Bite the Wax Tadpole

Something really caught my attention on the Internet the other day, an article all about cross-cultural faux pas that pop up in advertising, particularly when copy is written in one language and translated into another without regard for how idioms and cultural nuances can lead to dramatic and unforeseen changes in meaning. Oftentimes, the results are dire, unforeseen, and funny, too. When Chevrolet introduced its Nova in Latin America, it had a bit of an image problem to overcome, since "no va" in Spanish means "won't go" – not quite the image one would want when trying to sell cars.

It got even worse and much funnier when Coca-Cola tried translating its name into Chinese ideograms. The Chinese characters that Coca-Cola's advertising people came up with translated as "Bite the Wax Tadpole" to the Chinese, which isn't an appealing name for a soft drink in any culture.

Poker has a language and a culture all its own, too, and that got me thinking about how we misuse it at the table. Sometimes we misuse it just as badly as the advertising agencies did that tried popularizing a car that won't go in South America and a wax tadpole soft drink in China. We communicate in a multitude of ways at the poker table: Our actions, our hand, face, and eye motions, and our betting patterns all speak volumes to our opponents. And when someone is communicating, listening to what he is saying can pay big dividends, especially if it provides a clue about the kind of hand he has, and whether the action he is taking is consistent with the hand he holds.

But just as "no va" translates into a car that won't go in Spanish, sometimes we misread our opponents, too, and that's usually because they're speaking a different language than we are. After all, when we attempt to decipher what our opponents are holding and whether their actions are consistent with their cards – or they're inconsistent, and represent either a slow play or a big bluff – we make our judgments based on what a reasonable and logical player would do. But what's sauce for the poker-playing goose is not necessarily sauce for the gander, and unless we can reason that out and factor those results into how we read our opponents, we're liable to go as far astray as the ad agency did when its ideographic depiction of "Coca-Cola" turned out to mean "Bite the Wax Tadpole."

Let's get really simple here. You're in the big blind in a hold'em game. Someone opens for a raise from seventh position. What could that mean? With some opponents, it means they could only be holding the same kind of hand they'd raise with when first to act in early position: aces, kings, queens, or A-K. Other players might open for a raise from late position with any two facecards or any pair, and quite possibly any ace, particularly if they peg you as a fairly tight player who is wont to defend his blinds without a big hand. Still others would raise with a pair of sevens or better, or any two-card combination as long as it was A-10, K-10, Q-J, or better.

The natural tendency is to use your own raising standards as a guide for applying a range of hands to your opponent, and that's not a bad way to go about it – as long as your opponent plays like you do, and hasn't read you as someone who's quick to release a marginal hand from the blind.

It's natural to do this because we tend to see our own actions as responsible and moderate, tempered and true. Whether or not that's the case is entirely problematical. In fact, if you took all the poker players in every casino and cardroom in the world and baked them into a pie, the largest slice by far would be neither responsible nor moderate, nor tempered, nor true. After all, the majority of poker players are not right smack-dab in the middle of the responsibility spectrum. A few are tighter than you are. Some are looser, and a few others are right there at the maniacally loose and absurdly tight extremes. And none of them are going to see things in quite the same manner as you.

So, it's up to you to gauge their play, and make determinations about what they might do, based on how you read their playing proclivities and how well you figure they're reading your own playing style, and how that all figures into the decisions they'll make when you're their opponent instead of the guy next door.

If you're sitting there thinking, "This hasn't happened to me," it has – believe me. Anytime you find yourself sitting there wondering, "How in the world did he call a raise cold with 7-5 and back into a straight to beat me?" it's happened to you. It happened because he's the kind of player who does things like this. And when you were blithely assigning possible hands to him and figured he had to have big cards or a decent-sized pair to cold-call a raise – and therefore a possible straight that could be completed only with a 7-5 was impossible, and your top set must be the best hand – you simply didn't assign a wide enough range of hands to him. You misread him. The devil, as they say, is in the details, and this time those details were lost in translation.

From his poker-speak to yours, something went very wrong. The result is a pot that was lost, and even if you would never release top set under any circumstances – few of us would in a fixed-limit game – at least you could have saved a bet or two on the turn and the river.

So, sit up and take notice the next time that happens. Then, just grin or grit your teeth and resolve to do better next time. Those kinds of things are bound to happen when you bite the wax tadpole.

Raise your game with Lou Krieger at http://www.royalvegaspoker.com. His newest book, Winning Omaha/8 Poker, is available through Card Player.