Had a really bad short-handed $20-40 session yesterday. Was playing with these 4 guys who were all friends and who joked around and who all went out to dinner together. It was just me and them. They played in such a way that I felt I had zero edge against them as a group, despite feeling they were playing bad individually. This was a weird feeling that I've only gotten a couple times before. I am ...
Joe Hachem versus an amateur’s quads
In this hand, Joe Hachem tries to bluff an amateur off of quads on the river. While there are some legitimate reasons Hachem played this hand the way he did, all-in-all I think it was way too likely that the amateur had a huge hand. One of the factors in this hand was the amateur's willingness to talk about the hand and express concern about Joe's hand, which are pretty reliable indicators that a ...
Gambler’s Fallacy and why not to show opponents AA or KK
Talking about the Gambler's Fallacy in my last post, I was reminded of another poker application of this concept. The situation comes up frequently when you hold AA or KK, and you raise preflop and everyone folds. Some people will show their hands in situations like this, just because it's kind of fun to show big hands. It's also sometimes sort of a way to complain because the raiser didn't get ...
Gambler’s Fallacy in poker. Defensive chip handling tell.
I fell victim to the "gambler's fallacy" the other day at poker. The gambler's fallacy is the belief that because something out-of-the-ordinary has occurred, it will be less likely to occur again. Casinos make a lot of money on this idea with roulette, because many people have a natural tendency to say, "oh, it's been red 5 times in a row, better bet on black", when in reality, the chances of the ...
A hand using poker tells – an introduction to the book
A friend of mine told me I should have a dramatic hand to start the book with, to show an example of using tells in practice, and to get people's attention. I thought it was a good idea. I have a bunch of notes of hands I've played from a long time ago, and I thought the hand I finally decided on was a good one. This is from a hand I played in 2005 in Albuquerque, NM. Names have been changed to ...
Decision fatigue in poker
I read an article in the NY Times called 'Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue'. It was about a series of studies that showed that making decisions wears you out mentally. People who face a series of decisions will be increasingly worn out until they reach a point where they are not making their best decisions, and will effectively not care as much about the outcome of their decisions. It also ...
Most ridiculous poker hand ever televised
You will enjoy this if you haven't seen it already. It's from a Spanish televised poker tournament where one guy accidentally flips his cards up and plays heads-up against a player who flops a set. See if you can count the number of pure fundamental mistakes made by both these players. It is poker comedy at its best. No, the games aren't dead and will never be dead. ...
Great live poker advice from Limon
Limon is the twoplustwo.com handle of a high-stakes no-limit player who lives in Los Angeles. He's been playing professionally for 10 years at places like the Commerce. In 2009, he started a thread in the High Stakes NL forum with a bunch of his thoughts on the game. That thread has stayed near the top of the forum for the last two years, and Limon has continually revisited it to answer questions, ...
Immediate calls and raises, and talking a lot after betting
On the Pokerstars Big Game (season 1, week 2, ep. 3) there's a hand where Daniel Negreanu has the nut straight on the turn, and the millionaire/amateur poker player Jason Calacanis turns a set and fills up on the river. Calacanis shows some common tells. For one, he's super-talkative with a big hand. Also important are his immediate calls and bets, which give away a lot of info. ...
New poker tells book almost done
The book is getting close to being done. It’s working title is currently ‘Reading Poker Tells’. Maybe I’ll throw on a secondary subtitle; something like, "and other psychological tools". I’ve sent out the current version of the manuscript to several poker friends for comments, and I’m awaiting their reviews. The main thing I want to do is to communicate the concepts in a simple, easy-to-understand ...