Author: T

Poker is a complex and multifaceted game whose central facets are sometimes called the three P’s: patience, position (with regard to your proximity to the dealer) and psychology. In this series of articles I will focus on the last of these P’s which focuses on how to read the behaviour of your opponent: the psychology of poker.

Zia Mahmood, the world-class bridge player, is quoted as saying, ‘One of the reasons I love the game of bridge is that there are no absolutely right answers to anything. Bridge is not a game that can be played mechanically, according to a series of rules. You have to use not only your brain and your memory but your imagination and your creative spark to avoid the traps that lie in even the simplest position’. The same description could just as easily be applied to the game of poker and the ability to analyse the behaviour of your fellow players is one of the subtlest and most difficult aspects of the game to master. In order to improve your game, it is important that you are able to observe closely how players behave and understand what, in percentage terms, these behaviours are likely to mean. Let’s start with a few very simple examples – how players stack and handle their chips.

 

Chips

All casino games and some home games are played using ‘chips’ instead of money. In these situations the player would exchange his money for the same value of chips. There are a number of reasons for this, of which I will just give you two. Chips are easier to handle and count than money. Players can see at a glance whether an opponent has got a few or a lot of chips in front of them, whereas with a bundle of notes it is often impossible to know how much someone has. There is also a deeper psychological reason, seldom fully articulated, why casinos prefer players to use chips rather than money. When you exchange your money for chips, you have literally and figuratively exchanged something of real value for a playing token, for something that is once removed from money. I have seen people bet considerable sums at roulette and at the poker table using chips and, although it is a moot point, I sometimes wonder whether they would be so keen to make the same bet if they had to use the same fold-up money they used to pay for their groceries. There is a well known saying heard often in casinos and card rooms, that the person who invented casinos made a lot of money, but the person who invented chips made even more money.
Later on, we will examine the importance of ‘stack’ size – the number of chips that a person has stacked in front of him. A big stack will depending on the monetary value or denomination of the chips, generally be more valuable than a short or medium stack. The size of stack you are playing and the size of the stack held by your opponents, are major factors to be considered when making a decision at the poker table.

 

Chip Handling

Some players divide their chips into separate piles, each pile having chips of the same value, others make one or two very tall piles with the bigger denomination chips at the bottom while others try to build structures resembling the Great Wall of China. Players will also differ in terms of how they put chips into the pot and what denomination of chips they use in different betting situations. Mostly these behaviours do not have any meaning that are discernibly usefull but below are a few examples of chip handling behaviours which I contend either offer an insight into a player’s personality or give an indication of the value of the hand they are holding.

Example 1: Breaking the big note!
You may recall when you were younger, back in the days when to have a £5 note (or a $20 dollar bill for our American readers) was to be wealthy. In those days, if you had a big note, you did not like to ‘break it’ because once broken it tended to be spent much more quickly. The big note was something to be kept and prized. Some players treat their chips in this way. They are always wanting to give change, e.g. give you ten 100-unit chips for your 1000-unit chip and once they get the 1000-unit chip they like to hold on to it. (In contrast there are many players who are delighted to change big chips because a pile of small value chips looks more – see Example 4.) Watch this type of player closely because often, when they have a choice of putting small or large denomination chips into a pot the choice of chips can have a meaning.
They will often put their small denomination chips into the pot when they have a marginal or perhaps a drawing hand. Sub-consciously, they may consider that they are not breaking into their pile of valuable chips, so they can do no real damage and can afford to speculate on this occasion. To continue the analogy with the ‘big note’, in this case they are only spending their small change. When this same player ignores his low denomination chips and puts in large value chips, then beware – there is a very high percentage chance that the player has a strong hand. Their subconscious reasoning may be that ‘I will be getting these chips back anyway when I win the pot therefore I don’t need to put in small value chips. Also by putting in the high value chips the pot will be easier to count and the hand will be speeded up. I will get my reward sooner.’

 

Part 2

Semi-bluffs

This is an example of a player making a semi-bluff raise with a drawing hand. The hand is between Blackpool-based player Howard Plant and Peter (the Bandit) Evans.

Howard and Peter both call a flop containing KS, JH, 10S.

Peter has A – K and bets £400.

Howard has QS, 4S and raises to £1000 (Howard has a very strong drawing hand, he is drawing to both flush and straight); this is a semi-bluff raise.

Peter re-raises, putting himself all-in, and Howard calls.

Fourth street brings a KC giving Peter three kings and Howard still has his draw.

Fifth street is a 5H meaning that Peter wins and Howard’s draw has been unsuccessful. Howard’s hand was actually a slight favourite on the flop, but this example illustrates the fact that sometimes both players in a heads-up situation can play optimally and eventually the result is a matter of luck.

 

Judgement Calls

This hand features Howard Plant. His opponent this time is Charalambos Xanthos, otherwise known as Bambos, a restaurant and hotel owner, now based in London. Bambos is very calm and methodical at the poker table; nothing seems to faze him. This is an example of Bambos making a judgement call.

Howard bets £300 with 9-8.

Bambos raises to £900 with A-Q and Howard calls.

The flop comes K-7-6.

The board is completed with no more betting to make K-7-6-J-J.

Neither player has any sort of a hand, but Howard tries a bluff with a bet of £900 (it’s the only way that Howard can win the pot which by this time is worth a lot of money).
Bambos, however, calls with only an ace high to win the pot, Bambos demonstrated excellent card- and player-reading skills.

 

Slow Playing

This is an example of a player slow playing top trips. The hand is between Hamish Shah and Tom Gibson. Hamish is a stockbroker based in London. Although he’s been playing regularly for ten years, he says he plays mostly as a pastime. Tom is from County Kildare, Ireland, and is a former civil servant who currently lives in Dublin. Tom has given up the civil service and now plays poker for a living.

In this pot, Hamish has A-A and raises the pot to £100, Tom calls with A-J.

The flop brings AC, 10C, 7H and fourth street a 6S.

Tom bets £200 with his ace-good kicker and Hamish calls. Here Hamish is slow playing his monster hand (trip aces), but note he is taking a risk in potentially lettingTom draw for a flush or straight.

Fifth street brings a KS.

Tom checks and Hamish bets £200. Tom calls and Hamish wins the pot.

Lending Money This is the next worst thing to borrowing money. By all means make up your own mind about it, but remember the odds are poor for getting paid back. Even when you do get the money back it can lead to undesired results. I once loaned someone £50 and sure enough I got it back, but a few days later I was asked for a loan of it again. It was repaid again, but asked for again, and so it went on until eventually I did not know who owned the £50 – me or the person who had borrowed it and seemed to have it more often than I did. In fact, eventually the person was asking me for the loan of his £50. So a good rule is:
Don’t lend money, it is an even quicker way to lose friends than borrowing money!

Mistakes The winner in the long term is the player who makes least mistakes. So when luck is against you, stay calm and play your normal game. If you lose your cool you will start to play badly and make more mistakes.

Novices You should never bluff a novice – they don’t know the true strength of their own hand and are too likely to call.

Over the Top No, it is not being totally outrageous – in poker parlance it means re-raising an original raise. In particular, it usually refers to re-raising someone you think is bluffing. So if you think someone is ‘on the steal’ (bluffing), and you and this opponent have both got lots of chips, why not try going over the top. Beware though – it is best done against only one opponent, if there is a third party that person may have a legitimate hand.

Power Play Power play is a term used to describe playing hands in an aggressive way. There are different styles of aggression and different times when it is appropriate to be aggressive. Some players like to play aggressively with hands like A-A, K-K and A-K – that is, raise and re-raise by the amount of the pot or more if it is no-limit play. Other players will raise to reduce the field at a loose table before the flop, as the value of one’s hand goes down the more callers there are, but they will take the risk and not re-raise hoping that they will get a caller after the flop. This second tactic is more risky. In most cases, it is probably best to use power play and re-raise. Some players don’t like to be pushed around and will always come ‘over the top’ and re-raise with these hands. An aggressive style of play is most generally considered to be the winning way. But it is not the only way so don’t be a slave to dogma and try to develop your own style.

Rocks A rock is the type of player who only enters a pot with the very highest grade of hand. You can easily spot rocks because they tend to sit a long time without playing a hand. An average player might play one in three hands, whereas a rock will play one in ten. Be very wary if this type of player enters the pot with you and be even more wary if the rock says something like ‘let’s gamble’. What the rock means is for you to gamble because be assured in this case that the rock will have a premium hand. By the way, a ‘rock garden’ is where there is a whole table of rocks. My best advice here is if you see a rock garden, make a run for the door!

Selection of Hands It’s the cards you don’t play that make you a winner – you must know when to throw them away.

Slow Playing This is where you bet a small amount with a strong hand in order to get more players into the pot and to deceive them as to the strength of your hand. It is often a bad strategy unless you have a blockbuster of a hand. Therefore, always make your opponent ‘fold’ or ‘pay to play’, never give a free card. It is often said that you can slow play a nut flush but not a nut straight.

Tight Play This means playing conservatively and only getting involved with strong hands. It is generally the right strategy, but a better piece of advice is to play tight at a loose table and loose at a tight table. A loose player plays too many hands, perhaps as many as eight in every ten. The advantage of playing tight at a loose table is fairly obvious, it means you can exploit the other players weaker than average holdings. But what about playing loose in a tight game? Well in a tight game there is more opportunity to bluff and play with a bit of creativity and flair.

Weak Players There is a well-known saying in poker circles, ‘If you look round the table and have not spotted a mug within twenty minutes, then it has to be you.’
 

Previous