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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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EXCLUSIVE SUPER/SYSTEM 2
TIPS FROM MIKE CARO UNIVERSITY
Mike Caro
From his earliest days as “Crazy Mike” to his current stature
as the legendary “Mad Genius of Poker” and “America’s
Mad Genius,” Mike Caro has pioneered some of the most important
concepts used by the top players today. In public, he can be off-the-wall
and entertaining, but when he offers advice and research, world-class
poker competitors take his word as gospel. And even those players who
haven’t had personal contact with Mike have no doubt been greatly
influenced by his pioneering theories in ways they don’t even realize.
When I met him in 1977, Mike was thirty-two and already the best draw
poker player in the world. Since then he has evolved into the premier
authority on poker strategy, psychology, and statistics. Now at sixty,
he has helped generations of players reach levels of achievement they
never dreamed possible through his books, columns, seminars, and videos.
A few years ago, he founded Mike Caro University of Poker, Gaming, and
Life Strategy with an online campus located at www.poker1.com, yet another
innovation that electrified the poker community. Recognized as “the
man” in poker circles, his unquestioned integrity, unprecedented
ingenuity, and tireless devotion to our game have left their mark throughout
the world of poker.
In the following pages you’ll get a taste of what Mike teaches at
his standing-room-only seminars. These powerful tips and concepts will
likely be as valuable as any advice you’ll ever receive.
43 EXCLUSIVE
SUPER/SYSTEM 2 TIPS FROM MIKE CARO UNIVERSITY
By Mike Caro
Each tip in this chapter works in conjunction with everything Doyle Brunson
and his collaborators teach in the following chapters. I know this because
poker is powerful science. I know this because, in many ways, poker is
exact science. I know this because any true world-class player—particularly
one selected by Doyle—must honor all established laws of poker science.
I also know this because I’ve already seen the chapters.
The following tips are selected from over 1,000 candidates in the library
of articles, lectures, courses, and seminar transcripts found at Poker1.com.
That’s the online home of Mike Caro University of Poker. MCU serves
as the exclusive educational wing for doylesroom.com, where you can play
internet poker against real opponents worldwide. You’ll find Doyle’s
teachings online, along with my own, at Poker1. But this is the way I
still prefer to teach—offline, in traditional print.
For many years, I didn’t want my poker concepts to appear in print
at all. I never wanted to share poker secrets. I was perfectly content
to be a professional poker player for the rest of my life. But in 1977,
Doyle persuaded me to create the draw poker and statistics sections for
the original Super/System, and in doing so, he opened my eyes to the prospect
of propelling poker beyond its dark and dingy history. He dreamed of bringing
our great game into the light of day, writing openly about tactics, and
helping the public see poker as a worthy strategy game, just like chess,
backgammon, and bridge.
As soon as Super/System was published in 1978, I realized the scope of
Doyle’s dream. Poker players, who had been hungry for real analysis—not
homespun hit-and-miss wisdom found in previous books—expressed their
gratitude openly, not just to Doyle, but to me and all the experts on
the first Super/System team.
Yes, the early research I contributed back then was ahead of its time,
but it doesn’t compare with the truths we’ve learned since.
Today, we’re unraveling some of poker’s great tactical mysteries,
as you’ll discover when you move beyond this chapter.
Draw Is Dead
“Draw poker is dead,” Doyle said, and he suggested that,
rather than revising and modernizing both the five-card draw high and
lowball sections for Super/System 2, I create an introductory “seminar,”
based on the ones I present to casinos, but with deeper explanations worthy
of Super/System. The tips would appear on “screens,” just
as they do at my live performances. Fine. I don’t agree that draw
poker is dead, but let’s do that seminar, anyway.
I’ve divided the presentation into four sessions:
(1) Insights and Attitude;
(2) Strategy and Tactics;
(3) Psychology and Tells; and,
(4) Two Final Bonus Tips.
If you’re ready, I am, too, so let the exclusive MCU
Super/System 2 seminar begin!
Insight and Attitude
TIP 1
I know what you’re thinking. That’s a strange way to begin
a chapter targeted to readers who seek to play poker seriously. I read
your mind, right? Get used to it.
You’re looking at my most famous quote, so let me explain why it
is an important starting point.
The main skill that successful people possess is the ability to closely
estimate their chances in life. The main skill that winning poker players
possess is the ability to closely estimate their chances of winning a
hand or making a profit in a game.
How do you closely estimate your chances? It’s a matter of observing
what goes on around you and determining how likely events are to affect
you. Easier said than done, right? Right! And you’ll never get anywhere
near perfect when it comes to estimating your chances. But the closer
you come, the more likely you are to conquer opponents at life and at
poker.
But, here’s what you need to understand: If you don’t know
how to estimate chances or you don’t have any information at all
about a situation, then that event appears to be an even money situation.
Experience tells us that some things are not even money. If you leap from
a twenty-story building, you probably won’t land safely. But, wait!
You might land safely. You might have your fall broken by a giant pile
of feather pillows. Of course, you and I know it’s not an even-money
proposition that this will happen. We know that leap probably isn’t
going to end pretty.
Okay, so how would you know it wouldn’t end pretty if you didn’t
understand gravity or falling or collisions with concrete or anything
else? You wouldn’t. You’d just jump and take your chances.
To you, the act would seem no more or less dangerous than sleeping. Landing
safely would seem like an even-money bet to you.
But as you gain experience and gather information, you’re able to
better assess your chances. In fact, your goal in poker and in life is
to defeat the notion that a situation is even money and replace it with
truer odds—which sometimes might actually turn out to be even money
after all. You don’t necessarily do this by keeping actual odds
or numbers in your head, just by using good judgment based on the information
available. In the long run, the person who does that best succeeds most.
We want you to succeed at poker. The information in this book will help
you monumentally when it comes to assessing your chances, making the right
decisions, choosing the right games, and deciding which gambles are good
for you.
TIP 2
Again, you’re probably bewildered, because the tip seems too simple.
I’m betting you’re thinking something like, “Obviously
money you don’t lose is just as good as money won, because you saved
it. And saved money can be spent.” Fine, but then how come most
players, even most professionals, often play poorly when they’re
losing? If you sometimes find yourself doing that, then you need to pay
close attention now.
Here’s the way I explain the concept at live seminars. If you’re
losing $9,225 in a $50/$100 limit game, it probably won’t feel much
different to you if you lose $9,925 instead. Even though logically you
know that the difference is $700, emotionally it doesn’t seem like
$700 you can spend. When you lose $9,225, you’re thinking in terms
of that money no longer being available. Same goes for losing $9,925.
You’re not thinking that you can spend anything, in either case.
But you can!
If you lost just $9,225, you’d still have $700 to spend that you
wouldn’t have if you had lost $9,925. Obvious, I know. But the difference
doesn’t feel like much in the heat of poker combat. When you began
playing for the day, though, you would have felt that you were ahead if
you’d won $700—obviously. That’s because it would be
very clear to you that you have $700 extra to buy things with. Well, the
same is true if you play as well as you can when you’re running
bad and cut the loss by $700 through superior play. You have $700 to spend,
even though, in our example, you lost over $9,000.
If you’re unable to see it that way, maybe this will help. Suppose
you were having a really rotten year and had lost $240,000. Now a genie
pops out of a bottle. Don’t snicker—this actually happens
to me regularly. The genie says, “Wanda,” assuming your name
is Wanda, which it might not be, “I can rewrite history and make
you even for the year.”
You say, “That’s great, genie! Thank you so very much!”
“There’s just one thing I need to know.”
“I knew there was a catch,” you complain.
“Just tell me,” the genie continues, ignoring your unappreciative
remark, “whether you want me to rewrite history by adding a little
to each of your wins, so that they total $240,000 more, or take a little
from each of your losses, so that they total $240,000 less.”
Immediately you blurt, “I don’t care, genie. It doesn’t
matter. Just do it.”
And then you recognize the meaning of your own words. It really doesn’t
matter, because saving a little from each loss—even a big loss—is
just as important as adding to a win. It’s not almost the same money
or theoretically the same money, but exactly the same money. And once
you realize the truth of this, you will always play poker with the same
amount of care, whether you’re winning or losing. It always matters
equally.
TIP 3
In order to be successful at poker, you must understand this. Always
make your decision about whether to call, fold, check, or raise in accordance
with how much money is in the pot, weighed against what it will cost you
to wager. That decision should be the same whether the pot is provided
as a promotion by the casino or you somehow put the entire sum in yourself.
Once you put money in the pot, it’s up for grabs and is no longer
yours, any more than it is anyone else’s. For that reason, you should
never consider how much you personally have invested in a pot in evaluating
a poker decision.
The same concept governs your everyday life. Let’s suppose you fancy
yourself a world-renowned collector of antique radiator caps, as many
of us dreamed of being when we were kids. Two years ago you were able
to acquire a radiator cap signed by Edward Jones Miscellania, a respected
local automobile mechanic, for $300,000. Two years later, an appraisal
places the true value at a disappointing $75,000.
Then a fellow collector offers you $150,000. Okay, now you have a choice.
You can say, “Don’t be ridiculous! I already have $300,000
invested in this radiator cap.” Or you can correctly reason: What
I personally have invested doesn’t matter. The only thing I should
consider is whether the $150,000 is a good price for my radiator cap.
If you opt for the second choice and pocket the $150,000, you’ve
learned a key secret in life and poker: What you personally have invested
never matters.
TIP 4
Years ago a reporter asked me, “What’s the main objective
in poker—except, of course, winning pots.” Well, I had to
explain to him that winning pots isn’t an objective in poker, at
all.
You shouldn’t even care whether you win a pot. You should only care
about making the correct decisions. Making quality decisions is the only
thing you get paid for in poker. In fact, it’s easy to become the
grand champion of winning pots. All you need to do is call and raise your
way toward the showdown every chance you get. If you don’t pick
up the pot early, every hand that could possibly have gotten lucky enough
to win, will win that final showdown. Many of these will be hands with
long-shot, unprofitable chances that you stubbornly continued to play
against the odds. If you’d thrown all of them away, you would have
saved a lot of money, but you wouldn’t have won any extra pots.
If you don’t throw any hands away, you’re probably going to
win more pots than anyone else—right up until you go broke.
So, obviously, the object in poker isn’t to win pots. You need to
take that attitude to the poker table. Whenever you make the correct decision
to fold a hand, you’ve made money. Notice that I didn’t say
that you saved money. That’s because—as you learned from the
previous tip—money made and money not wasted can be spent equally
well. So, there’s profit in throwing hands away.
Of course, making the right decisions can sometimes help you win a pot,
especially when you bluff at a profitable moment. But it’s that
decision you get paid for, not winning the pot. Striving to make the right
decisions—not to winning pots—is so important that I do something
you’re going to consider weird: I root for my opponents to win pots.
This keeps me good-natured in a poker game and makes my opponents believe
I genuinely care about them—because it’s true. By rooting
for an opponent to win the pot, only two things can happen:
(1) If the opponent wins, I’m happy.
(2) If the opponent loses, I get the pot as a consolation prize.
I’m always aware that the more times my opponents go against the
odds and win, the poorer they’re playing, and the more money I’ll
earn eventually—especially in limit games, where average players
enter too many pots. This attitude and this success come from realizing
that winning the pot is not the object of poker.
TIP 5
You want to be in the most profitable games, right? Well, when you hear
laughter, it’s often an indication that players are there to enjoy
poker, not to take it seriously. On average, friendly games, especially
those with laughter, are the most easily beatable. Conversely, silence
is usually an indication that opponents are playing way too seriously,
and your prospects for making a profit are diminished. When you have a
choice, choose a table where players are laughing.
TIP 6
Typical poker tournaments continue until one player has all the chips,
and everyone else goes broke. But if the stakes just stayed the same,
a tournament might last many years. It would be very hard to eliminate
players. So, in tournaments, the stakes keep getting larger and larger
periodically, until all but one player is gone.
But, you know what? If you only have a small bankroll, you can make your
own tournament any day. Buy into a small game and keep moving to a bigger
limit every hour until you either go broke or win at the $5,000/$10,000
limit or larger. You see what I’m getting at, right? You’re
almost certain to go broke, but you might get extremely lucky and increase
your bankroll hundreds of times. Most likely, you’re going to end
up miserable.
You’d be surprised how many otherwise skillful players fail at poker,
simply because they treat their bankrolls like tournament buy-ins. Sure,
they don’t do it all in one day, as in the exaggerated example I
provided. But they keep promoting themselves to higher and higher levels
that the size of their bankrolls can’t justify. Almost all of them
go broke, despite their skills. Please don’t do that.
TIP 7
“What percentage of hands should I enter pots with?” It’s
a common question.
“It depends on your image and what you’re trying to accomplish.”
That’s my answer. As strange as it may seem to you, one professional
can play twice as many hands as another and both can earn the same amount
of profit in the long run.
How come? It’s because so many hands are marginal, meaning they
will break about even, that you could play almost all of them or almost
none of them and still earn the same. Most of your poker profit comes
from relatively few quality hands.
Still, you need to consider the good and the bad about playing a lot of
marginal hands. When you do, you’re seen as an action player, and
you’re likely to make more money when you hold your best hands,
because opponents feel comfortable playing against you. That’s good.
But, because opponents don’t perceive you as conservative, it will
be harder for you to bluff profitably. That’s bad. Also, when you
play most of your marginal hands, the size of your bankroll becomes more
volatile, and that means you need more money to afford the same size games.
When I’ve established a friendly, carefree image, which is what
I usually strive for, I generally play most marginal hands. In addition
to fitting my image, this strategy gives me opportunities to extract profit
from small edges later in hands when opponents make mistakes. These small-profit
opportunities add up, and they wouldn’t be available to me if I
didn’t play those hands. In general, Doyle and almost all world-class
players agree and play a lot of marginal hands.
But, you need to keep in mind that marginal hands are marginal for a reason—they
about break even. And since there are so many hands in this category compared
with so few high-quality hands, it’s easy to see how one professional
player can contend for twice as many pots as another and both can eventually
end up with about the same profit.
TIP 8
Don’t be too proud of your success calling bets in limit poker
games. Remember, the pot is always larger than the size of the bet, because
there will always be some money in the pot when the bet is made. In limit
games, the pot is usually many times the size of the bet. Let’s
say you’re heads-up and your opponent bets $400 into a $2,400 pot
on the last betting round. Clearly your call only needs to be successful
once in a while, not every time. Specifically, there’s $2,800 out
there to win (the $400 just bet, plus the $2,400 that was already there),
and it will cost you $400 to find out if your hand is best. You’re
getting 7 to 1 odds ($2,800 to $400).
That means if you win once in eight times when you call in this circumstance,
you’ll break even (seven $400 losses, totaling $2,800, versus one
$2,800 win). So, this is a call you should make, even if you estimate
that you’re going to lose 5 out of 6 times. That would cost $2,000
for the five unsuccessful $400 calls and provide $2,800 for the one successful
call—a net gain of $800 for six calls. That’s about $133 profit
per call, on average. So, if you don’t make that call—because
you know you’re usually going to lose—you’re costing
yourself a lot of money.
Now, sometimes you call because you’ve read your opponent and are
acting in response to a powerful tell. If you’re good at reading
opponents—and I’ll help you out with that in a few minutes—you
will increase the profit you make by calling. Otherwise, most of your
calls will be made on the basis of evaluating the cards in relation to
the size of the pot. You see, in those cases, you’re usually not
supposed to win when you call. Burn this into your brain once and for
all: “I’m probably going to lose when I call, but it’s
a good thing!” You could, of course, only call with your most-likely
winning hands. Then you’d average a lot of profit per call. But
that would be very bad, because in order to average a lot of money calling,
you must sacrifice by not making calls that are individually less profitable,
but hugely profitable combined. The truth is that you don’t want
to average a lot of profit per call, and you shouldn’t be proud
of the fact, if you do.
TIP 9
It makes no sense to stay in a poker game, struggling to get even, unless
you would normally continue to play that game if you were ahead. If you’re
a professional player, then the more hours you spend in games, under good
working conditions, the more profit you’ll earn. You get paid by
the hour—pure and simple. Sometimes it might not seem that way,
because the fluctuations in poker are so great that it’s hard to
imagine yourself working for an hourly wage. But that’s what’s
happening.
Eventually, the more hours you play under profitable conditions, the more
your bankroll will grow. But, you only have so many hours to invest in
poker, and you need to invest them wisely. Find the best games. Make sure
you’re playing when you’re in condition to do the best job.
You need to weigh everything. For instance, it’s not good to play
poker when you’re tired. But if the game is very good, you might
occasionally choose to continue playing, even if you’re tired. Conversely,
sometimes you might choose to go home early and rest, even though the
game is profitable, because you think another game will be more profitable
tomorrow.
So you need to make choices about which hours will be the most profitable.
Okay, but what you do not need to do is choose to play for hours on end
in an attempt to get even for the session. Whether you win or lose today
has nothing whatsoever to do with your overall success. It doesn’t
matter when you quit or when you play—as long as your decision is
based on how profitable the next hour will be.
Think about this: You start every pot even. Your bankroll is always only
as big as when the pot begins. You’re never winning or losing when
the cards are dealt. You’re always even. So it makes no sense to
try to get even. You already are.
TIP 10
“I’ve won twenty-three days in a row!”
Peter was proud as he told me this. But he shouldn’t have been.
Earlier during this win streak, he’d bragged about having been buried
one day for $1,100 in the $10/$20 hold’em game he played as an aspiring
professional. “I stuck it out like a world-class pro,” he’d
bragged. “At a quarter to five in the morning, I counted down my
stack and I was $8 ahead. I didn’t even bother to play out my free
hands until the next blind. I just cashed out immediately. That gives
me seventeen wins in a row!”
Now, you see the problem here? Peter was manufacturing his win streak.
It’s a pretty easy thing to do. You just refuse to take a loss until
it gets so big that there’s hardly any hope of recovery. If you
get lucky and recover, you cash out immediately with a small win. If you
start off winning, you’re quickly satisfied, and you also settle
for a small win. The hallmark of a player who manufactures winning streaks
is that his average wins are much smaller than his average losses.
Yes, you tend to have a lot of long winning streaks, but at what cost?
By trying to recover from a deep loss, you’re likely to find yourself
playing in the worst conditions—when games yield smaller profits,
on average. Although there are exceptions, always keep in mind that games
where you’re losing are likely to be made up of stronger opponents.
These games will therefore be less profitable than games where you’re
winning, which tend to consist of weaker opponents. Also, when you’re
losing, many opponents are aware of this and don’t see you as much
of a threat. Often they’re motivated by your bad run and play better.
For these reasons, you’ll probably be in a less profitable situation
if you stick around, struggling to get even. Remember, you’re getting
paid by the hour, and here you are, putting in lots of extra hours under
poor working conditions, with poor pay.
It’s also bad to quit when you’re winning, just to keep your
streak alive. You’ll very likely be deserting a good game. When
you’re winning, games are more profitable on average than when you’re
losing. And players you’re beating are more easily intimidated,
because they’ve seen you winning, fear you more, and are less likely
to play their best game against you. So, when you leave a game to enhance
a winning streak, you’re usually taking off work under the best
conditions, where the hourly wages were highest.
Put it all together and you can see why a manufactured win streak isn’t
a good thing. It’s certainly nothing you should be bragging about.
TIP 11
This brings us to poker’s stupidest question: “Why didn’t
you quit when you were ahead?” Specifically, people will ask this
question after you’ve lost a lot of your winnings or unfortunately
turned a win into a loss. Often they know approximately how much you were
winning and will phrase the question similarly to what you see above:
“Why didn’t you quit when you were $17,000 ahead?”
I’ll tell you why I didn’t quit when I was $17,000 ahead!
I didn’t quit, because I wanted to make more money. I didn’t
quit, because when I’m winning, game conditions tend to be best,
and since I get paid by the hour, I wanted to get in more hours under
those conditions. I didn’t quit, because neither you nor I had any
way of knowing at the time whether the cards would be good or bad from
that point on.
Here’s the main reason that “Why didn’t you quit when
you were $17,000 ahead?” is the stupidest question in poker: When
you win $50,000, nobody ever asks it.
TIP 12
Most serious players understand this tip, but few understand its full
value. Since the action moves clockwise around the table in poker, players
to your right usually act before you. I say usually, not always, because
if the player on your right is in the dealer position, he’ll act
last throughout the hand. Or if he’s in one of the blinds and you’re
not, he’ll act after you on the first betting round. Also, in a
stud game, the face-up cards—not table position—dictate who
goes first, but you still have an overall positional advantage against
stud players to your right.
For the most part, you will act after players to your right, and this
means you’ll usually get to see what they do before making your
decision. That’s called positional advantage.
In fact, positional advantage is so huge in full-handed games that most
of the money you make in your poker-playing career comes from the players
one or two seats to your right, and most of the money you lose goes to
players one or two seats to your left.
TIP 13
Because most of your lifetime profit comes from players who act before
you do, it’s important to choose a seat, whenever possible, that
places the correct types of players to your right. In other words, you
sit to the left of them.
When you have a choice, sit to the left of players who either pose the
biggest threat or who supply the most money. In the biggest threat category
are players who are sophisticated, aggressive, and unpredictable. You
can greatly diminish their effectiveness by forcing them to act first,
giving you positional advantage over them. If they were seated to your
left, they could use that advantage to pummel you.
But even more important to your long-range profit is sitting to the left
of loose opponents, particularly non-aggressive ones. Loose but non-aggressive
players supply most of the money you win, because they enter too many
pots and don’t always take full advantage of profitable opportunities
by betting or raising when they have you beat. They’re likely to
lose, and you’ll have a better shot at their money if they act first.
When you hold your most profitable hands, you’ll frequently see
them calling a bet with weak hands before you raise. Then, when you do
raise, they’re trapped for more money. If the situation were reversed
and you acted before them with an opportunity to raise another opponent,
your raise would likely scare away those weak players to your left (along
with their weak hands).
The two types of players you want to sit to the left of are almost opposite
in nature. One type is loose and timid; the other is selective and aggressive.
You’ll often have to choose between having your biggest money supplier
or your biggest threat on your right. But try to make sure one or the
other is there—and sometimes you’ll be fortunate enough to
accomplish both when your loosest opponent and, also, your most threatening
one sit in the two seats to your right.
Now let’s talk about the seat on the other side of you. What type
of player can you sit to the right of, thereby surrendering your positional
advantage? Here’s the secret: Ideally you should have very conservative
but unimaginative players acting after you. These players don’t
enter enough pots to interfere with your strategy very often and don’t
play aggressively enough to exploit their superior position, even when
they do get involved.
Given all these considerations, my first priority is usually to sit to
the left of my loosest opponents. I want to act after them, because they’re
the most likely to build my bankroll.
TIP 14
I’ll admit I spent a lot of my energy in my younger days playing
against the toughest opponents. This was valuable as a way to hone my
skills, but I overdid it. Although, I played professionally for fourteen
years, I think I would have made even more money had I concentrated more
on finding weaker games, rather than gaining respect by beating world-class
opponents.
TIP 15
The full name of MCU is Mike Caro University of Poker, Gaming, and Life
Strategy. I take the life strategy part of that seriously, and in my teachings
there are many overlapping themes between poker and everyday endeavors.
Few concepts have resonated with students more than Caro’s Threshold
of Misery. I continually receive letters, e-mails, and face to face thanks
from both poker players and people in the “real world,” telling
me how much this simple truth has meant to them.
Here’s how it goes: Suppose you’re a small- to medium-limit
player, and you can envision yourself comfortably losing a maximum of
$1,500 today. I’m not suggesting that you’ll be happy about
losing that much, just that you can comfortably handle it and that anything
more will begin to feel uncomfortable.
Okay, now you find yourself down $500, then $1,100, then—before
it registers—you’ve zoomed past $1,500 and are losing $1,800.
You’ve entered dangerous territory. And it gets worse. And worse.
Hours later, you find yourself losing $4,530. Now, your mind is numb.
I believe that most people at this point can’t mentally comprehend
added losses. It all feels the same. You’ve crossed Caro’s
Threshold of Misery, which is the point at which mental and emotional
pain is maximized and anything further won’t register.
You must be aware when you cross the threshold, because beyond it decisions
don’t seem to matter. This is true in real life, too. When romances
unravel or businesses fail, you might cross the Threshold of Misery and
stop caring about making critical decisions regarding other things. That’s
because the pain is already maximized and anything else that goes wrong
can’t add to the agony. Listen closely. At these times, in poker
and in life, the secret is to keep performing as if you care. Remember
that, although you can’t emotionally feel the importance of making
quality decisions at the moment, there will come a time when you will
feel that importance and be grateful for the good decisions that you make
now. Yes, you’ve crossed the threshold and decisions don’t
seem to matter. They do still matter, and anything that suggests otherwise
at this moment is an illusion.
Strategy and Tactics
TIP 16
Even some professional players make the mistake of betting aggressively
after deceptive players check. They’d earn much more money if they
didn’t have this bad habit. Throughout your poker playing years,
always think about the player you’re about to bet into before firing
away with a medium-strong hand. If it’s a tricky player, you should
be much less motivated to bet, because he won’t just fall in line
and call meekly. He will surprise you occasionally by raising as a bluff,
sometimes getting you to throw away the best hand. And he will also tend
to get maximum value out of his strong hands by raising daringly, costing
you an extra bet whenever you call and lose the showdown. You should tend
to bet much more often when the check comes from meek and non-deceptive
foes. So, you should not bet as frequently or as willingly after a deceptive
opponent checks. Make that a part of your permanent game plan.
TIP 17
This is another MCU maxim that some professionals too often ignore, costing
them extra profit for their whole careers. When a frequent bluffer waits
to act after you, there can be considerable value in letting him make
his primary mistake—bluffing too often. Against this type of player,
a medium-strong hand will often earn more in the long run as a bluff catcher
than a hand you would bet aggressively for extra value.
TIP 18
One of the reasons bluffs are successful is that they often beat other
equally weak hands. Had you checked, you would have won some showdowns
between garbage hands. And you would have lost some. By betting, you ensure
a win under those circumstances, and that adds substantially to the value
of the bluff.
But when a frequent bluffer checks, it’s much less likely that you
can win by chasing away an almost equally weak hand that might have squeaked
through in a showdown. So that factor won’t work in your favor.
Additionally, frequent bluffers check a disproportionate number of hands
that they intend to call with. That makes a bluff even riskier.
I won’t tell you to never bluff when a frequent bluffer checks,
but you wouldn’t cost yourself much by adopting that policy. You
need to be very certain you’re on solid ground. Otherwise, don’t
bluff.
TIP 19
A value bet is simply an aggressive wager that targets every last dollar
of potential profit. Whenever you value bet, the decision is close enough
that you could easily have checked, instead, without sophisticated opponents
thinking you did anything strange.
The problem with value betting is that many players do it as a matter
of policy, without realizing that there are times you should and times
you shouldn’t. By value betting without applying the correct guidelines,
these players turn a tactic that should add greatly to their profit into
one that may do little more than break even.
I don’t want that to happen to you. So here are two lists telling
you whether to value bet or to check:
Four Conditions That Favor a Value Bet:
1. You’ve Established a Dominant and Unpredictable Image
This intimidates your opponents, making them more likely to call with
weaker hands out of confusion.
2. You’re Winning
This also intimidates your opponents, making them less likely to raise
aggressively, which will cost you extra money when their hands are somewhat
better than yours.
3. Your Opponent Is Timid
Opponents who are, by nature, timid, are unlikely to press a superior
hand for maximum value or steal the pot with an unexpected bluff-raise.
4. Your Opponent Tends to Call More Often Than the Average Player
That’s exactly what you’re seeking from your value bets—lots
of calls with weaker hands.
Four Conditions That Favor a Check:
1. You’ve Failed to Establish a Dominant and Unpredictable Image
This usually means your opponent is not intimidated and less likely to
call out of confusion.
2. You’re Losing
Your opponents, aware that you’re losing, often gain the courage
to get maximum value by raising with hands that may be slightly better
than yours, costing you extra bets.
3. Your Opponents Have a Tendency to Raise Liberally
This means that due to their nature, they get maximum value from hands
that are slightly better than yours.
4. Your Opponent Plays Tight
Tight players are unlikely to call liberally with weaker hands than yours,
taking the value out of your bet.
These lists don’t cover every conceivable thing you might consider.
But they do include the things I consider first when deciding whether
or not to value bet. If you do that, too, you’ll make a lot of extra
money. Value betting just for its own sake doesn’t make much money.
Value betting for the right reason does.
TIP 20
Whenever you hold an unbeatable hand—or one close to it—you
might consider checking and then raising if an opponent bets, also known
as sandbagging. But when two or more opponents are involved in the pot
with you, there’s an important factor you’ll need to consider
before deciding whether to bet or to sandbag.
Here it is: You should sandbag your strongest hands when the player immediately
to your left is the one most likely to make the first bet, and usually
not otherwise. Why is that? Because by sandbagging with a powerful hand,
you’re trying to win more money. You’re declining to bet,
risking direct money through calls, in the hopes that someone else will
do your betting for you, and then you can raise and win extra.
Well, suppose there are three players in the pot. If you check, the player
to your left checks, and the other opponent checks, you win nothing. You
gambled that someone else would bet, and you lost that gamble. If you
check, the player to your left checks, and the other opponent bets, that’s
not so good, either. You get to raise, but your seating position relative
to your opponent’s greatly reduces the effectiveness. Your raise
will make it very difficult for the player to your left to justify calling
with anything but a nearly unbeatable hand. You’ll almost certainly
chase that player away. You might get the bettor to your right to call
your raise, but you might not.
What you’d really like to see happen after you check is a bet from
the player to your left. Then, if all goes well, the other opponent will
call, and then you can raise and hope they both call the raise. This call
and overcall often happens in a limit game, because the pot is so large,
relative to the cost of the call.
That great outcome, where you win four bets—two from each opponent—is
only likely to happen if the opponent to your left is the most likely
bettor. So, because sandbagging a huge hand is often only marginally superior
to betting, usually you should try it only when the player to your left
is the one you think will bet.
This happens a lot in hold’em when the player to your left got the
last raise in before the flop and many players are still contesting the
pot. Now, if the flop hits you perfectly and might be satisfactory to
the player to your left, you often should check. If that first-round aggressor
again bets, you might see a lot of other callers before the action returns
for your raise. You should also consider the playing styles of the players
you’re checking into. In particular, you should be more willing
to sandbag your strongest hands when the player to your left is a liberal
bettor.
When you’re first to act, have a big hand, and are considering a
sandbag against two or more opponents, ask yourself who’s most likely
to bet. Left is right. Right is wrong.
TIP 21
Lots of money is lost in pots with at least three players when one of
them raises from a middle seat on the last round of betting. Lower level
professionals quite often make the mistake of raising with fairly strong,
but not invincible, hands.
You seldom want to raise with this secondary strength. By “secondary,”
I mean that the hand is very powerful, but falls short of primary strength,
which consists of hands that cannot be beat or, at least, are very nearly
invincible. Aggressive players that are accustomed to dominating the game
by getting maximum value through betting, typically raise much too liberally
in this situation. The mistake costs them dearly, but they probably don’t
even realize it.
The problem with this middle raise is that hands with secondary strength
usually make more money if you give a third player the chance to overcall.
A raise will likely chase away that money and, if the first player is
bluffing or has a hand too weak to call, that raise gains you nothing.
By not raising, you also protect yourself against losing more money with
a second-best hand when you collide with the perfect hand. The solution:
Seldom raise in the middle position on the last betting round. You can
make an exception and raise if:
(1) You have a weak hand and you think you’re being bluffed; or
(2) Your hand is extremely strong.
In the first case, you raise to eliminate the player waiting to act behind
you, so you can beat the possible bluff. In the second case, you raise
strictly because your hand is strong enough to withstand a reraise from
anyone and you’ll beat the player behind you, if he calls a raise.
Even in the second case, you might choose to just call.
So seldom raise.
TIP 22
While most top professionals understand this, some don’t. And the
majority of second-tier professionals, along with most serious amateurs,
don’t seem to understand it at all, based on the way they play in
this situation. I’ll try to explain it as simply as I can, but you’ll
need to work with me a little.
The mistake happens mostly in limit games. Imagine this: You’re
playing $200/$400 hold’em. Three of you have survived to see the
river card and here comes the final round of betting. You’ll be
last to act, and you’re holding A™ J™ with a board of
J® 4™ K™ 9´ Q´. The pot is $3,100 and the
first player bets, making it grow to $3,500. You examine the situation
and estimate that you have roughly 1 chance in 6 of beating this bettor
in a showdown. As you know, 1 chance in 6 means that the odds are 5 to
1 against you. That means, in order to break even on the call, the pot
would need to be at least five times as large as your $400 call.
Well, the pot in this case is already $3,500—much larger than the
$2,000 needed to justify a call—so obviously you’re supposed
to call. In fact, if you made six calls and won once, you’d lose
$400 five times, for a total of $2,000, and win $3,500 once—an overall
gain of $1,500, or $250 per call.
But, wait! There’s another player involved in this pot. Her name
is Beth and you’ve played poker with her many times before. She
gets to act before you do. Beth calls the bettor, and you estimate her
chances of having a better hand than his to be just about the same as
yours. Now what? Now you need to consider what your chances are of beating
both the bettor and Beth. The mistake players make here is that they tend
to overcall with the same hands—or only slightly stronger ones—than
they would have called with had Beth folded. That’s wrong! You need
a significantly stronger hand to overcall than you need to call.
Here’s why: Remember, you feel that you have an equally good chance
of beating the bettor as Beth does. Mentally, here’s where most
players—even very experienced ones—go off course with their
logic. They think, “If she can call, then so can I, because I have
just as good a chance as she does and now the pot is even bigger.”
And they’re partially right: The pot is even bigger now; it was
$3,500, and now, with Beth’s $400 call, it’s $3,900.
So, should you overcall? No! If your estimates are correct, and we’re
assuming they are, then you still have 1 chance in 6 of beating the original
bettor in a showdown. But, if you succeed there, you still must beat Beth,
and you’ve estimated that you have an even money shot of doing that.
So, if a very similar hand were played over and over through eternity,
for every two times you beat the bettor (and that would only happen 1
out of 6, or 2 out of 12 attempts), you’d also need to beat Beth
(and that would only happen half the time). So, Beth’s presence
takes away half your chances of winning the pot, making your real chances
only 1 in 12, instead of 2 in 12.
How does that translate in terms of money chances? How big would the pot
need to be to call? If you followed the earlier logic, analyzing the odds
before Beth’s call, you know that at 1 chance in 6 , you needed
a pot five times as large as the call to break even. Now, at 1 chance
in 12, the odds are 11 to 1 against you, and you need a pot eleven times
the size of the $400 call to break even. So, in order to justify this
overcall, the pot needs to be at least $4,400 large. It isn’t. It’s
only $3,900. Using the same formula as before, we see that we’re
going to lose $4,400 on those eleven failed calls, and win $3,900 once.
That leaves us $500 short of breaking even over twelve tries, so the average
cost is just less than $42.
Do you see what happened here? It was worth $250, on average, every time
you called just the bettor, but costs you $42 every time you overcall
after Beth. I know this was a tough lesson, but it’s something you
need to know.
Thanks for indulging me. Let’s move on…
TIP 23
You’ve heard a lot about thinning the field. The term refers to
eliminating some of the players that are in competition for the pot. Thinning
the field is sometimes an important weapon. Indeed, there are hands that
can be played more profitably against one or two opponents than against
a whole herd of them.
I’m on record as not being a fan of thin-the-field strategy, because
I believe that players usually attempt it at times when they would make
more money by allowing extra opponents in. The really big issue I have
with this strategy is that, if you succeed in thinning the field, you
very likely have chased away the weakest hands, which might have provided
profit to you had they stayed in the pot. Instead, you’ve left yourself
stranded against only the stronger hands that you wanted to chase from
the pot, but didn’t.
Okay, now that I’ve shared my innermost thoughts about thinning
the field, here’s when to try it and when not to try it. The most
advantageous time to thin the field is when weak players are already committed
to the pot and strong players are waiting to act behind you. If you raise,
you’re likely to chase strong players out and play against weak
opponents and weak hands. The worst time to use this strategy is when
strong players are committed to the pot and weak players remain to act
behind you. If you raise, you’re likely to chase weak players out
and play against just the strong players with strong hands.
Next time you attempt to thin the field, don’t just think about
the number of opponents you’d like to thin, think about which players
you’re going to thin.
TELLS AND PSYCHOLOGY
TIP 24
You want weak players in your game. Usually, they’re playing recreationally,
not seriously. They’re apt to play hands for the sheer fun of it.
They may even enjoy going up against the odds. When you insult them for
their “bad” plays, you’re making them uncomfortable
and motivating them to play better in the future. Don’t do that.
Concluding his seven-card stud high-low chapter, Todd Brunson gives further
insight about the disastrous mistake some professionals make by rudely
criticizing weak opponents. I feel so strongly about this that I often
give encouragement to players who go up against heavy odds to win a pot
from me. I’ll say, “Wow! Most people don’t even play
4-3 offsuit, and usually I don’t, either. But I won with it three
times yesterday. Maybe you and I are on to something!”
Do you understand why I say that? I’m making the weak player feel
good about getting lucky. I’m practically making him into a hero.
At the same time, I’m telling him that I “usually” don’t
play that hand, making me sound sincere and believable. (At a poker table,
it’s perfectly permissible to lie about your hands and about the
way you play them. In fact, it’s part of the psychology of winning.
And once in a while, you should throw in the truth, just to keep opponents
off balance.) But, I’m saying more. I’m claiming that I played
the same hand successfully, even though I suggest that I know better.
This gives him “permission” to play badly again in the future.
If I do it, so can he. It will be fun for him to try to succeed again
and be rewarded with more praise. When players make him feel badly about
weak plays, they’re prodding him to play better. That’s exactly
the opposite of what they should want. And it isn’t fair to other
competitors to make their money suppliers uncomfortable about supplying
money.
TIP 25
While I often praise weak opponents for bad plays, I never praise them
for good plays. That would make them proud of “pleasing me.”
They might decide to take the game seriously—and wouldn’t
that be a disaster?
TIP 26
I’ve seen even some of the best players in the world violate the
advice shown above. Never forget that recreational players supply most
of your profit. They came for the fun of poker, not to analyze it to death
or to take it seriously. When you sit at the table discussing the finer
points of poker strategy, you’re alerting the players who supply
your profit that they might be competing above their league. You’re
making them uncomfortable, and it’s quite possible that they’ll
either decide to sit in your games less often or to play better. You don’t
want either of those things to happen.
I often hear sophisticated players debating the technical merits of how
a hand was just played in the presence of weak opponents. Serious discussions
of strategy can alert these recreational players to the notion that there
is strategy. You don’t want to do that. And, even more peculiar
to me, the debates are usually over something as inconsequential as whether
a call or a raise in a borderline situation was the better choice. These
way-too-technical arguments can never really be resolved (except, possibly,
by me), because there are too many side factors involved, such as how
opponents were likely to respond emotionally at the moment and what the
bettor’s image was.
The truth is, the discussion is often about which choice is 37¢ better,
when just by talking about it in front of a recreational player, the debaters
potentially are costing themselves thousands of dollars. Let me put in
gently, without insulting some of my poker-playing friends who’ve
made this mistake: The economic advisability of discussing advanced strategy
at a poker table populated with weak opponents is hereby brought into
question.
TIP 27
Now I’m going to tell you a story. I’ve told it many times,
but I think it illustrates this point so well that I’ve chosen to
immortalize it by including it in Super/System 2.
I’m not sure what year it was—1985, I think. Well, actually,
it was both 1985 and 1986, because this happened on New Year’s Eve
and shortly thereafter. Okay, I’m playing poker at the Bicycle Casino
near Los Angeles, not because I’m a poker junkie, but because my
wife Phyllis Caro is in charge of the dealers and is working that night.
Anyway, as the hour approaches midnight, games start to break as players
head home to their families. Pretty soon there are sadly no games with
much size to them. Don’t you hate it when players get their priorities
confused? So I settle for killing some time playing a tiny no-limit game
with $1 and $2 blinds. As you’re probably aware, no-limit isn’t
about the size of a poker game; no-limit is a method of betting in a poker
game. Since the forced-blind bets are the initial targets, all wagering
should be in proportion to the size of those blinds. Theoretically, no-limit
games with $100 and $200 blinds should result in pots that are, on average,
100 times as large as the pots in the game where I now sit, with paltry
$1 and $2 blinds. Actually, I could have sat in that game for that hour
before midnight, seen about twenty deals, folded every hand, and it would
have only cost me $6 in blinds. That’s how small the game should
have been.
Notice that I said, “should have been.” You see, something
strange was happening. I’m sure the average pot was over $700, and
many pots were thousands of dollars large. I was suddenly winning a great
deal of money in a game I hadn’t even considered to be a profit-making
opportunity. I mean, here was the loosest, wildest game of poker I’d
ever seen in my life!
Midnight approaches. The Bicycle Casino staff passes out those annoying
noise makers and goofy hats. They also give away streamers you’re
supposed to throw in the air to show how thrilled you are that time moved
forward smoothly to the next year, just as most scientists predicted it
would. I know I sound grumpy, but lucrative poker games should not be
interrupted for this sort of silliness.
It gets to be a couple minutes to the hour. That hour. A second-by-second
countdown begins. Everyone has left the table, getting ready to kiss their
girlfriends, boyfriends, or spouses. Me too. I figure, “Why not?”
Nobody’s sitting at the stupid table anyway. So everyone smooches
and hugs and produces strange, loud bellows that sometimes sound more
anguished than joyful. I kiss Phyllis, but make no loud noises whatsoever.
Streamers snake through the air and sully the carpet. More obnoxious sounds
are coming from everywhere, courtesy of the Bicycle Casino’s free
noise makers.
It goes on for a couple of minutes and everyone returns to the poker table.
Let me tell you, this is now the tightest poker game in the history of
our planet. Nobody’s gambling! You know why, right? New Year’s
resolutions. Everyone has decided to play good this year, and—knowing
poker players as I do—this resolve might last for twenty minutes.
So, I cash out my winnings and hurry home.
What’s the point of this story? The point is that your opponents
resolve to play well from time to time, not just on New Year’s Eve.
And you need to be prepared for it. Typically, players will resolve to
play better when they just sit down for the night. They’re probably
thinking: “This is the day I’m finally going to stay disciplined
and play good.” And like I said, their resolve can last up to twenty
minutes, but never any longer. During this brief window of opportunity,
you can bluff successfully against them. And they won’t be playing
weak hands. The same holds true for players who were buried in a game
and played recklessly with the faint hope of getting even. If they miraculously
do get even, expect their style of play to tighten. Again, you can bluff
them, and they won’t be playing frivolous hands.
So, adjust your strategy accordingly.
TIP 28
When players complain about bad luck, they’re seeking sympathy.
They’re feeding off their own misery, and they want to show you
the hands they lose with to prove their point. It’s rare that players
who are complaining in this way will try to bluff. More often they’ll
simply show you that they missed and, perhaps, say, “See what I
mean.”
So, when they bet, it’s very unlikely that they’re bluffing,
and it’s usually safe to fold medium hands you might otherwise call
with.
TIP 29
What happens when you complain about bad beats? Do your opponents grow
sympathetic and teary eyed? No. They might feign sympathy, but actually
they’re thinking, “Hey! There’s someone more unlucky
than I am! There’s somebody I can beat!” And they become inspired
and play better against you.
There probably aren’t any poker players who haven’t sometimes
felt as if they were setting the world record for bad beats. That’s
because it’s lonely at the table, and when your luck turns terrible,
you’re the only one that’s paying full attention to it. The
most you get from anyone else is vague awareness and an occasional half-hearted,
“Wow! Bad beat!” And that’s it.
It gets so bad sometimes that you wish you could show a video of what
happened to you, so everyone could ooh and ahh about what you went through.
“Want proof? Y’all meet me over at my house, we’ll have
a barbeque, and then we’ll all sit around and watch televised evidence
of how badly I’ve been suffering at poker.” Forget about it!
Except for being inspired by your sadness, nobody cares. Keep your bad
luck to yourself.
Now, the last thing I want is for superstitious opponents to get inspired
because I’m running poorly. So, I don’t broadcast my bad beats.
I deny them.
And I make a deal with my students. I explain, “When you tell me
a bad beat story, I don’t really listen. I nod sadly and pretend
to care, but actually I’m using the time to think about more important
things. That way, you feel the sympathy you’re seeking, and I put
my time to good use. It works for both of us.”
I even deny that I’m having a bad run, if someone mentions it at
the table. I’ll often say something like, “That was a pretty
strange beat, but actually I’ve been very lucky lately.” While
I’m not superstitious and don’t allow my students to be, many
opponents are. They think luck runs in streaks. But, as I’ve been
pointing out for twenty-five years, a streak is just something you see
in the rearview mirror. It might continue and it might not, but you’re
gauging the length of a streak on the basis of what’s already happened,
what’s behind you in the mirror.
You see, the latest lab research suggests that cards lack the physical
strength to reposition themselves. So, even if they were determined in
their tiny brains to make your life miserable, their muscles are too weak
to follow through.
TIP 30
Your opponents didn’t come to the card room hoping to throw hands
away. They have a bias toward calling. And most of them are looking for
reasons to call, even if they have to invent those reasons.
That’s why you’re more likely to be called if you’re
slightly animated. Opponents might unconsciously be aware that you twitched
or sipped your coffee. They’re instinctively thinking, “That’s
strange; maybe that means he’s bluffing.” They’re a
little bit like snakes, predisposed to strike at the slightest move. Except
they’re poker opponents, predisposed to call for the slightest reason.
I’ve given this universal poker condition a name: The Calling Reflex.
And it’s easy to take advantage of it.
In fact, here’s one huge tip: When you hold a strong hand and you
know your opponent is about to fold, do anything! It’s a freeroll,
because you’re already about to lose the call, and if you can change
an opponent’s mind at the last moment, you’ll win a whole
bet you would have lost by just sitting there. It’s pure profit.
So, always keep in mind that your opponents have calling reflexes. As
they begin to fold—assuming you want to be called—jitter,
shift your weight in your chair, knock over some chips, just do something
new. Once in a while, you’ll get your opponent’s attention,
he’ll get suspicious, reconsider, and call. You won’t usually
be able to trigger that calling reflex at the last moment, but you will
sometimes. It’s like making a snake strike. And it doesn’t
cost anything to try!
TIP 31
I’ve written a whole book about the body language of poker—about
your opponents’ mannerisms that suggest whether they’re holding
strong or weak hands and whether they’re bluffing or not. These
mannerisms are called “tells” in poker, because they often
tell you something about your opponents’ secret cards. The main
thrust of the book is that opponents are either acting or they aren’t.
If they’re acting, you should usually determine what they’re
trying to convince you to do and disappoint them. If they’re exhibiting
what I term “involuntary tells,” they’re not acting,
and if the tell is strong enough, you should react directly in accordance
with what it implies. Be aware that the most experienced players in the
biggest games exhibit tells less frequently. And when they do, the tell
is likely to be a more subtle variation of the one you’ll see when
confronting weak and average opponents.
One of the core principles governing acted tells is that a player looking
away is always more dangerous than a player staring at you. A player staring
away from the approaching action, as you see here, is pretending to be
uninterested in the pot. Actually, he has a strong hand and is preparing
to get involved. He’ll probably raise if you’re silly enough
to bet a vulnerable hand into him.
If you see a player staring away like this when it’s your turn to
act, beware!
TIP 32
Here’s one of the most misunderstood and most profitable tells
in poker. It’s not acted. It’s a natural reaction that your
opponents can’t control. You’ll occasionally see this even
among a few top players in the biggest limits—and when you do, you
can save a lot of money by folding.
I’m talking about a suddenly shaking hand. Please pay attention
to what I just said—a “suddenly” shaking hand. If your
opponent’s hands tend to be unsteady most of the time, this tell
won’t help you much. But, fortunately, few players exhibit constant
trembling. So, what happens when—all of a sudden—the opponent
bets and his hand begins to tremble.
I’ll tell you what happens in a lot of opposing players’ minds.
They think, “Look at that hand shake. That guy’s nervous.
I’ll bet he’s bluffing, so I’m going to call”
Now, there’s a thought that’s guaranteed to cost you money!
Typically, players who bluff bolster themselves and often become rigid.
They don’t allow themselves to shake, because they’re afraid
the shaking would make you suspicious and prompt you to call.
When you see an opponent shaking, it’s a release of tension that
comes automatically when the suspense ends. That opponent has made a big
hand—often a truly monumental one—and expects to win. If this
seems counter-intuitive to you, start watching. A suddenly shaking hand
signals the happy ending to a drama. It indicates that the player has
gotten lucky and is mentally already stacking those chips. The trembling
means a strong hand, and you should almost always fold—unless your
own hand is also very powerful.
TIP 33
We talked about the calling reflex, and oddly, most opponents are instinctively
aware of it. They’re not aware to the extent that they’re
able to harness their own calling reflex, but subconsciously they’re
aware that the other players have one—although they’ve probably
never put it in words.
Because of this vague awareness, your opponents are afraid of triggering
your calling reflex after they bet weak hands. So, they instinctively
make themselves less noticeable. Sometimes they freeze and sometimes they
even stop breathing! When opponents appear not to be breathing after they
bet, there’s a much higher-than-normal chance that they’re
bluffing.
TIP 34
Here’s just another member of the same powerful family of tells.
Closely observe opponents who are sucking on candy or chewing gum. If
they continue to do so naturally after betting, they’re probably
relaxed and hoping for your call. If they stop sucking or chewing, it’s
likely that they’re bluffing.
You can sometimes force this tell when you’re holding a marginal
calling hand by reaching slightly toward your chips. Often a player who
is bluffing will grow concerned and all sucking or chewing will suddenly
cease. That’s when you should call. If you don’t get that
reaction, fold.
TIP 35
Your opponents are always conscious that you might be observing them.
It makes them uncomfortable, and that’s why they become actors,
especially in the low- and medium-limit games. They try to fool you by
almost invariably acting weak when they hold strong hands and strong when
they hold weak hands.
This means that when you see an opponent shrug or hear a sigh, that’s
an act intended to convey sadness. Don’t be fooled. You’re
probably facing a powerful hand. Why would players go out of their way
to convey sadness and make you suspicious if they didn’t want you
to call? They wouldn’t. Confronted with conspicuous sadness, you
should usually fold all medium-strong hands.
TIP 36
Another common way that opponents try to convey sadness is through the
tone of their voices when they say “bet.” Listen closely for
it. Whenever you hear, “I bet” spoken in a singsong, drawn-out
manner that suggests, “Gosh, I wish I didn’t have to do this,”
that’s almost certainly an indication of a powerful hand. Seldom
call unless you have one, too.
TIP 37
Here’s an occasional tell that you’ll see, sometimes even
in the biggest-limit games. Suppose an opponent tries to bet a stack of
chips, but some spill off the top as he positions them in the pot.
What does that imply? Usually nothing.
It’s what happens next that matters. If the player is holding a
weak hand or is bluffing, he’s probably worried that the mistake
will make you suspicious and invite you to call (remember the calling
reflex?). So if you’re facing a weak hand, you’re likely to
see the opponent try to neaten up the chips—to erase the error.
If that happens, you should be much more willing to call.
But, if there is no attempt to correct the fumbled bet, you’re likely
to be against an opponent who isn’t worried, and you should be reluctant
to call.
TIP 38
One of the strongest tips for hold’em or Omaha players is to avoid
watching the flop. It will still be there later. As the dealer turns over
those first three board cards, observe your opponents. This is a goldmine
for tells.
Most players are unaware that you’re watching them at the moment
the flop hits, so they’re unlikely to be acting right then. What
you’re looking for is primarily this:
(1) Players who instinctively glance immediately toward their chips liked
the flop and are considering betting.
(2) Players who stare at the flop a little longer probably didn’t
get any help. This falls somewhere in the gray area between acted tells
and involuntary tells. Staring for a short time is involuntary, indicating
the player didn’t get help and has no reason to either look at his
chips or look away as if uninterested, in an effort to make your bet seem
safe. Continued staring for a longer time usually indicates weakness—the
player is feigning interest, but probably won’t call a bet.
The flop affords you the opportunity to read both acted and non-acted
tells. The first instinct of some players who help their hands is to glance
toward chips, preparing to put them to use. That’s non-acted. The
player, having helped his hand, will often closely follow this involuntary
glance by looking away from the approaching action as if uninterested.
That last part is an act, portraying weakness, which actually indicates
strength.
Players who continue to stare at either the flop or their chips long enough
that they think you’re watching are trying to convey an interest
in the pot that their cards don’t merit. They’re usually not
a threat. And many players, who see a flop that helps them, don’t
instinctively glance toward their chips at all before looking away. They’ll
jump right to the looking away part—an act that also tells you they’re
holding strong hands.
Paying attention when the flop hits can earn you a lot of money. But,
this can only happen if you’re paying attention to the players.
If you’re paying attention to the cards instead, like almost everyone
else is, you’ll miss this opportunity.
TIP 39
Before you act on your hand, examine the players who will act after you.
The four points above are strong indications that opponents aren’t
interested in calling any bets.
This is particularly important on the first round of betting. I’m
able to convince even professional opponents that I’m in the game
to gamble, playing hands that are too weak for my position—without
actually doing it!
How? It’s simple. I just look behind me and when I see one or more
opponents providing these strong indicators that they’re going to
fold, I relax my hand requirements, substituting what I would need if
I were that many seats later in position. It means I can profit from hands
I wouldn’t have been able to play if I weren’t observant,
and, at the same time, it does wonders for establishing my carefree image.
TIP 40
But, if I see these indicators when I examine players who will act after
I do, then I’m in trouble with a weak or medium hand. I need real
strength to justify a bet. And I’ll be more willing to sandbag a
super-strong hand on later betting rounds, because it looks like someone
will do my betting for me, if I check.
TIP 41
Now that we’ve discussed some key tells, I need you to understand
something. Very few tells are 100% accurate. You need to use them like
you would any other bit of information.
For instance, if you’re playing seven-card stud and you raise with
a queen showing on the first betting round, a reraise from an opponent
with a king showing very likely indicates a pair of kings. But it might
not—the clue isn’t perfect. You need to adjust your tactics
so that you give more consideration to a pair of kings than you would
have, while keeping open the possibility that you’re facing a pair
of buried aces, a smaller buried pair, three suited cards, or an outright
bluff. The raise is an indicator that makes you reevaluate the likely
hands your opponent has. A pair of kings becomes more likely, other hands
less likely, but still possible.
It’s the same with a tell. It’s just another factor, just
an indicator. The stronger it is, the more it should influence your decision.
But you should seldom let a tell be the only factor that goes into your
decision.
One other word of caution: Because players have a bias toward calling,
many will use tells incorrectly. They’ll go out of their way to
spot imaginary tells that prompt them to call and almost completely ignore
actual tells that prompt them to fold. If you do that, you’ll probably
lose money with tells and would be better off not using them at all.
My advice is that you get as good as you can at using tells and applying
poker psychology. If you’re a serious winning player, you might
easily double your income by mastering these skills.
Two Final Bonus Tips
TIP 42
I see this mistake quite often, and it drives me crazy. (I have to blame
my condition on something, right?) Let’s say your hand is fairly
weak for the situation, but the pot is so big that you’re going
to call a bet no matter what.
Faced with this circumstance, players instinctively try to prevent a bet,
perhaps by reaching for their chips menacingly. Listen, if you know you’re
going to call, you should encourage your opponent to bet, even if you’re
hoping he doesn’t!
That’s because the only times you’re likely to succeed in
discouraging a bet are when your opponent holds weak hands or would have
bluffed. Those are precisely the hands you would have beaten with your
call. By not discouraging a bet, you’re inviting an opponent to
bet all the hands that will beat you—which he would do anyway! Plus,
you’re making him feel comfortable about betting all those extra
hands you can beat when you call. Discouraging a bet you intend to call
only stops opponents from betting hands you’ll beat, not from betting
hands you won’t beat. So don’t do it.
TIP 43
For most players, it’s very uncomfortable facing a poker bully—one
that tries to dominate the game through super-aggressive plays, mixed
with bewildering bluffs.
But it’s easy to defeat poker bullies and send them home crying
for their mommies. You’re looking at the three-step formula now.
If you follow it—rather than be lured into an escalating battle
to determine who can be more forceful and creative—bullies can’t
damage you. There is no counter-strategy available to them, and ultimately
they have no choice other than to give you their money or behave.
I’ve enjoyed spending this time with you. And now I’ll return
the stage to Doyle Brunson and the rest of his world-class experts.
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