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 ...
Direct eye contact after betting and what it usually means
In the last tournament I played ($340 buy-in) there were only a few hands where physical tells and mannerisms played a significant role in how the hands went down. I'll spend a couple posts talking about some of the more interesting hands. This hand came up just a few hands before I got knocked out. We were down to the final 18 players on the final two tables. Average chip stack was 140,000. I ...
Chance at a big tournament win today
I entered this $340 buy-in event here in Portland yesterday. It was a big promotional event at this new cardroom, the Encore Club, and they had gotten Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi and Adam "Roothlus" Levy to attract people to it. Mizrachi is a respected player with good results; Levy's a pro player sponsored by Ultimate Bet (UB), which is like the Evil Empire of the poker world. (Check out the ...
Facial expressions of strength and weakness
Can you tell which two of these pictures belong together and which one belongs on its own? All three of these pictures are taken from three different hands in a "pro meets celebrity" poker tournament Jeremy Sisto played. All three of them were taken after Jeremy made a bet. Two of them were with hands where he was relatively sure he had the best hand. One is from a hand where his hand was ...
Jeremy Sisto and some pre-flop tells meaning strength
Continuing on the same theme as last week's blog post, I've got a video of another actor who unwittingly telegraphs his hand strength. The actor is Jeremy Sisto (from Six Feet Under and some other shows) and he shows some standard signs for great strength that you'll see displayed a lot when playing with weak competition. ...
Acting weak when strong, starring Matt Damon
We'll look at a video of Matt Damon flopping a full house in the 2009 WSOP (starts at 2 minutes). Damon exhibits a few behaviors that are fairly common from recreational players with huge hands who want people to think they're weak. ...
Making mistakes in poker and forgiving yourself
Here’s an example of a hand played very badly. A hand that (most probably) cost me several thousand dollars in tournament winnings, and that is currently haunting me. I write this to purge the poker demons. And to talk a little about how important it is to accept making mistakes, and to learn and move on. ...
Movement and stillness when bluffing
There's this weird old man that I frequently play with in this $100 tournament. His actions and mannerisms perplex me - he's just a weird old dude and I can't ever tell where he's coming from. He plays like a nit when he has an average stack but double him up and it's very hard to get him out of a pot. I generally have avoided any sort of bluff with him just because he's so unpredictable and is ...
Beginner thoughts on playing pot-limit Omaha 8 online
I decided not to play that $200 PLO8 tournament last week because I felt like I would have been pretty dead money. I'm really rusty at the game and have only played a little actual pot-limit; most of my experience with high-low has just been limit. I've played a decent amount of Omaha High for $5-10 blinds, but it was live. After going on PokerStars and playing in a low-limit .50-1.00 6-max cash ...
Kido Pham vs Doug Lee: verbal trickery and making speeches
In honor of recently finishing the infamous Doug Lee thread on Twoplustwo, I'll devote a little time to examining a hand between Lee and Kido Pham. In this hand, Doug Lee raises with K2 and Pham calls in position with TJ. The flop comes KQ9, with Pham flopping the straight. Pham checks and Lee bets. Pham calls. The turn comes a blank. Pham checks and Doug Lee goes all in and it's all ...
Bet timing tells. Strategic use of calling the clock.
So, there's this very, very slow regular who I've played with a few times in the $100 tournament I occasionally play in. His name's Nassir, he's a middle-aged dude, and he's as slow-acting as they come. I almost wrote about this guy a few posts ago, just because I've spent a lot of time examining his style, and also because I find him indicative of a certain type of player that I think it helps to ...
Staying friendly with someone you’re bluffing
I usually try to act friendly/devil-may-care when playing poker. Most of the time I'm just acting that way to give the impression I don't care about the money and I'm there to have a good time. Also, it is often to my benefit to get friendly with people, since they're more likely to give you credit for a hand when you bet against them - "He wouldn't bluff me, we're friends" kind of thoughts ...
Leg shaking at the poker table
Did well again this week in the $100 multi-table tournament I play in occasionally. Split it 3 ways even between myself and two women who play pretty well. One specific read played a big part in one of the plays I made. The first important pot I got into was when the blinds were 200-400. I've got about 20,000, and I'm 2nd chip leader at our table. This young guy who introduces himself to people as ...