If you’ve been watching the World Series of Poker Main Event episodes this year (2016), you probably know who Will Kassouf is. He’s a talkative player who got a lot of coverage due to his constant chatter in hands. Not since Jamie Gold has a WSOP inspired such attention, and created such controversy, for his during-hand yapping. I’ve got a few pieces of content analyzing Kassouf’s patterns and I’m pretty proud of all of them.
I wrote a two-part article for PokerNews.com analyzing Kassouf’s “speech play” (as they apparently call it in the U.K.):
- Part I: https://www.pokernews.com/strategy/wsop-tells-looking-for-patterns-william-kassouf-speech-play-26077.htm
- Part 2 (with video compilation): https://www.pokernews.com/strategy/wsop-tells-analyzing-william-kassouf-table-talk-video-26079.htm
The second part includes a video compilation of four hands where he was very talkative. That’d be a good video to watch first if you haven’t seen him in the WSOP episodes yet.
If you’ve read my book Verbal Poker Tells, you might enjoy seeing some of the verbal patterns I talked about in there play out in real life.
Update: I did a podcast with The Poker Guys, where we discussed Kassouf’s verbal tells in-depth. It was a fun, interesting conversation, and I recommend it if you’re looking for something to listen to in the car or at the gym. Here’s the podcast: http://thepokerguys.net/bonus-emergency-will-kassouf-podcast-featuring-tells-expert-zach-elwood/
Also, I’ve got a thread on Kassouf’s verbal behavior/tells in the Two Plus Two Poker Tells/Behavior forum. A few posts in I talk about an often overlooked aspect of how Kassouf’s rambling/annoying act can reap benefits. Some people assume that if opponents are not responding verbally to a talkative player, then the talkative player isn’t getting anything. But if the talkative player is inducing physical behavior (like frustrated body language, anger, staring), then it may be possible for the talkative player to pick up patterns related to how willing to express frustration/anger his opponents are when in hands with him. I go into more detail in the post, but I recommend checking it out because I think a lot of people overlook that they can give info away in this way.