourself, give it a try and see if you find that it helps you focus better on the hard poker decisions. If you do try it, I'd be interested to hear via the comments section whether you find it useful.

Oh, and one more thing: If you're ever at a poker table with me, and you try to talk to me during what might appear to be unimportant down time in a hand--after I've bet but before the flop hits--now you'll know why I'm likely to ignore you, or dismiss you with a curt "Wait a minute, please," or shoot you an annoyed look that is meant to convey, "Shut the hell up." Frankly, I'm pretty busy right about then, even if I don't look it.

Poker gems, #338

Joe Navarro, in Bluff magazine column, January, 2010, p. 42.


If I came to you at the table and asked what the tells of the person in the four seat were, what would you say? "I don't know"? If you don't know, please start writing out checks ahead of time so that it won't delay the game. You have to know.

An unusual tell

The chip above now holds a special place in my collection: It is the only $5 chip that has ever won me $150. Let me tell you how.

I was playing last night at Bally's. I had chalked up a substantial win at Planet Hollywood next door, but after sitting down at Bally's I just couldn't get anything going. Amongst all my folding, though, I tried to pay some attention to the hands I wasn't in. While doing so, I noticed something unusual about one of the most active players at the table.

Bally's doesn't have very many commemorative chips in circulation, so they tend to stand out. This guy had the chip shown above--no, not one like it, but that very chip--on top of one of his stacks. The peculiar thing was that sometimes he put it into the pot along with other chips when he was betting, but other times he took pains to put it aside before counting out chips to go into the pot.

Eventually I figured out what he was doing. It seemed that he was intent on keeping the chip as a souvenir, and the times that he casually put it into the pot as part of his bet were the times that he was strong and felt confident that it would be coming back. Conversely, though, when he was bluffing or unsure of where he stood in a hand when making a call, he would first remove that chip from the top of the stack, then use only the regular Bally's chips for his bet or call.

I have never before either seen or heard of a tell anything like this, but it was a fine one!

It paid off in the end. I don't remember the details of the hand, but on the river I had bottom pair and a busted straight draw. He had been betting every street, as was his habit in nearly every hand he played, and I had been calling. On the river, with the pot at about $100, he took the special chip off of the top of a stack of $50 (10 red chips), replaced it with another regular chip, then shoved the stack in. Aha!

I don't know whether he had air and I actually had the best hand, or if he had a better but still mediocre hand. I was quite confident, though, that he couldn't stand the heat of an all-in raise after he had shown me his tell of weakness.

I had about $155 left. I announced "All in," and he mucked before I could even move my chips forward, without even a few seconds of thought.

So how did I get his cherished chip? Easy. When I knew that I was on my last orbit and would be leaving after a few more hands, he bet the flop using the chip. After the dealer put out the turn card and was waiting for action, I pointed to the chip in the middle of the table and asked if I could buy that one from the pot. "Sure," said the dealer, as they usually do at such requests. I quickly made the trade, and the chip was mine.

My main reason for doing that was that it was one I didn't have in my collection. A second motivation was that the guy had annoyed me. Nothing terribly rude, but he was just more exuberant in his celebrations when winning pots than I think is cricket. It was enough to make me take a bit of perverse pleasure in sneakily depriving him of his little prize. Hey, pal, if you want to keep the chip, stick it in your pocket, or keep it at the bottom of your stack. Don't keep putting it in the pot. It may not come back to you every time that you think it will.

Finally, I wanted the chip as a souvenir of my pleasure at having paid enough attention to the game to spot an unusual tell, and use it to my advantage. That pot with him got me back to even for the night. It was 1:00 in the morning, and I was too tired to try to mount another big win, so after I won one more hand, I left with a small profit.

A small profit and a good story.

Am I an annoying opponent?

As mentioned in the immediately preceding post, last night my buddy Cardgrrl and I ended up playing at the same table at the Luxor for a few hours. During her February trip in which I first met her, we played together a few times at Venetian, Caesars Palace, and Mandalay Bay. But as we became closer, we mostly stopped doing that. We don't really want to take each other's money, we don't want to act as distractions for each other, and neither of us wants a seat occupied by a dangerous player (which each of us recognizes the other to be) that could be filled by a donating fish. So last night was, I think, the first time in more than six months that we have shared a no-limit hold'em cash table.

As we were leaving, I was suprised--nay, completely stunned and blown away--by Cardgrrl's casual, offhand comment: "You have an incredibly annoying table manner."

Huh???

I've heard all sorts of things about my style of play and mannerisms at the table from all sorts of opponents, but I can't recall anybody saying that he or she found my style annoying. The most common observation is simply that I'm very hard to read, which, of course, is exactly my goal. And even though I tend to be about as hypersensitive to annoyances as anybody I know (hence this blog--duh!), I cannot fathom how anybody could possibly find the way I act to be annoying. I can imagine that people might find me cold or unfriendly (not mean or rude--just not engaging on a personal level). They might find me inscrutible or mysterious or even borderline scary/intimidating. But annoying? How can that be?

Cardgrrl took pains to reassure me that she didn't mean any criticism of me--in fact, didn't mean anything negative by it whatsoever, though I'm not sure that any amount of disclaimers can fully blunt the feeling that being told that one is "annoying" isn't especially flattering.

The best that I could garner from what I'll have to admit was rather intense questioning of Cardgrrl as to what, exactly, she meant by that remark (and I trust that she will feel free to speak up if I misunderstood or if I am inadvertantly misrepresenting her point of view) is that it is the highly mechanical, "robotic" and "automaton" (her words) way that I do everything that she found annoying and tilt-inducing. I asked if she would find Chris Ferguson's even more highly perfected control of body movements to be annoying, and she said yes. This was, at least, a little bit reassuring.

This idea that I am inadvertantly annoying to others when I try so hard not to be has me on life tilt. It's not only a new concept to me, it's completely contrary to everything I have tried to implement about how I play. I'm not at all trying to annoy opponents. I'm not good at chatting them up, engaging in small talk, making friends, keeping the game all light and fun, the way Mike Caro recommends. It's completely contrary to my nature. But I do try my very best never to cause any negativity at the table--other than what inevitably comes from being a challenging opponent (hopefully, at least on my good days) and taking people's chips. I don't want to be annoying; I basically want to be as completely invisible and unnoticed as possible, and being annoying seems to me utterly inconsistent with that goal.

So now I'm deeply curious as to whether Cardgrrl's perspective is shared by others. For those readers who have spent time at a table with me, please speak up in the comments and share your thoughts: Did you find my admittedly rather mechanical ways of taking my turn to be irritating and/or tilt-inducing, or think that others would find them to be so? Note that I am not looking for selective confirmation of my self-image and/or refutation of Cardgrrl's opinion. I am genuinely interested in finding out how I'm perceived, to the extent that that is possible. If you haven't played with me personally, but recall seeing other opponents that have a style similar to what I'm describing here, did you find them to be annoying? I really want to know.


Just for fun, here's a great clip showing how completely inscrutible Chris Ferguson is when taking his actions. Can you spot any tells here? If so, you have better eyesight than I do.

Poker gems, #289

Mike Caro, in Bluff magazine column, June, 2009, p. 87.


When it comes to tells, you're apt to overestimate the value of ones that invite you to call and ignore ones that suggest you should fold. If you use tells in that manner, you're making a great mistake. That mistake is so common and so serious that if you can't shake the habit, you'll probably make more money by just ignoring tells altogether.

Hero calls

My hero calls haven't been going too well lately, in my serious income-making cash games, anyway. (The donkalicious low-stakes HORSE games late at night online are another story.) The last three have been wrong, though I got lucky and sucked out with one of them. It's an expensive mistake to make. On the other hand, though, it's expensive to abandon the pot if you have the best hand. Money not won is just as bad as money lost (to invert a classic Caro-ism).

The Vegas Flea was kind enough to treat me to lunch at the Venetian this afternoon (thanks again!), and I had told him that I was trying to steer clear of marginal situations and close decisions, specifically including hero calls. But then there I was two hours later, facing one, hating the situation, and hating myself for having gotten into it.

I was in middle position with Qc-10c. Yay, crubs! I limped in. Button raised to, I think, $10. I called. Yeah, I know, that was already a marginal decision. When I look back at how I get myself into these messes, honestly it often starts something like this--a hand that can easily be dominated from the get-go, played for a raise from out of position. I know better than that, really I do. But sometimes I still act against my own better judgment. (If you never do, allow me to nominate you for sainthood right this minute. See Cardgrrl's confession on this same sort of matter here.)

The flop was 7-7-9 with two clubs. Yay, crubs! The button bet $15. I called. I did not stop to weigh the pot odds, having fresh in mind BWOP's recent insight: "[Y]ou're always getting the proper pot odds to call when you have the crub flush draw." (We are now on step 2 of the analysis of how I get myself into these difficult situations.)

The turn was Kc. Yay, crubs! They always get there! I thought this particular opponent, with a history of being quite aggressive, would fire on every street, so I decided to check-call again ($25 this time), with the intention of a river check-raise for maximum value. (How do I get into situations in which I have to make gut-wrenching decisions on the river? We are now on step 3 of how.)

The river was a red king. Ruh roh. I had not anticipated that. Now we had a double-paired board, and I was out of position against the pre-flop raiser, who might have just caught his miracle card to boat up against my crub flush. (Or is that crub frush?) Gulp. I checked.

How do I find myself in horrendous spots? I believe I have just laid out for you a full roadmap of the path to no-man's land.

My opponent bet $106. Why that odd amount? It was all the chips he had left, though he was leaving himself a $100 bill behind. But I had watched this guy for an hour, and everything about him was suddenly different than it had been when he had value-bet previous hands. He acted very rapidly this time, whereas before he had always been deliberate. He forcefully stacked up his chips and slammed them down in one big stack in front of him--completely the opposite of his usual calm, calculated approach to betting. After shoving out the chips, he sat WAY back in his seat, with his hands folded across his abdomen, glowering at me. I had never before seen him shift noticeably in his chair when betting, and he had never taken anything even remotely like this posture and facial expression. The bet amount was novel for him, too--his value bets had typically been half the pot or less, whereas this was approximately the size of the pot.

This was all classic stuff that should, by rights, be indications of weakness (because, obviously, he is trying to project extreme strength). On the other hand, was this guy smart and tricky enough to being doing it all as a sort of mind-game reverse-tell thing, begging for a call? Maybe.

As for his bet size, he could easily put me on a 7 here, given the line I had taken (slow-playing trips, then needing to be cautious when a third club hit), so he might expect a large bet to be called by the under-full if he had a king in his hand. He could easily have started wtih A-K, taken a routine c-bet stab at the pot when the flop was checked to him, bet his top pair/top kicker when the possible flush was checked to him, and then have made the near-nuts on the end. Conversely, though, he was definitely a player who could and would three-barrel complete air against an opponent showing weakness.

I HATE this sort of dilemma. Hate it, hate it, hate it.

I finally decided on a call. (The original plan for a river check-raise was obviously out the window, because he would only call a raise with a hand that beat my flush.) The combination of (1) the unlikelihood of him having a king and catching two more, and (2) the sudden appearance of a constellation of apparent tells, was just too much to ignore. I pushed $106 forward.*

My opponent picked up his cards and looked at them again, without showing them, and said, "Good call." GRRRRRRRRRRR! This is one of my, oh, million or so poker pet peeves. When you get called--especially when you get called for a large pot in a situation in which your opponent obviously had a difficult decision to make, show your f'ing cards already! Or, if you prefer, just muck them and surrender--that's fine with me, too. But this nonsense of expecting something like "Good call" to end your obligation to do one or the other is infuriating.

Nevertheless, after I sat there silently and defiantly, just staring into his eyes, psychically projecting all the bile and hate I could muster at his egregious lack of courtesy and ethics, he apparently concluded that he was not going to succeed at getting me to take him off the hook. He gingerly showed J-10 offsuit. How about that--I had been ahead all along! When he saw my flush, he disgustedly picked up his remaining C-note and stormed away from the table.


I suppose it's unrealistic to hope to avoid hero-call decisions. After all, the essence of no-limit hold'em, as Doyle Brunson pointed out long ago, is to put an opponent to a decision for all of his chips. Even if one were to try to avoid marginal situations by playing only ultra-premium hands, one is still going to have to make critical, difficult decisions, such as whether pocket aces are good as an overpair when an opponent's all-in suggests he may have made a set against you. So despite the irony of having to make a hero call in a difficult spot a mere two hours after having expressed to a friend my determination to avoid ever having to do so, maybe that resolution was ill-conceived to begin with.

I can't read soulz, but perhaps I can nevertheless make decisions in those marginal situations with sufficient clarity and profitability--the last three missteps notwithstanding--that I won't have to keep writing posts about how anguishing they are.




*Incidentally, I habitually do this, rather than just announce "Call," for what amounts to a stupid, purely psychological/emotional reason: It hurts less. That is, it seems somehow less painful to let go of those chips when there is still uncertainty as to whether I won or lost than to have to count them out and give them away after learning for certain that I have lost and they will not be coming back to me. I confess to having at least a few patches of irrationality in my psyche that I have not yet been able to eradicate, and this is one of them.

Just wondering

Do guys named Bill have an inherent disadvantage when playing live poker because of giving away information about the strength of their hand? That is, do they have a, um, William tell?

Strong means weak, right?

I was just reading through the archives of a poker blog I've newly discovered, one that I'm liking a lot so far, and about which I'll tell you more later. For now, though, it's enough that a story there reminded me of an embarrassing, but, in retrospect, valuable lesson that I learned in one of my first attempts at playing poker in a casino.

I was living in Minnesota. About 90 minutes away in western Wisconsin was an Indian casino that held a weekly no-limit hold'em tournament for, I think, $50. I went to it pretty regularly. It had largely the same people playing every week, capped at about 70. (Small poker room.) I had read one or two poker books and watched the WPT regularly. Felt like I knew what I was doing (though I now realize that I had absolutely no clue--poker is like that, making you feel like you've got it pretty well figured out at every stage of your development).

I don't remember any details of the hand in question, except that there was a woman who was exhibiting all of the classic "tells" of weakness, in that she was acting strong. She was fast and emphatic and forceful about all of her movements, leaning forward, looking smugly right at me, etc. I had some mediocre crap, but she so perfectly fit the profile I had read and heard about--that acting strong means the player is bluffing--that I just knew I could call her down and win. I wasn't born yesterday! You can't fool me that easily, lady--I've read books, y'know!

Except that, oops, there's something that wasn't mentioned in those books and in Mike Sexton's commentaries (or at least I didn't remember it): Sure, the Hollywooding types who fit that "strong means weak" profile are pretty low on the ladder of skill and experience, else they would know how ineffective a ruse it is. But once in a while you run into somebody who is even lower on the ladder than that, and doesn't even have the good sense to try to disguise his or her weakness with signs of strength, and vice-versa.

These people are not being tricky. They are being transparent.

The woman in question in this hand was one of them. After I had called off nearly all of my chips to her, she turned over the flopped nuts and doubled up. I distinctly remember getting strange looks from several other players, which, if translated into words, would have said, roughly, "You moron--couldn't you tell she had the goods from how she looked?"

I had out-thought the situation. I was not exactly a deep thinker about poker back then, but I was thinking one level above where my opponent was, which is just as fatal an error as thinking one level below where one's opponent is. It's like when playing Roshambo. You have to know whether your opponent is (1) somebody who will always throw Rock the first time, (2) somebody who knows you think he will throw Rock the first time and will therefore go Scissors to catch your Paper, or (3) some other meta-level beyond that. Thinking one level too deep there is as deadly as thinking one level too shallow.

Several weeks after my embarrassing discovery, I was starting to become friendly with a local semi-pro who played at that casino a lot. I told her my story. She laughed, and agreed that that player was perhaps the most transparent regular the place had, but that there was no way to know that other than to watch her, then see her cards, and make the connection.

Of course, you have to discover that sort of thing by experience.

Fortunately, I'm now at least a little bit better at sensing the distinction between strong-means-strong transparency and strong-means-weak Hollywooding. But it was disconcerting and embarrassing to discover that I couldn't just interpret a given type of action in one way all the time. Dang--this game may be harder than I thought!

Just when I had come to expect that everything about poker was an attempt to deceive me, I found out that that's not quite so.

There oughtta be a law, or at least a rule

A couple of nights ago I was playing at Planet Hollywood, when I witnessed an action so foul, so evil, so vile, so disruptive to the entire order of the game, that I instantly became convinced that we need a new universal rule put in place to prevent its future recurrence.

There was an Asian guy about my age sitting in Seat 4, directly across the table (the short way) from me, since I was in Seat 1. I had a perfect view of him. I picked up an unusually good tell on him. Twice he made a large bet on the river, bluffing with just ace-high or with a busted draw. Both times, he verbally announced the size of the bet ("Forty," or "Eighty") quite emphatically, then grabbed and slid forward the corresponding amount of chips. Conversely, I twice saw him make value bets on the river with very strong hands, and in both of those instances he remained silent, just pushed forward the amount he was betting.

This is a fairly common type of tell: People do tend to do things differently when they are bluffing than when they have the goods. In fact, I have noticed a tendency in myself to do something similar; if I'm not careful to think about it in advance, there's a pronounced difference in how I make an all-in move when I'm hoping for a call versus when I'm hoping to see a fold. (No, I'm not going to tell you what it is!)

I got involved with this guy on a hand some time later. I raised before the flop with A-K. (It was a frustrating night because every single strong starting hand I received was when I was in early position, making them much harder to play profitably and well.) He called. The flop was 2-5-7, rainbow. I made a smallish continuation bet, which he also called.

I had decided well in advance not to try to bluff this guy, because he had a large quantity of calling station in him. As a general rule, people tend to think that everybody else plays the same way that they do. Frequent bluffers like him therefore tend to see bluffs everywhere, and call readily. He followed this common pattern. So he was definitely one from whom I was planning to make my money by (1) value bets, and (2) catching his bluffs.

Because of his call on the flop and my determination not to blow money bluffing at him, when the turn card was an 8, of no help to me, I shut down. He checked behind me.

The river was a 9. I checked. He thought a bit, then loudly announced "Fifty," and grabbed 10 red chips to put out.

Hmmm. I was quite confident, from having watched him for a couple of hours, that he was not one to make thin value bets. That is, it was highly unlikely that he had something like one pair here; if he did, he'd be much more likely to check again and just hope he was good against what he would have to worry might be my overpair. He either had a very strong hand, or nothing. Of course, I had just ace-king, no pair. But I had seen him bluff with an ace-high, which I could beat, and I had seen him bluff with a busted draw, which I could also beat.

The size of the bet, which was more than the size of the pot, also smelled of a bluff. If he had a strong hand, he would presumably want me to call, rather than to scare me off. Since I had checked both the turn and the river, he couldn't think I had a great hand that could call any bet he cared to make. He had to know that I wasn't particularly strong here. So if he was strong and wanted to get paid, he would bet smaller.

Then, finally, there was that tell. The way he announced the amount in advance was just like he had done twice before, and distinctly different from what he did when making value bets with strength.

That sealed it for me. It's not often I'll call a bet larger than the pot with just ace-high, but this combination of considerations led me to conclude that it was the right choice here.

This demon spawn had K-6, and had caught runner-runner straight.

Why did he call an early-position raise from a tight-aggressive player before the flop with K-6 offsuit? Because that's what calling stations do. Why did he call on the flop? Because that's what calling stations do. I saw similar idiotic calls from him all night long.

Anyway, I decided right then and there that all poker rooms need to institute a rule prohibiting players from establishing clear, distinctive patterns for their bluffs and value bets, then breaking away from those patterns at crucial moments. The remedy? I should be able to explain my observations to the floor person, point out how this cad cheated by using his bluffing action when he had a strong hand, and be entitled to the pot--or at least to a chop. Nobody should be able to get away with such nefarious actions.

Incidentally, as I kept watching him, it became clear that he had no pattern at all. He had not carefully constructed a false tell for me to pick up; rather, he was just completely arbitrary in whether he announced a bet amount in advance. There was no relationship between his betting mannerism and his hand strength. I had simply detected a pattern on the basis of too few observations that didn't hold up as I gathered more data. (That said, seeing distinctly different things on each of two bluffs and two value bets is usually a pretty reliable basis for assuming that the observation is a consistent unconscious pattern.)



The image above is one of the more famous ones from the "Dogs Playing Poker" series by C.M. Coolidge. This one is titled "A Bold Bluff." If you look closely, you can see that the St. Bernard appears to have just a pair of deuces, but he is betting into the exposed pair of aces of one opponent, and tens of another. He probably stated the amount of his bluff before pushing out his chips....

My own personal "tells" coach

Another story from the Excalibur last night. There's a guy two seats to my left. I played a hand perfectly (if I do say so myself), deceiving him into thinking that I was on a steal when I had actually flopped a set of 7s and made a full house on the river when the board paired. He called my all-in with A-8, for top pair and a bad kicker. I stacked him. Just before he did the "walk of shame" to the ATM for more cash (see http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2008/02/taking-walk-of-shame.html), he said, "You really need to work on controlling your hands shaking when you bet. I didn't know if it meant you had a monster or were bluffing, so I had to call to find out. Now I know."

This was clearly meant in a friendly, helpful manner, so I didn't tell him how completely full of crap he was.

First, anybody who knows anything about poker tells realizes that shaking hands is not ambiguous; it's one of the most reliable signs of a player being strong. You might think that you'd get the same phenomenon from nervousness when somebody is making a big, expensive bluff, but it just doesn't happen that way. In Mike Caro's classic Caro's Book of Poker Tells, he rates this as 99% reliable in weak players, 95% reliable in average players, and 92% reliable in strong players, which is as high as he rates anything. He even gives "Caro's Law of Tells #4," which is "A trembling bet is a force to be feared." In the more recent Ultimate Guide to Poker Tells by Randy Burgess and Carl Baldassarre, pp. 58-59, they agree: "[I]t's a huge tell in all forms of poker.... Players who've never seen this tell may have a hard time believing it, but yes, it's that powerful an indicator. Moreover, it can't be faked with any degree of realism." Joe Navarro, in Read 'Em and Reap, says, "When you see someone reaching for his chips and his shaking hand knocks them over, or he looks at his cards and his hands begin to tremble, it's usually a strong sign that something good has occurred." Navarro adds a caveat that it occasionally means the opposite, but I believe he's wrong about that, or at least it's a rare enough phenomenon that I've never seen it. My experience exactly matches Caro's: when it is present, it's perhaps the single most consistently reliable guide you'll get that a player loves his hand. I have saved a lot of money by folding when I have noticed this in an opponent, who then proudly shows off his quads or full house.

Second, I know with certainty that there is and was no difference in my hands during that pot from any other. You see, this is something I've spent an enormous amount of time and energy on. I have a familial condition that causes a constant hand tremor. It's not horrible, but it's there; you wouldn't notice it under ordinary conditions, but if I held my hands out, trying to hold them still, you'd see what I mean. It hardly ever matters to my life. But part of the condition is that it is greatly amplified by even small amounts of adrenaline. This has been a problem in the past with public speaking (which I actually enjoy, but the adrenaline rush makes my hands shake like crazy, and it looks like I'm terrified), playing the piano in public (which I used to do for church quite often), and my other main recreation, which is competitive handgun shooting (need I explain how shaking hands is a problem there?). Long ago, I started taking a medication called propranolol when I anticipate one of these situations. It blocks the effects of adrenaline on the nerves, so that I'm just left with my baseline, everyday tremor. I use the same little pill before I go out to play poker. (I was fortunate enough to have a doctor who immediately "got" the problem. I started to explain it, but he cut me off and said, "Other players see your hands shake, and you can't get any action when you've got the nuts." Bingo! Got my prescription. Today's lesson: Find yourself a doctor who plays poker!) I have watched myself carefully to be sure, and I know that my hands look exactly the same whether my card situation is strong or weak. This guy was just seeing my baseline tremor, and interpreting it the way he wanted to. It doesn't look anything like the high-amplitude shakes that accompany the adrenaline rush of a huge made hand.

Third, this isn't something that one can voluntarily control. Adrenaline is going to do what it's going to do. People overcome it not by force of will, but by being exposed to the situation of having a monster hand enough times that eventually they stop having such large adrenaline dumps when it happens.

So, OK, the guy needed to soothe his big loss by telling himself that he had spotted something significant and just couldn't pin down its meaning. No big deal. If listening to an unwelcome (and wrong) piece of advice is the price for taking a guy's entire stack, I can tolerate that.

When he returned, he decided to take the open seat on my immediate left, from where he decided that we were best friends and should chat about everything. I hate that. I eventually had to put on the music and headphones to help clue him in that I didn't feel like his oldest buddy. He kept trying to show me his cards while he played hands, etc. So annoying.

But the strangest part of the evening was that three more times he watched me play a big pot. I had the best of it in all three, and won two of them (losing the biggest one to a river suckout, unfortunately--ouch!). After each one, he said something like, "You controlled your hands much better that time," or "You did that one very smooth--good job." He had appointed himself as my own personal "tells" coach, giving me feedback on whether I was effectively controlling my hand shake. My hands were exactly the same every time--the only difference was his interpretation of it.

Before our first confrontation, I had overheard him chatting with another player, making himself out to be a big-time gambler, belittling other people who "don't really understand gambling" like he does. That sort of talk made it obvious that his ego is heavily invested in being a suave, smooth, sophisticated player of all of the games. His conduct towards me was a reflection and continuation of that; it was important to his self-image to be the expert, offering advice to a person he perceived as an inexperienced amateur. It was simultaneously annoying, funny, and pathetic.

One of the most cathartic things about having this blog is that I get to say things to people that I would never say to their faces, partly because of being removed from them when I write, and partly because there's only about a one in a million chance that the people involved will ever read it. So here goes again: Buddy, you haven't a clue what you're talking about. Your advice was flatly wrong, ludicrously misdirected, irritating, unwelcome, condescending, and indicative of a deep personality disorder in yourself that I think you haven't the faintest clue about.

"I think you're..."

Mike Caro says that the way to profit is to be fun and jovial at the poker table. People who have played with him say that he makes it enjoyable to lose to him, and he capitalizes on that; people rebuy and then lose more to him. Good for him. But I can't make that work. I'm so naturally quiet and reserved that I can't sustain that kind of image.

So I go for the opposite: near silence, not much movement, try to give away as little information as possible. I used to say that Chris Ferguson was my model for table conduct, but I'm not quite as purely robotic as he is. (For an amazing look at how perfectly he has mastered the mechanics of disguising tells, see this 22-second video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmPa7gRcMdg.) I also don't go for the sunglasses or the cowboy getup. So I think it's more accurate to say that I'm like Allen Cunningham--not in terms of playing style or skill, but demeanor at the table: saying very little, composed, unflappable, completely neutral facial expression, but not hiding the way that Ferguson does.

A few days ago at the Palms two friends came in and took adjacent empty seats. They were drinking heavily, having a good ol' time. They complained that the table was too quiet, not fun enough. Predictably, they were both playing very loose games. I was playing my usual tight-aggressive game, listening to some tunes, sipping my bottle of water, observing everything but not getting involved in the table talk. I was in seat 10; they were in 6 and 7, so I was directly facing them.

At one point, I called the pre-flop raise from one of them with an A-10 offsuit. The flop came something ragged like J-7-3. I checked. My talkative opponent instantly shot out a bet, without even stopping to think. That, combined with the unscary board (and the knowledge that most flops miss most starting hands) made me reasonably confident that he couldn't call a check-raise. So I pushed all-in.

The expression on his face instantly told me that he was going to fold--that hang-dog look that wordlessly says "I've been caught; I can't call." His buddy, in violation of every rule and convention about not talking about the hand in progress and one-player-to-a-hand, couldn't keep quiet. He said, "Dude, he's wearing headphones, he's only drinking water, he doesn't say a word, and he hasn't played a hand in half an hour. I think you're screwed."

His friend folded.

So even if I can't pull off Mike Caro's jocularity, there are other ways of winning chips at the table. All you have to do is convince opponents that they're screwed.

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.

Today's helpful hints, miscellaneous

1

If you order the "Fudge Cake Collision" at the Grand Lux Cafe at the Venetian, bring a friend to share it with. Or two. Or three. It's that big. (See above.)


2

Try the jerk chicken at Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville" restaurant (inside the Flamingo) sometime. Very tasty. I hadn't eaten at that place before, and it was really quite nice. I liked the continuous-running Buffet music videos playing on a big screen. Different atmosphere than you'll get anywhere else in town.


3

If you should happen to lock your keys in your car in a casino parking garage--let's say, Sam's Town, to name a completely random example--their security people will not open it for you, quoting some rot about liability for damages, but will helpfully hand you the telephone number of a locksmith. A mere 45 minutes and $45 later, you can be on your merry way.


4

If you pre-pay for a line or two of late-afternoon bowling at a local set of lanes associated with a hotel-casino--let's say, Sam's Town, to name a completely random example--and then decide that you could do one more before heading off for dinner, and so you go up to the desk to pay for another game, and it happens, unbeknownst to you, to be close to the time that they will be starting their league night activities, they will not politely say something like, "I'm sorry, but we have league bowling starting in about 15 minutes, and can't have any new games start now," but instead will convey that same basic message to you in a startling mixture of incredulity and exasperation, with a combination of body language, facial expression, and tone of voice that will unambiguously convey that you are a complete idiot for not having known in advance that you couldn't start a game after 4:30, due to their league commitments, because, after all, doesn't everybody on Planet Earth know that already, you imbecile?

(I believe I just broke my own record for longest sentence there. Good thing I'm not back in junior high school, with the assignment to diagram the grammar of it.)


5

The musical dancing-waters fountain shows in front of the Bellagio really are nice to watch--no matter how many times you've seen them before--whatever song they choose to choreograph. (Hmmm. Seems like we need a different word for what it is they do. Maybe "aqueograph.") If you're entertaining out-of-town visitors, it's a near cinch that they will enjoy it.


6

The "Poker Shrink" (http://www.pokerblog.com/tags/poker+shrink) has a blog entry pointing to a BBC Science site (http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smiles/index.shtml) on which you can look at 20 smiles and test yourself to see how good you are at discerning the genuine smiles from the forced ones. He points out that while this specific ability is not necessarily useful for poker, it is part of a whole package of being able to gain insight into people's emotional states from non-verbal manifestations. I got 16 out of 20 right. It's an interesting way to spend five minutes of your life.