A 'Telling' Tell

One of the reasons I prefer live play is that I can read and use tells. It is simply easier to play against people I can see. Once in a while, however, I get to make an inference from an unusual tell. I had such an experience in a Bellagio $30-$60 limit hold'em game.

I was in the cutoff with the A 9. This was a late Saturday night game, and several players had started to gamble a bit more than usual. Three players limped in before me. I considered raising, as it could gain me position by the button folding, and perhaps eliminate the blinds. On the other hand, I held a volume hand, and if I did flop my flush draw, I would like as much company as possible. I decided to call.

Immediately, the player on the button (whom we will call "Gabby" for reasons that will be apparent later) raised. The blinds folded, and everyone else called. Five players went to the flop, which was 4 4 4. We all checked to Gabby, who bet. There were two callers to me. What should I do?

I was getting roughly 15-1 for my call. Unless Gabby had specifically aces, I had at least four outs (three aces and a 4) against him. I have limited respect for button raises, and I could even be way ahead of him, as he certainly would have played this way with, say, Q-J suited. Of course, one of the callers could have a 4, because if he did, he would never dream of raising on the flop. But these players love to call flops, so they could have pretty much anything. I elected to peel one off.

The turn card was the 2. It didn't help me, but it couldn't help anyone else much, either. Again, there were three checks to Gabby, who, as expected, bet again. Both of the other players folded. Again, I had to decide what to do.

Counting the pot, there were about six big bets before the flop (five players for two bets plus the big and small blinds, which I rounded up), two more big bets on the flop (four players, one small bet each), and one more on the turn. I was getting 9-1. There was still a chance that I was ahead, but it was smaller given that Gabby bet the turn. On the other hand, there was the chance that I was behind a bigger ace, which meant that I had only three nines for a win.

If Gabby held a pair, it mattered a great deal which one. If he held nines or higher, I had only four outs, and was not getting the right price. If he held eights or lower, I had seven outs and was getting a clear overlay. I could compute all of these possibilities given time, but this was limit poker, and I had to make a decision fairly soon. I already had consumed a lot of time getting this far.

Then, a wonderful thing happened. Gabby, who up until this point had played well and had never said anything, suddenly offered, "If I show you a full house, will you fold?" Wow! It felt like one of those moments you see on TV when one player says just the right (or wrong) thing and the other one immediately knows what to do. I don't get to play on TV, but I always wondered what it would be like to have all of those ESPN, GSN, or NBC cameras trained on a $30-$60 table as we went through our paces. The audience would be treated to more action in one show than a month of no-limit tournaments!

Back to reality, Gabby clearly held a full house, and equally clearly, it was a small one. I could not think of any reason why he would disturb my thought process if he held, say, pocket queens. Problem solved! I answered his question nonverbally by calling immediately.

As fortune would have it, the river was the case 4. I brilliantly bet the nuts, and Gabby kind of "tossed" his pocket sixes to the dealer.

Conclusion: I am not sure what I would have done without Gabby's intervention, but I suspect that I would have folded. A-9 is a pretty poor hand, and I was feeling a bit guilty about having taken it that far. Of course, limit hold'em is full of these marginal decisions. Because the pot offers large prices, it is easy to become overly optimistic and keep chasing, ignoring or minimizing the possibility that you are drawing nearly dead.

The point of this hand, however, is Gabby's unsolicited intervention. Many times, you see players talking to their opponents, thinking they are going to outthink them or psych them out. Sometimes it works, but just as often, it backfires. Some players are truly great at this form of psychological warfare, and many of them have legions of fans. But just because you see your favorite player doing something, it does not mean that you also can do it.

Unless you know for sure what the effect will be (and how can you?), you are far better off keeping quiet and letting your opponents make their own errors. I assure you, they will make enough on their own.

Barry Tanenbaum is the author of Advanced Limit Hold'em Strategy, and collaborator on Limit Hold'em: Winning Short-Handed Strategies, both available at www.CardPlayer.com. Barry offers private lessons tailored to the individual student. Please see his website, www.barrytanenbaum.com, or write to him at [email protected].