Heads Up With Scott Montgomery

Picking Off Bluffs
In his short career, Scott Montgomery has been on poker’s biggest stages. In his first major-tournament cash, he was at the televised World Poker Tour final table of the 2008 L.A. Poker Classic. He finished fifth, for nearly $297,000. At the 2008 World Series of Poker, he cashed in three preliminary events and made the final table of the $10,000 main event, becoming one of the famous “November Nine.” He finished fifth, for just over $3 million.

Kristy Arnett: What sorts of things are you looking for to spot a bluff?

Scott Montgomery: Coming from an Internet background originally, physical tells are not really my specialty. It’s more along the lines of bet-sizing and bet patterns. Would he really be betting this hand? Lots of times, it comes down to the river, and you know that he’s not the kind of player to be value-betting a medium-sized hand, so he has either a monster or nothing. You read back and think, could he have played a monster that way on the flop?

So, that’s an easy way to pick off bluffs. Beyond reading bluffs is convincing people not to bluff you. That’s why having an image as someone who makes crazy river calls with bottom pair definitely helps a lot in tournaments. Pull a couple of those a day, and you’ll scare people into not bluffing you.

KA: So calling a bluff is important for winning that pot, and also for discouraging opponents from bluffing in future hands.

SM: Yes. Players are always scared when they bluff, so you want to put that extra fear into their minds that this guy, even with ace high, is going to call once in a while. So, maybe I should never bluff him.

KA: You mentioned bet-sizing. Do you find that players bet either too little or too much when they attempt bluffs?

SM: I’d say that it depends on the player. Generally, I’ve found that tighter players and older players will bet smaller when they are bluffing because they are afraid, whereas younger players will overbet when they are bluffing. It depends on the player, but that’s usually what I go by.

KA: I’m going to put you on the spot. What is the most memorable bluff that you’ve attempted?

SM: [Laughing] Ridiculous all-in bluffs with nothing are pretty much what I’m known for. There are too many to mention. Every day, I’ll move all in with something like 4 high at least once, for sure. Well, here’s a good one. I remember playing in a Bellagio $15,000 event, and we were about five hours into day one and I was one of the chip leaders. I had quadrupled up. Then, Antonio [Esfandiari] sits down at my table, and he has slightly less than me. It takes about a half-hour for us to get into an all-in pot. He’s got the nuts — nines full — and I have king high. This was on the turn, so I was drawing totally dead for this pot of a quarter-million five hours into the tournament.

KA: With that kind of image, you definitely get paid off with big hands, right?

SM: Of course. As soon as I sit down at the table, you can just see the people thinking, “Oh, boy. This guy will ship it with anything! Yes!”