Head Games: Top Mistakes and Tells Players Make in Tournaments Over and Over Again: Part II

Craig Tapscott: The World Series main event is right around the corner. Share with our readers the biggest mistakes you see both amateurs and professionals make in tournament strategy over and over again?

Jeff Madsen: There are definitely consistent mistakes that many players of all skill levels tend to do. Obviously amateurs will make these mistakes more often, but everyone falls victim to poor decisions from time to time.

Some leaks I see that various players have are related to poor starting hand selection; particularly when they are not the aggressor. When facing a raise, certain starting hands don’t play very well postflop, and you are better off folding or taking the aggressive route and three-betting preflop in order to be less dependent on smashing the flop or your opponent being easily outplayed. Hands like Q-J, K-10, K-Q, or even A-J offsuit; particularly when you are facing an early position raise and even more so when you are flatting in early position yourself; they are not always great postflop hands and can be vulnerable especially if there are callers behind you. 

When those kind of hands are suited they add playability and are more justified as flatting hands, but having a deep enough stack size to promote a flat is still important. A hand like A-7 suited may have some playability postflop, but without a deep stack and when likely heads-up against one opponent, that would also be a hand that is easier to continue with by three-betting instead of flatting. In general, you want to have playability and warranted stack size to flat, and sometimes it is simply better to fold or three-bet when your hand is too weak, when you are out of position, when you don’t want to open yourself to get outplayed post-flop, etcetera. Many players don’t always weigh the pros and cons of playing certain starting hands in certain spots.

Matt Matros: Amateurs play too loose in the early stages of tournaments, and much, much too tight in the later stages. These mistakes both come from a misguided philosophy of trying to survive as long as possible, rather than trying to accumulate chips. Early in tournaments, with no antes and with the blinds representing a minuscule portion of a player’s stack, there is little incentive to steal or to get involved with a weak hand, especially out of position. Yet I constantly see amateurs open early or even limp with suited garbage because of “implied odds” or because they “have a big enough stack to afford it.” Just because you can afford to lose chips doesn’t mean you should try to lose chips.

Also, amateur players would be well served to avoid tangling with more experienced players early on, when there are many bets on the table and the potential to lose a big pot is likely greater than the potential to win a big one. As for professionals, one mistake some of them seem to make consistently is to overvalue aggression. It’s understandable, because an aggressive play in poker is very rarely a big error. But fellow pros will notice when one of them gets out of line, and I’ve seen a lot of good players continue to make big bluffs even after it’s become clear that their range of hands is too weak for what they’re representing. Some simple tightening up would turn a few otherwise decent players into great ones.

Steve Barshak: One of the biggest mistakes I see at the highest levels is letting emotions from previous hands creep into your decision making process. It’s really easy to level yourself and think a certain opponent is more spazzy than they seem or going after you specifically rather than other people at the tables, especially if someone is a top, winning player. This is usually not the case and just the emotions from your ego from the recent situation trying to take over your rational thinking process.

Another mistake I see with many players, especially online, is when the tourney gets down to the final 12-to-18 players of a massive big buy-in event. Many players who played the tournament very creatively in their decisions and did aggressive moves when they were needed along the way will greatly tighten up and try very hard to just move up the pay scale. It’s almost incredible how much these people can be exploited and how obvious they make it, especially with how normally many of these opponents play in the middle of tournaments. It’s very important to keep your eye out for these big soft spots very deep.
One more big mistake I see a lot of good, professional online players make including myself is trying to get people to fold postflop three-barrel bluff type spots when their opponent’s hand is a second pair or weak top-pair hand and very face-up by the river. If your image is aggressive in these moments, there is a very small chance the opponent will fold, so your image is everything in these spots and I see a lot of opponents “hero-calling” very hard against these type of aggressive players postflop.

Craig Tapscott: Share a few tells you pick up on players that are beyond the obvious ones most people know about?

Jeff Madsen: When it comes to tells that I observe in opponents, there are some obvious things that each individual player may do, but more of the time it is the more subtle things that you must be very focused to detect. The weaker the player, the more obvious their tells may be, because they are unaware and unskilled at masking these natural tendencies. 

I think watching a player’s hands, eyes, and mouth are three key areas to notice when looking for tells. I’ve noticed tight lips can sometimes mean bluffing and pouting lips can mean strength, this is related to the tension that the player is feeling. When an opponent touches their face in certain ways, a subtle scratch or hand held over their mouth, I’ve noticed this can mean they are a bit unsure and may have a middle strength hand where maybe their decision isn’t straightforward. The way they play with their chips when it isn’t their turn to act can often give away strength or weakness. Sometimes an opponent will cut out a stack of their chips to try to intimidate or get me to slow down and check. An unsteady hand when betting might mean weakness and a bit of nervousness in some opponents, but at the same time a player who is excited about their hand could be shaking slightly as well. And noticing the difference is a subtle skill. 

A common tell I’ve seen in amateurs is when they look off into the distance or look disinterested, this will often mean strength. If they stare directly at the board or perhaps stare directly at you in an intimidating manner, this can often mean weakness. With all these tells it’s important to realize that every player is different and everyone has their subtle tendencies, so no tell is even close to 100 percent reliable as a rule. Pay attention and know the most important thing about reading tells is to determine whether an opponent’s movements are natural, or an act.

Matt Matros: One of the most reliable tells in hold’em occurs when a player bets seemingly before he’s even seen the next card. This insta-bet can happen on the turn, or the river, or even sometimes on the flop. If a player bets immediately as the dealer reveals the community card, that player is almost always bluffing. Think about it — if he had a big hand, wouldn’t he want to see if the next card changes anything to make his hand less big?

Additionally, value bettors usually try to sell their hands by taking at least a few beats before making their play. It’s bluffers who act fast — a classic “strong when weak” maneuver. I missed this tell once at a final table at a major tournament, and it’s haunted me to this day. My opponent shoved all-in into a dry side pot on the flop, and it seemed like he did so even before he’d seen the cards. I folded what would’ve been a winner, and my opponent won the main pot and eventually he won the tournament. I’m now quite sure that this player never even looked at the flop before he made his bet. Don’t make the same mistake I did. If your opponent acts before you even had the chance to notice what card was put down, chances are that your opponent didn’t notice the card either.

Steve Barshak: I think postflop online many people don’t consider timing tells enough when there are a lot of good spots to figure out timing tells, especially against more novice players. Even the quickness or length of an opponent’s continuation-bet (c-bet) after you flat a pot out of position is crucial. 

I will share an example: Let’s say you both have around 40 big blinds (BB) and you flat the opponent’s three-bet preflop. The flop comes 9 8 3 or 9 7 3, it doesn’t matter. We will say the opponent’s three-bet sizing was pretty big preflop and they were in position. It comes to the flop and they hesitate for a long time before c-betting this flop. The sizing on the flop really doesn’t matter at this point after you have these two crucial reads in the hand. They are very likely to have overcards to this board and it’s up to you now as to what you want to do about this situation. They are putting their hand face-up in these spots, but you have to be careful though, because smart players can do deceptive timing to make you think certain things about the hand. So when you are against a good player, a lot of timing tells should get thrown out the window and only keep your eye out for the type of tells that the good player may not realize he is putting out, not the obvious ones. 

In live poker, physical tells really don’t seem too outrageous nowadays, but you can sometimes look at a person and see how they are feeling.  Something I’ve noticed over the years with random players live is that many will look away from the table when they have a big hand postflop and make some type of bet while many others will stare you down if they are bluffing. ♠

Jeff Madsen has more than $4.3 million in tournament cashes. In May of 2014 he won the 2014 HPT – California State Poker Championship. Madsen is the proud owner of three WSOP bracelets.

Matt Matros is a three time WSOP bracelet-winner who has more than $2.4 million in career tournament winnings. He is also a Card Player magazine columnist, a featured coach for Cardrunners.com, and the author of the book The Making of a Poker Player.

Steve Barshak has more than $5 million in tournament earnings. He has won a WCOOP major event on PokerStars and in December 2013 he chopped the Full Tilt Poker FTOPS Main Event three ways and earned $261,000.