More Questions for Self-Analysis

I've made it a tradition that once a year, I devote a column to discussing some questions from a quiz that I give all of my prospective poker students. For those of you who missed my first two columns on the subject, my quiz is not entirely about seeing how well or how poorly someone plays, but learning about a player's thought process. I can be a much more effective coach if I know how my students are approaching poker decisions. It's a lot easier to work on the decision-making skills than it is to teach a student how to play every hand in every possible situation.

In my quiz, I'm mostly trying to see what kind of logic my student uses, though I do have some kind of answer in mind with each question. Here are some previously unrevealed questions from the quiz. Come up with your own answer before you read on to see what I'm looking for in a response.

1. In no-limit hold'em, when facing a half-pot to pot-sized bet on the flop, do you consider calling (not raising) with mediocre made hands?

This question is both specific and general. Specifically, I'm interested in how my student plays medium-strength hands. There used to be a prevailing philosophy among good players that you have to either raise or fold with made hands, and never call with them. That philosophy has (rightly) pretty much disappeared, but there is still a class of players who subscribe to it. I'm interested to see if my student counts himself among this class. But, more generally, I'm looking to see how much of an open mind my student has. A good player doesn't eliminate any play from his arsenal completely. If a player answers this question with something like, "You should raise; if you call, you could lose to a better hand on the turn or river" (this is an actual answer that I've received), I will first explain that in poker, you usually want your bets to either make a better hand fold or a worse hand call. After we cover that idea, I will go on to explain that there should be no hard and fast rules in your approach to poker. All options should be available all the time.

2. In no-limit hold'em, what factors do you consider when determining how much to bet on the flop?

Earlier in the quiz, I ask more generally about what factors a student considers in poker situations. This question is asking more specifically how well a student understands different flop situations - what people commonly call the "texture" of the flop. (I hate that term, by the way. What do you do, reach out and touch the flop?) A flop of K-J-9 with two hearts is very different than a flop of K-7-2 rainbow, and your bet size with A-K (or any other holding) should be different on those two boards. Similarly, having four opponents is a lot different than having two. If I get an answer to this question like, "I consider my position, my hand, the amount of chips in the pot, the amount of chips I have, and the number of players in the hand" (again, this is an actual answer), I'll first explain that basing your bet size on what hand you have puts you on a dangerous path toward leaking information. I'll then mention that this student has forgotten one of the most important factors - how draw-heavy the flop is.

3. What tell have you noticed most often at the poker table, and how useful has that tell been to you?

This is really a style question in disguise. An online player might answer, "I very rarely use tells." Another online player might answer, "I mostly use timing tells and chat tells." Brick-and-mortar casino players will have answers that vary from "when a player glances down at his chips" to "when a player makes a small bet on the flop after raising preflop." I'm hoping to see, from this question, what kind of information my student is processing at the table. If he's an online player who doesn't use tells, he is basing all of his reads on betting patterns. Maybe he's not even paying close enough attention to betting patterns. If a student gives an example of a specific body language tell, he probably is spending a fair amount of time trying to read people in the traditional sense. Meanwhile, if a student actually answers with a betting pattern tell, he's probably more of a mathematical player, more concerned with playing a strong overall strategy than with trying to decipher exactly what his opponent holds.

Any answer to the tells question is valid, but the type of response I get will tell me a lot about what information my student is most interested in, and that in turn gives me information about what kind of style he plays. For the more body language-based players, I'll try to give them the fundamentals of a mathematical approach (my specialty as a teacher). For those who are already math-based, I'll be able to jump right into hand ranges, play balancing, EV (expected value) analysis, and all that good stuff.

I hope that a few of you will keep more of an open mind at the table after reading this column. I also hope that some of you will think more about what kind of board you're betting into before you decide how much you want to bet. Finally, I hope that some of you feel players will learn more math, and some of you math players will learn a little feel. I've spent much of my poker existence trying to convince people that math and feel are different versions of the same thing. Maybe if you experiment with some new styles, you'll see what I mean.

Matt Matros is the author of The Making of a Poker Player, which is available online at http://www.CardPlayer.com. He is also a featured coach for stoxpoker.com.