I don’t usually talk about strategy too much on here, because this blog is about poker tells, not about poker strategy. There are much better blogs and forums to read about strategy in. I also don’t claim to be a great poker strategist, so consider yourself forewarned. I’m writing this for my own self-interest; to plug a leak I’ve been noticing in my no-limit game. I’ve noticed that when I’m ...
Bluffing and hand tension
At the last NLHE game I played ($5-10 at Parx Casino outside Phillie), there was a reliable tell that influenced one of my decisions. This one has to do with hand tension when a player was bluffing versus when he was value-betting. ...
Pre-flop looking-at-hole-cards tell
In the most recent session I played (Parx Casino $5-10 NLHE), there were a couple hands where tells came into play. In this post and the next, I’ll talk about a couple physical tells I spotted that influenced the way I played my hand. The tell in this post involves the length of time a pre-flop raiser would look at his hole cards. ...
Parx Casino $5-10 NLHE Trip Report
I got a chance to play an 8-hour $5-10 NL session at Parx Casino, outside of Philadelphia, PA. The cardroom was very nice; they have 64 tables, and the place seems well-run and is pleasant to be in. They only had one $5-10 NLHE game, but had several $2-5 games and a bunch of $1-2 games. They also had a couple $15-30 limit games going on, so the action was decent. Probably the coolest thing ...
Plugging leaks in my limit game
I played some $15-$30 limit Hold'em yesterday. Very disappointing session, as I played a couple pots just plain horribly. While I'm very happy with much of my game, there's still a Fancy-Play Syndrome tendency I've noticed in myself recently. And these fancy plays have cost me a significant amount of money. And it's even more frustrating because it's a concept I'm very familiar with, and "know", ...
“Sick Call” Kenny vs. guy with good hand
I was browsing Twoplustwo.com the other day and saw this thread about Kenny Tran. They call him "Sick Call" Kenny because there've been several televised tournaments where he's made some unbelievable "sick calls" with weak hands. This hand from an old WSOP Main Event makes you wonder about Kenny's live-read skills, though (although he could be a fantastic player, I don't know anything about ...
Some tells in a $5-10 no-limit game
I went to Spirit Mountain Casino (in Grand Ronde, Oregon) this past weekend to study the difference between no-limit tells across a range of three different stakes: $1-3, $2-5, and $5-10. I wanted to do this because I'd been working on some chapters for the book related to how tells differ across stakes and between limit and no-limit. I'll tell you a few interesting observations I made on the ...
Phil Galfond and some great thoughts on poker
I had read the "Jman28 Well" thread on Twoplustwo.com about five years ago, then saw it was bumped just recently so I read the whole thing over again. If you don't know who Phil Galfond is, he's only one of the best players in the world. He's won millions beating up on high-stakes online cash game regulars under the screen name OMGClayAiken. His posts on Twoplustwo get highly-deserved accolades ...
Online players, live players, and tell-reading ability
Live players get a bad rap from online players. You can find back-and-forth bickering from players on both sides of the aisle on a bunch of online forum threads. Online players insist live players are mostly horrible donkeys. Live players insist there’s a lot more to live poker than just pure poker skills (like live reads and social skills that increase action). Who’s right? They both are. ...
Baton Rouge poker – trip report
I was in Louisiana last week. I visited the Belle of Baton Rouge, a riverboat casino on the Mississippi River, right next to downtown Baton Rouge. This seems to be one of the only places to spread poker in the area. There's another nearby riverboat called Hollywood Casino but it doesn't have poker. There are also a few places across the river in Port Allen but none of them seemed to offer poker ...