Gut Instinct

“Go with your gut” is one of the oldest pieces of advice in poker. Like many a well-coined phrase, it sounds a lot simpler than it is. Our “gut” might often be directly at odds with our overall game plan for a particular table. It might go against a certain strategy that we’ve spent hours away from the table devising. So, how much can we actually trust our gut instinct in poker?

A feel-based player, who doesn’t calculate pot odds, or think in terms of hand ranges, or concern himself with fundamental hand values, would say that a poker player should trust his gut entirely, and that he should trust nothing else. It is very hard to become a winning poker player this way. A purely mathematical player, who never makes accurate reads about his opponents at the table, and who perhaps doesn’t bother to make a read at all, would say that a poker player doesn’t even need a gut, and that he certainly should never trust it. It is also very hard to become a winning poker player this way (although the pure-math approach will get you there faster than the pure-feel approach).

Most successful poker players will combine elements of both approaches, even if they rely more heavily on one than the other. The question of exactly how much credit to give to my instincts at the table has been a tricky one for me throughout my career. I’m more of a math-based player, but I don’t think I ever could’ve been a professional without the ability to make good reads. What do I do when my reads go against the math?

My general guideline is that the more clear the math-based choice is, the less weight I should give to my gut instinct. For example, if someone in a tournament moves all in for 300,000 into a pot that has 150 in it, he would basically have to turn his hand faceup for me to call without the nuts. In fact, I very rarely allow my gut to enter my decision-making process when opponents make pot-sized bets or bigger. On the flip side, if someone bets 100 into a pot of 2,000 on the river and I have just a faint idea that he’s bluffing, I will call. My gut is certainly going to be right often enough to justify it. On any bet that’s half the size of the pot or smaller, I’m willing to bring my read a lot more into the equation.

It gets trickier when opponents make bets that are more reasonably sized. In those situations, I first have to decide how strong my read is, and then combine that assessment with the more math-based analysis. The more confident I am with my read, the more likely I am to go with it — but it’s tough deciding where to draw the line. When I take a long time with a close poker decision, it is usually because I’m trying to reconcile my read with my strategy before I pick a course of action.

Here’s an example of just such a close decision from a hand that a friend of mine played in a recent deep-stack no-limit hold’em tournament. With blinds of 400-800 and a 75 ante, he opened from late position with Q-10 offsuit. Only the small blind, a player who had almost no history at the table, called. The flop came 10-4-2 rainbow, and the small blind checked. My friend bet 2,500, and the small blind called. The turn was an offsuit jack. The small blind checked again, and my friend fired a second barrel of 6,000. The small blind again called. The river brought a 5, and the small blind shoved for 18,000 into the pot of 25,000 (my friend had him covered by about 10,000). My friend thought the bet “smelled fishy.” What should he do?

I believe that the “correct” play in this situation is to fold. If my friend is playing well, the range that he’s betting on the turn is properly weighted between bluffs and value-bets, and Q-10 is one of the weakest that could fit into the value-bet category. There are plenty of better hands from the turn value-bet range that can call on the river. It would be suboptimal, in my view, to call on the river with a hand as weak as Q-10.

Ah, but then there’s the read. The bet “smelled fishy.” Well, what does that mean? My friend had not seen the small blind enough to get a sense of his betting patterns. But based on the betting patterns of poker players in general, as well as my friend’s gut instinct while sitting at the table, he thought the small blind had a greater chance of bluffing than an optimal player would in that situation. To me, that’s what “the bet smelled fishy” means.

Even with that translation, the decision is a difficult one. How good is this gut instinct? If you’re an expert at reading body language, and your instincts have been refined over thousands of hours of play and have proven to be startlingly accurate, clearly the best choice is to call. If you haven’t played much brick-and-mortar casino poker over the past few years, and even your good instincts can’t really be trusted, it’s probably best to just fold. My friend fits into the latter category, so I advised that he fold. I have more brick-and-mortar casino tournament experience than my friend, and I probably still would’ve folded in his spot. I trust my gut instinct quite a bit, but a bet of almost three-fourths the size of the pot not only has to smell fishy, but also has to reek of fishiness before I’ll call based on instinct alone.

The sad outcome of the hand is that my friend folded and the small blind flipped up K-Q offsuit, and then muttered some braggart macho comment as he raked in the pot. Although it probably didn’t seem that way at the time, this was a good experience for my friend. His gut instinct was confirmed, and now he can give a little more credence to it in the future.

Instinct vs. predetermined strategy is one of the great sources of tension and intrigue in the poker world. I hope that you now have a better idea of how to blend the two very different approaches to have more success at the tables.

Matt Matros is the author of The Making of a Poker Player. He is also a featured coach for stoxpoker.com.