This past weekend I went to a Windy City Poker charity tournament in Chicago. I played a couple interesting hands that featured a good amount of reliable poker tells, which I’ll share below. The tournament was a $1,000 buy-in one; it got about 50 players. It had one featured table, with RFID sensors and camera coverage, that switched players once every hour. The episodes didn’t stream live but ...
A couple of interesting hands from $1-2 NL
Just a couple interesting spots from some recent hands where someone's behavior played a role in my decision-making. First one is from $1-2 NL. I had about $700 and the guy directly to my left had about $600. A couple limpers in front of me. I limp with 46 of diamonds. The guy directly to my left was an older guy who was "tricky", and who liked to make small raises pre-flop as pot-builders in ...
Immediate bets and calls in a $2-5 hand
I've been much more attuned to bet-timing tells lately, just going out of my way to study it more. I think bet-timing tells are responsible for a lot of the more subtle reads of situations that experienced players can get. I also think a lot of the time this stuff can be analyzed in an instinctual way by experienced players. For instance, in the hand I'm going to describe, I think a lot of ...
$2-5: An immediate call on the flop and desperate behavior after river bet
This is a $2-5 hand I played the other day. This one was interesting because my opponent's actions added up to make me suspicious enough to make a river call, in a spot that I ordinarily would have folded from a fundamental perspective. It’s also interesting because he was doing a lot of stuff (like talking and showing his neighbor his cards) that will usually mean a good hand, but in this case ...
Immediate calls – a badly written chapter of my book
A reader, David Monath, sent me an email about my book Reading Poker Tells yesterday, pointing out some inconsistencies in the “Speed of calling” chapter, specifically what I say about immediate calls and what they mean. I wanted to address the inconsistencies here for the benefit of people who read the book. ...
More on immediate calls (snap-calls) in No Limit Hold’em
In my previous blog post I talked about what immediate calls (snap-calls) of significant turn bets in NLHE might mean. Some responses let me know that I hadn’t made it clear that I was just talking about significant turn bets, as opposed to flop bets, so I wanted to reiterate that. I think some of what I said can apply to flop bets, but flop bets and calls are usually not as meaningful, just ...
A Snap-Call Theory
The last post I wrote talked about immediate calls and what they might mean. (I called them “quick calls” but I should say “immediate calls” or "snap calls" because “quick” could be interpreted as someone moving their bet in with a quick motion.) I had talked in my book about quick calls for a short bit, but I’ve never felt happy with that section, because I felt there was much more to say on it. ...
$2-5: quick call of turn bet indicates probable draw
This hand is from a $2-5 NL full ring game. Long story short: my opponent called a substantial turn bet very quickly, and I should have thought more about what his action meant. I should have come to the conclusion that his quick call meant that he was most likely drawing, which means I should have bluffed the river. ...
Immediate calls are usually a drawing hand
Immediate calls tell you a lot. In my experience, they polarize someone's hand range to either super-strong or a vulnerable hand like a decent draw or top pair weak kicker. Most often, though, it will be a draw. In this $15-30 limit hand, the guy's immediate call lets you narrow his hand range a lot. I have [As] [Ks] and raise UTG. I get one fairly tight player calling me in the BB. He is ...
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 ...
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. ...