When we refer to tells we actually mean words, emotions, acts, gestures and any other manner of behavior that a poker player does or executes while at the poker table. These tells are there to alert you the cards that your opponent has either in the hole or in his hand and whether he is strong or weak and ready to fold or to play at a particular point. There are some very good friends of mine who are poker experts and they are always sharp and quick to spotting any gest failments in lapak303. So, I thought that I might share some of the “tells” that they spot as they watch me play, so that you too can know when something may look wrong to you and perhaps avoid it.
Steady or Steady – I am a strong advocate of consistent poker practices, such as playing at least one sit and go at a time. If you practice and select a sit and go structure that best suits your skills, you can greatly increase your odds of winning and having a higher profit. Da Costa did this and it has greatly helped him in increasing the percentages of winning at Sit N Go’s.
He is Avalanche Software developer and has written many meters to calculate EV for any Sit N Go’s at the Poker Stars online facility, which enables you to have a solid understanding of your hand and also the MTT and Turbo sit and go structure as well.
He told me that the highest rated player in his opinion played like this:
- Let’s say player A has pocket 5’s and has heads up with player B.
- Player A calls player B’s raises pre-flop and player B shoves to $800 from the big blind, player A calls and the flop comes 5 5 4. Player A and B are now in a pot to win.
- If Player A wins the hand, he tips $400 to player B, who in turn, puts $400 in the pot, where the win will also come from.
However, if player A loses the hand, he does not tips anything and good luck to him in the next hand. Here’s why:
- If player A had bet or raised pre-flop, then bounced the bet and gone all in, the pot would have to be split among the remaining players because of the one timer bet.
- If player A had called pre-flop then gone all in on the flop, the pot would have to be split equally because of the one timer bet.
- If player A had bet then gone all in on the flop, player B could still win the pot with a better hand.
The break even rule is not that important because these small “timers” add up and total the profits of the winning hands. However, if you get caught in the trap, Player B could still beat you Reasonably, the odds would be 4 to 1 against him. This merely ensures that the bigger stack which has the higher short timer, wins the pot.
You cannot tell whether a player is trapping you or not when you are deep-stacked, because the player is acting the same way as he would on a normal table. He must act the same as always. When you are trying to evaluate his strength using telephoning, accounting then using your hand, you must combine all of these methods together into a combined “my way” method, and use this on your opponents.
The timing of your opponents’ actions will allow you to determine several things. Firstly, if your opponent is formula gambling, you know that he has a very limited deck and probably does not have a strong hand. Let’s say that you are messing with formula players; you could have Gamblers Anonymous on the hand at this point. This means you may have to play a lot of hands, because the chances are that you are not going to win.
When you play against the deep stacks, an ace or king may still be ahead of another card with a strong kicker. However, an ace or king with a weak kicker is probably not going to win very often.
The goal of course, is to win a pot when you can unless there is some other reason. While letting a short stack withdraw once your hand is useless, you want to judge the situation and determine whether it is worth another spin or not. If you determine that the goal remains clear, you can always go on with the game and maybe win a bit more.
before you use this on a live table! If you can’t help but grin when you read that, chances are you’ll have a good chance of winning. The next time you get dealt a weak hand, don’t forget that luck can very easily strike and you can very quickly turn the tide to your advantage.