Evaluating Your Play: Spy vs. Spy

Mad Magazine used to feature an ongoing battle between a spy dressed in white and one in black. They constantly devised deviously clever ways to trick each other. Poker contains this same ongoing struggle. After a session it is often useful to reflect on your results from the Spy vs. Spy perspective. Perhaps the greatest strength of players like Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan is their ability to consistently outwit their opponents in these struggles. How can you evaluate your performance in this area? If most of your bluffs worked and yet you were still paid off on your winning hands, you performed very well. If you were frequently caught bluffing and most of your big hands got little or no action, you lost the battle. Sure I know some of this depends on the randomness of who gets what hands when, but a lot of it depends on out-thinking your opponents.

I recently finished the excellent Volume 3 of Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time by Lynch, Van Fleet, Turner and Hilger. Even though they sound like a rock group, the first three are respected professional players, who specialize in no-limit hold’em tournaments. Matt Hilger, a fellow Card Player author, who serves both as editor and referee, presents a calm summation of the important points of each hand. Every tournament player, especially those who play a lot online, should study this book. Even cash players will find a lot of thought provoking discussions. Hand 36 of this book presents a hand which is ideal for evaluating your spy vs. spy skills. Without going into too much detail, you are seven-handed at a final table. The blinds are 4,000-8,000 and the ante is 1,000. The button has raised the last three orbits. And you have folded. He has 201,000 and raises again to 24,000. You are in second place at the table with 235,000. Your hand is K-8 offsuit. After various calculations, all four experts come to the conclusion that their opponent has a wide range and will often fold to a three-bet shove. Since they will win some of the time when called, the shove has clear plus equity.

My feeling is that their analysis omits the spy vs. spy factor. If I were the button, and had successfully raised three orbits in a row, I’d expect my opponents would have noticed this. This means that they will be looking for an opportunity to come after me. I’d expect that at least one of the blinds is getting ready to widen his three-bet value range or is considering a three-bet steal with virtually any two cards. I’d assume the big blind, who has given up three times in a row, feels convinced I’ll give him credit for a real hand if he raises. Therefore, as the button, I’d tighten my raising range for a few orbits. I’d also be prepared to four-bet shove over a raise and to call a shove with any reasonable hand.

In the big blind with K-8 offsuit, I’d expect the button was doing what I would have done — tightening up a lot. Therefore I’d quietly fold my hand and maintain my reasonable chip position. On the actual hand Eric “Rizen” Lynch pushed all-in and his opponent folded. What does this teach me? First his opponent’s raise was very poorly conceived. How could he not know the blinds would be gunning for him? Rizen’s shove was successful and a clearly winning play against this button. While I suspect that a tough button, like Ivey or Dwan, would have beaten him into the pot, he knew his opponent and won this battle.

Note how important it was to make a correct decision as to whether his opponent was capable of making a spy vs. spy adjustment or just playing his button as usual. Here Lynch added about 25 percent to his stack with no contest. Had he been wrong, he would have been a favorite to lose nearly his whole stack. These types of decisions have a tremendous impact on winning sessions and winning tournaments. Give them a lot of thought. I don’t know who the button was or if he evaluated his play on this hand after the tournament. If not, he missed an excellent opportunity to learn that his opponents are paying attention, and that he has to shift gears to thwart them. ♠

Steve ‘Zee’ Zolotow, aka The Bald Eagle, is a successful gamesplayer. He has been a full-time gambler for over 35 years. With 2 WSOP bracelets and few million in tournament cashes, he is easing into retirement. He currently devotes most of his time to poker. He can be found at some major tournaments and playing in cash games in Vegas. When escaping from poker, he hangs out in his bars on Avenue A in New York City -The Library near Houston and Doc Holliday’s on 9th St. are his favorites.