Telegraphing Your Thoughts

Every spring, Las Vegas poker comes to life. Bellagio hosts the World Poker Tour $25,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em championship event, and the World Series of Poker, with all of its grandeur, immediately follows. It's a great time to be in Vegas, as there's great action, great weather, and good times.

The tournaments bring in players from all parts of the country. We locals condescendingly called them "hometown heroes" back in the '80s when the poker world was much smaller. They were winners in home games back home, and came to Vegas to test themselves. The majority of them didn't last a week.

But the poker world has changed. New markets have opened and world-class players have developed in arenas beyond Vegas. Tourists are a much more experienced and tougher bunch these days. Online poker has created even more great players. There are young guns in their 20s, born and raised in the video game era, who have developed strong games without ever setting foot in a brick-and-mortar cardroom. An amazing realization to me is that because of the multiple-game formats currently available with Internet poker and the speed of online games, some players in their 20s have more hands-played experience than I do – and I have played almost 60,000 hours of mostly live poker!

Add the availability of hand histories and the great wealth of poker information in books and magazines, and the potential for a player to develop a good game has never been easier. And the poker economy has never been better. At the tournaments this spring, there was a ton of young good players loaded with cash and enthusiasm.

One thing struck me as strange with some of these new young guns. The play of their hands was great, but they all seemed to telegraph their actions. If they were going to bet, they picked up their chips as if to be ready when it was their turn. If they were going to fold, they picked up their hand to throw it away. They were online players who were unaccustomed to playing live poker, and did not understand the importance of tells, either reading them or protecting against showing any.

I opened a pot with an upfront raise in a $30-$60 hold'em game, holding two tens. A player who didn't look old enough to be in the casino, but who seemed to play reasonably solid poker, called my raise cold from middle position. We stared at each other as he called. I believed he read hands well enough to think I had a hand in my position, so I knew he had to have a good hand to call me. He had come to Vegas to fight his best, and he wasn't going to be intimidated.

He was the lone caller and the flop came J 8 5. He picked up three chips, getting ready to call. I thought for a moment. If he was only going to call, he wasn't likely to have a pair of jacks or better. And if he was going to call, he was likely to bet. I checked, he tossed the $30 in his hand into the pot, and I raised, firing the chips forward strongly. He called. The 8 turned. I hesitated for a moment, looking for a tell. My opponent picked up six chips, ready to call, telling me he was not going to raise me. I fired $60, and as he had telegraphed and I had expected, he called.

The river brought the 4. I hesitated once again. Could he have a jack and be fearing an overpair? Would he call me if he had a hand like a medium pair or big ace? Did I want to bet this hand again? There was no point in betting if he was going to fold hands weaker than mine and call only if he had a jack or better. He picked up six chips and stared at me in a challenging manner. He was threatening a call. He didn't want me to bet and was trying to intimidate me into not betting. That said, the threat of a call seemed genuine. I put him on a weaker hand than mine, and confidently fired $60 forward. As he had advertised, he called. I flipped over my two tens and he turned over two nines, giving me a "You just nipped me" expression.

Overall, the kid played pretty well, had obviously studied some books, and definitely had some poker knowledge. That said, there were some holes in his game that he badly needed to fill. I assumed his poker experience was mostly limited to online poker. He definitely fit that profile. He needs to adjust to live poker, and to make himself aware of the fact that opponents are observing him when he plays and that he needs to disguise his intentions. No matter how good your poker knowledge is, if your opponents always know what you are going to do, you will get crushed.

Another error this kid made in this hand was more along conceptual lines. On the river, he tried to get me to check my hand by intimidating me into not betting. If you are really going to call, you should not encourage your opponent to check unless you think he will check a greater number of hands better than yours than he will bluff with hands worse than yours. With a medium-strength hand, such as what he held, that would not be the case. The few times that you save a bet by your opponent checking a slightly better medium-strength hand would be lost by the fact that you now have lost the bets you would have won when your opponent was bluffing.

All in all, I suspect this kid has a shot to make it in the poker world. Yes, he lacks experience, but his heart, courage, effort, and intellect all seemed in place. He just needs more varied poker environments and the humility to learn from his mistakes.

Roy Cooke played winning professional poker for more than 16 years. He is a successful real estate broker/salesperson in Las Vegas. If you would like to ask Roy poker-related questions, you may do so online at www.UnitedPokerForum.com.