CHEAP

There is no poker skill more important than the ability to read your opponents. If you play live poker, becoming an expert in this area will make you a huge, consistent winner. This is especially true if you frequently play with the same group of players. Each time that you play against the same opponents, you have both the opportunity to learn more about them and some chances to use what you have learned. When it comes to reading your opponents, one size does not fit all. Everyone is different. A behavior that may signal strength in one opponent may be a sign of weakness in another, and totally random in a third. How can you tell what something means if it might mean something different for everyone? You must observe each individual opponent’s behaviors and correlate your observations with the hands that he eventually shows down. This can be a very frustrating exercise. You may notice a certain behavior occurring, but whenever your opponent shows this behavior, his hand isn’t shown, so you never get to correlate the behavior with the hand type.

Long sessions of deep-stack no-limit hold’em can become very boring. There is a lot of time between hands in which you are involved. It is easy to spend this time thinking about other things. I often have an iPod, and listen to mystery books, lessons, or music. Sports fans and bettors are usually focused on whatever game or games are being shown on TV. Even when you are concentrating on the poker game, there is so much going on that it may become overwhelming. What player should I look at? What behavior should I look for? There is an exercise that I have found very useful. It helps refocus my attention on the game. It enables me to learn a lot about my opponents and their behavior patterns. The acronym CHEAP can be used to summarize this exercise.

Start when you are in the big blind. Focus on your right-hand opponent for as long as he has cards. When he has folded, shift your attention clockwise around the table until you find an opponent with a hand, and focus on him until he folds. I know that you are reading this and thinking, “What does he mean by focus? What should I focus on?” That is where the acronym CHEAP becomes useful. It stands for Chips, Hands, Eyes, Arms, and Posture. For the first round, concentrate only on the way your opponents handle their chips. When and how do they reach for them? When and how do they pick them up? When and how do they put them into the pot — toss, throw, or slide? Do they always use the same denominations? Are they consistent or do they change the way they perform these actions, or do they change with the strength of their hands. It is possible that opponents may use big chips with strong hands and small chips with weak hands, or vice versa. They may toss them in when on a draw or making a gambling call, but put them in very carefully when bluffing. Never assume that all opponents behave the same way.

For the next round, shift your attention away from the way they handle their chips and direct your focus to their hands. Hands refers to the physical appendages at the end of the arms with five fingers, not their cards. During this round, try to focus on how they hold their hands and what they do with their fingers. Do they do something different when they are about to call than when they are about to fold? Is there some difference in the way they tap the table to check with a bad hand and with a hand that they intend to check-raise?

For the next round, focus on their eyes. This may be hard to do if they are wearing sunglasses, but surprisingly often, you can detect a flash of color reflected in their glasses. I played in a cash game in California recently in which one of my opponents was wearing mirror sunglasses. Whenever he checked his holecards, I could tell if they were picture cards or small cards. I could even tell if the small cards were in a red or a black suit. Even when you can’t see their eyes, you can often tell the direction they are looking. Sometimes they will lose interest with a weak hand or missed flop and stop looking around. With a good hand or when they hit a big flop, they may start shifting their focus around to see what everyone at the table is doing.

For the next round, concentrate on their arms. This is similar to watching their hands, but strangely enough, a player may control what he does with his hands, but not his arms. He may show tension when he intends to play, but be relaxed when he is bored. Again, do this for a round.

Lastly, direct your attention to their posture. Are they slumped over or sitting up straight? Are they close to the table or farther back? What does it mean if their posture changes?

If you manage to spot something that your opponent does whenever he’s bluffing, try to remember it, or better still, make a note about it. If you do this for the five rounds that one cycle takes, you will almost always notice something that you might not have noticed otherwise. You may notice a strange behavior, but not be sure of what it means or if it is part of a consistent pattern. Over time, you will probably get more opportunities to see that opponent exhibiting that behavior, and you will get a better idea of what it means. Picking up just one trait in one opponent’s behavior when he has a strong hand may save you quite a lot of money over the course of several sessions. The five elements of CHEAP are not the only things you can choose to focus on. I’m sure you can find other things that you think are important. It is fine to make any changes or additions to my list that you think are appropriate. One of the biggest benefits of performing this exercise is that it makes it easier and more interesting to maintain concentration on the game.

Steve “Zee” Zolotow, aka The Bald Eagle, is a successful games player. He currently devotes most of his time to poker. He can be found at many major tournaments and playing on Full Tilt, as one of its pros. When escaping from poker, he hangs out in his bars on Avenue A — Nice Guy Eddie’s at Houston and Doc Holliday’s at 9th Street — in New York City.