An acquaintance of mine emailed me this story from his home game. This is a small stakes home game: .10 Euro blinds, NLHE. My response follows his email. There's something I realized last saturday. We were playing six handed and of the guys was winning big time. Let's call him Robert. He hit every hand, was paid off every time, it was just his evening. Normally, he is one the more losing ...
A Queen-high call down involving immediate bets from an opponent
I saw this PokerNews story where Kristy Arnett interviewed Jason Lavallee, the winner of this year's PokerStars European Poker Tour London High Roller, about a Queen high call-down he made on the final table of that tournament. Here's the story: http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/strategy-with-kristy-jason-lavallee-discusses-a-queen-high-c-16743.htm ...
Analysis of Sylvain Loosli’s potential poker tells in 2013 WSOP Main Event
In this post, I’m going to describe my analysis of Sylvain Loosli that I did prior to and during the 2013 WSOP Main Event final table. I had been hired by Amir Lehavot to analyze his opponents and himself for possible behavioral leaks. The point of this post is not just to talk about how I went about trying to find patterns in Loosli and what those patterns may have been, it’s also to talk about ...
Analyzing poker tells for Amir Lehavot at the 2013 WSOP Main Event
A couple weeks before the WSOP Main Event final table, I got an email from Amir Lehavot (founder of PokerWit.com and 3rd in this year's WSOP ME), asking if I’d be interested in helping him prepare for the final table. After discussing what I might be able to do to help him, and making sure we had similar expectations, I agreed. My role was to analyze existing footage of his opponents for possible ...
Reading Poker Tells book mentioned in 2013 WSOP
This year, during the World Series of Poker Main Event broadcast, my book Reading Poker Tells got a shout-out from Norman Chad. Here's the clip; go to the 1hr1m point if it doesn't automatically take you there. I'd sent a copy of Reading Poker Tells to Norman a few months ago, but I've sent out so many books over the past year to people (roughly $4,000 worth!) and haven't heard back from ...
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 ...
Should have folded top set
This isn't related to poker tells or behavior in any way. Just a hand I played yesterday that I spent a lot of time thinking about so I thought I'd share it. It was a $2-5 game. I only have $400 in front of me. I usually am significantly deeper and my shorter stack plays a role in this hand. This game can vary from super loose to mostly tight and it was in the mostly tight range yesterday. In ...
Working on a new poker tells book
I'm working full-time on another poker tells book. The book will be called Verbal Poker Tells and will focus specifically on all things verbal at the poker table: the things people say and how they say them. It will use a lot of examples from actual hands, both televised and hands played by me and others. I've been collecting a fairly large database of verbal patterns and will use this database to ...
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 ...
No rechecking of hole cards on flush-y board helps define opponent’s range?
Played $2-5 NL today and this hand went down. I raise from CO with 8c8d to $20. I get a call from the big blind. We have a little bit of history because he’s a bit steamed from a hand an hour or so ago where I value-bet a flush for a lot of money on the turn and he made a bad call for all his chips with a straight and lost. I get the feeling he’s a bit steamed at me or at least wants to get some ...