I’ve been too busy to do many interesting blog posts lately, but I plan on doing some more in-depth televised poker analysis soon, on the level of what I did with the Pius Heinz WSOP 2011 footage. For now, I’ll just post this video where it seems that Chris Moneymaker has a really good live read on his opponent Chris Oliver. This isn’t just an interpretation; Moneymaker actually tells his “mental coach” Sam Chauhan that this is true (which is a surprising thing for him to do on video, in my opinion).
I haven’t analyzed this much yet, but if I do, my analysis will involve finding more footage from that event that led up to this string of hands, to get more history on what Moneymaker might have been seeing. I’d love to get feedback from anyone who thinks they know what it is that Moneymaker might have been seen from Oliver.
it´s a small sample, you only see him value bet once, so it may be accidental.
the most obvious thing is that he is announcing the bet size when he has a real hand. the other thing i noticed is that when he is bluffing, he releases the chips very quickly, either by carelessly tossing them in the middle or pushing the stack in the middle and then quickly removing his hand from the stack, whereas he doesn´t remove his hand as quickly when he has a hand.
What I noticed is that each time he is bluffing he plays wih his cards, shuffling them, whilst when he doe have a legitimate hand he does not
Here’s my thoughts. When he tells his mental coach (must be nice to be able to afford the services of a mental coach) about the tell he picked up on it’s only pre-flop. I don’t think he considered the camera’s would follow him out of the playing area. If he thought maybe his comments would end up on TV I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have said anything. But the fact that Oliver had reliable preflop tells is usually a good indicator he has reliable post flop tells.
Hand 1: I don’t think he needed tells to make that play. Once he made his pair on the turn there’s no way he’s folding to standard bet sized against Oliver’s wide range.
Hand2: Hits a straight flush. Tries to look weak by asking if Oliver will show if he folds, hopes to induce a spaz out with a small re-raise. No reads needed. I do wonder when he purse’s his lips when he says “I’ll make it 450”, if that’s a tell on him. It seems like he’s trying to look and sound sad and disgusted when he throws in that re-raise. Also interesting is that when Moneymaker asks if he’ll show (before he throws in the re-raise) Oliver says something like “I’ll show if you show, you’re Chris Moneymaker”. That’s a conciliatory action if I ever saw one.
Hand3: Although he may have had a live tell read, I think this play is standard against a hyper-aggro player. He’s probably ahead, but he has outs if he is not. Pot is too big to fold when he has that much equity, better just to shove.
Hand4: Oliver definitely has some pretty glaring, classic universal tells here. At the 10:30 mark when he makes his cbet he sounds really sad when he says “135” (I believe it’s the only time he announces a bet/raise amount in the video). Then he has a clear case of happy feet. It’s hard to pick up on at first, but you can most clearly see this at the 12:07 mark when the camera angle is at the back of his shirt and you can see it (the shirt) shaking. I’m sure it was apparent to Moneymaker right away. Then when Moneymaker makes that comment about Oliver’s tournament life being at stake Oliver makes that disqualify statement about it being a small tournament. I wouldn’t automatically think that a disqualifying statement like that means top pair is not good, but combined with the happy feet I would throw away top pair in that spot. To top it off when Moneymaker asks if he’ll show this time he says no, a non-conciliatory action. So yeah, Moneymaker did make a very good read in this one hand for sure.
This was a fun video to watch.
Here are some of the tells I noticed, Tossing his chips when bluffing oppose to cutting them slowly with the two pair. Staring at the board a lot when bluffing and shuffling his cards. But I think the most obvious tell, well there’s two, is the announcement of the bets when he has two pair and my favorite tell in the whole wide world is the fake smile when bluffing and the genuine smile at the end when Chris talks to him. You can really see the difference in a fake smile to a genuine smile. I use this tell a lot and it is so reliable.
Three quick things I noticed on that first hand was more of the confidence tells with Moneymaker. When he hits his jack he starts chatting it up and when he makes the call he puts his chips in and turns his palm up then immediately afterward takes a drink.
I noticed in a hand between ianoli and Oliver that oliver was betting out quick with air (62 suited). Even as a small sample, moneymaker could have based his decision that he had best hand with 99 on a couple elements: oliver promptly leading out combination with Oliver not shoving all-in with the strength of hand he was representing. In my opinion he figured that Oliver had not adjusted his quick bet with a bluff strategy from Ianoli. However later on when Oliver does have a made hand, he does bet out rather quickly but I believe he announces the raise instead of pushing out chips with out announcing the amount. Perhaps an important difference?
Side bar: what are your thoughts on chipmunk cheeks? For example, when a good or bad card comes and a player pushes the air to the front of their mouth so they look like a chipmunk. (sorry I didn’t catch a marker on the video but I will do it in the interest of furthering discussion).
Thanks for inviting me to offer my opinion!
Done painstakingly with my iPhone.