A Tell

I am playing in a $30-$60 limit hold’em game at Bellagio during “March Madness,” the room is packed, and the action is fast and furious. I pick up red aces in middle position and raise an early-position, weak-playing limper. The big blind calls, as does the limper.

After the Q 7 2 flop, both of them check to me, and I bet. The blind folds, and the limper check-raises. I’m confronted with this decision: Should I raise now, or wait for the turn? (I am assuming that I am ahead here. Of course, I may be trailing to a set or two pair; if I am, I will just have to lose more money later.)

This is how to decide: If there are several players, reraise immediately. You want them to either pay a lot while they are in the hand or fold and leave their dead money in the pot. You do not want to offer them cheap draws. Furthermore, many players like to look at the turn, and fold if they do not like it. In that case, they may not be around to call more bets and raises, so you might as well get their money in while they are still willing to gamble.

However, when heads up, these considerations do not apply. If you are out of position, you want to get your bets in early, as trying for a check-raise on the turn may result in no bets at all. If you are in position, you can wait and get your raise in on the turn. At worst, you will still get to bet.

You also need to look at the board to see what draws are available. The more draw-heavy the board is, the more you should be inclined to raise on the flop. Your drawing opponent may miss the turn and decide to check, trying to get the “inverse free card.” Of course, with aces, you will never check behind him, but you may lose your chance to get extra bets in.

Finally, consider how aggressive your opponent is. If he is likely to continue to bet a draw or bluff on the turn if you call his check-raise, you may be able to wait.
Using these general rules, heads up with position and a board with no draws against a weak opponent who will continue betting top pair, there is no reason to raise now. I called to await developments.

The turn was the blank-looking 5. My opponent bet. Normally, I should raise here, but I was certain that he would bet the river with his pair of queens, which I assumed was his most likely holding. If he was bluffing, I wanted him to continue to do so, and not fold. If he had a set, it didn’t matter when I raised, as I would lose the extra bets no matter what. But if another queen hit, I could call and save the raise.

River play: I called again, planning to spring my trap after he bet the river — but a curious thing happened. A jack came on the river (no, that was not the curious thing). All of a sudden, my opponent hesitated. He looked worried. He started to bet, then pulled it back. Finally, after several seconds that seemed like minutes, he bet. What was this all about?

What could it possibly be about this jack on the river that so frightened him? It did not make a straight or a flush. There was no reason for him to suddenly worry that I held pocket jacks. No, this was what passes for “acting” at the poker table. Almost certainly, his hand had improved, and he desperately wanted a call. He feared that if he just bet, it would look like he had something, so he decided to try some third-grade acting, to look hesitant and nervous. He thought that maybe if he looked scared, I would call with a weak hand that I would otherwise fold.

This happens every day at the table. Someone makes an unexpectedly good hand and decides to put on a show. Perhaps he makes a flush on the river, or fills up his two pair, and immediately becomes a thespian. It takes forever for him to get his arm to reluctantly put his chips in with his monster hand. These plays (in both senses of the word) are so transparent that it’s laughable, but the actors still persist.

Well, I didn’t fold, although I wanted to, but I certainly re-evaluated my plan to raise. In fact, I produced a crying call, and looked at the expected Q-J. At least his acting saved me $60, although I wish that I could have had the courage of my convictions to save the other $60, as well.

Later analysis: After the session, I thought further about this hand (actually, several hands). I always do this in order to decide if I played well and made good decisions. In this case, I made a mistake. I should have raised the turn.

Yes, that probably would have cost me more money on this hand, but that is not the point. Assuming that my opponent had a queen and would bet the river was not entirely correct, even for an aggressive opponent. If an ace or king hit the board, he almost certainly would have checked, putting me on A-K from the previous action. That’s six cards that would cost me a bet, unless he had K-Q. He might have raised preflop with that, so Q-J through Q-9, or even worse, were more likely for his limp.

To counter that, there were only five cards that were good for him, and even then I would not know that he hit his kicker unless he decided to perform a song and dance. So, it was really six bad cards for me that would probably cost me a bet, and only two that would save me one.

In my thought process at the time, I did not consider that. I will next time.

Conclusion: I wanted to present this hand to discuss the silly out-of-context tell that my opponent offered. Certainly, he was not alone. Observing and interpreting tells is an important part of the game. Many players make it so obvious. The better their hand, the longer it takes them to “convince” themselves to bet. For example, the board is A-Q-J-7, and a 10 comes. The first of four players now thinks for a while and reluctantly bets. Do you think he has a straight? Of course he does.

Observant and decisive players save many bets over the course of a year by correctly reading these silly acting jobs. The best solution is to avoid giving tells. Bet the same way whether you have the nuts and are value-betting, or are bluffing. Do not try reverse tells, false tells, or any other brilliant psychological ploys. Just bet in tempo and let your opponents wrestle with what you may have.

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