Tells.
Topic: Poker
I have always thought that the interpretation of 'tells' was one of the most overrated aspects of live poker play. Hollywood loves to make out that a scratch of the ear or a lick of the lips makes the difference between the hero making a ten-thousand dollar call or not. In Rounders, the hero learns to beat Teddy KGB by noticing that the difference between a bet for value and a bluff can be seen in the way he breaks a cookie - listening to it break means one thing, watching it break means the other.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, we know it's not really like this. There are countless people making a living by playing online where it's impossible to see the opponent! What would the Hollywood studios make out of that? I thought of all this last night because of a hand that happened while playing in a small competition in Luton (#20 Pot limit Hold'em). As you probably know, I don't see tournaments as the main focus of my poker play, but from time to time I persuade myself to have a go at them and last night Allan 'the hat' Engel talked me into taking a shot at one.

We started with 48 runners, with 9 prizes to be paid. When I got down to the last 10 players this hand took place. I was below average chips and had a loose player with a large stack on my right. I had 66 and was in the small blind. The players to the left of the blinds folded and the button flat called. I know that a lot of people would automatically raise in my position; it might even be correct play. However I have an aversion to doing things that others do automatically and only flat called. The big blind checked. The flop brought 10 4 3 with two spades. As there was only one overcard and it wasn't a picture or an ace, I decided to bet. While I was probably winning and didn't want to grant a free card, there is a drawback to this bet in that you don't really know where you are if you get called, though you can be reasonably sure you're behind if you get raised. The big blind passed and the button called. The player on the button would, I was pretty sure, have raised if he had a 10. He had done similar raises with top pair before. The turn card was a 4 and I checked. He checked also. The last card was a red 8 and I checked again. He now bet enough to set me all in. Ugh!

My initial instinct was that he had been on a flush draw and had missed. I had seen him bet with nothing on the river before to try and steal the pot and on that occasion was called by Danny Sampson with ace-high (a great call). However that previous pot was different in that there had been a raise preflop and no bet on the flop. This time I was concerned that he'd made a loose call on the flop with a 4 and had trap-checked on the turn to try and draw me in on the river. Additionally, he could have called me with two spades including the 8 and decided to make a (pointless) bet on the end. What was to be done? I sat back and decided that this was not an automatic fold and was worth thinking about for 15 seconds.

On sitting back I saw that he was staring at me. His head was tilted at 90 degrees and his eyes didn't leave my face. This is a textbook indication of a bluff. It's as though the strength of the staring is intended to compensate for the weakness of the cards. I felt myself being drawn towards calling. It's not a nice position to be in on the bubble (when there are X+1 players remaining and only X prizes) however. Who wants to go out calling with no cards to come when they can only beat a bluff? So I decided on one last look at him to see whether his chest was pounding. It was. I folded.

That might seem counter-intuitive. One might think that a pounding chest was an indication of nerves and thus of a bluff and indeed six months ago this would have persuaded me to call, but since then I have figured that it's cost me money. The pounding chest does indicate nerves, but more often than not, the nerves stem from two things; either a fear of NOT being called, or a fear of being outdrawn on a big hand that they know they are committed to playing for all their chips (e.g. AA preflop). So I took this as a cue to fold.

A few minutes later, he said to me: 'Do you want to know what I had?'. I said yes and he told me that he had had Ace-Five of spades (in other words, the last bet had been a bluff, as I had originally suspected). Then he said 'I'm good at staring people out'. Ho-hum, back to the drawing-board! He could of course have been lying to me, but I don't think that he was.

Five minutes later, this player on the right got involved with another big stack. He raised in late position with KK and got called by someone in the blinds. The flop brought 5 6 9 and it was checked to the player with the kings, who bet. The guy in the blinds check-raised. Our hero thought for a long while and called. The turn was a low card and the player first to act bet all-in and the player with the kings thought again and then called. He showed the kings and the other player showed 77. The player with the 77 gasped and said 'I put you on two overcards'. He got no help on the river and was effectively out, as he didn't have enough chips to cover the small blind on the next hand and was promptly eliminated.

I didn't think that the call with the kings was easy and if I had had the same chip stack I might not have called the check-raise on the flop. The player who made the check-raise looked totally assured that he was ahead, not a trace of doubt in his mind. This raises a vital point about body language and 'tells'. It's no use knowing that a player's body language indicates strength or weakness unless you know what they believe strong and weak to be. The player with the 77 never let it enter his mind that he was behind, even though he should have. In a similar way, a loose cannon like Jac Arama will confidently semi-bluff with the nut flush draw without thinking of it as being a bluff. In his mind he's got a valid bet and that's that. You have to get inside your opponent's belief system before the analysis of anything else he does means anything.

Despite missing the chance to make a great call, I nevertheless got to third in the competition. On the final table I was helped by having three players on my left whose body language made it clear when they had worthless cards preflop. This meant that when considering a pre-flop steal raise, I could see that I was only raising into 2 players instead of 5. It's a huge edge. Of all the tells I know, preflop disinterest is probably the most reliable. In the late stages of a tournament, this information is worth money in the bank.