Some Players Do The Darndest Things

The forums at RedChipPoker.com are a place where players can post hands with some analysis and get feedback from the community and also from me and the other lead coaches. Recently, there’s been a number of hands posted on these forums where the accompanying analysis is flawed in a specific way—it’s far too specific. Here’s a fictional example that I’ve exaggerated so you’ll see what’s wrong.

“The flop came J-J-5. He wouldn’t have raised preflop with a pair tens or below or any unpaired jack, and he wouldn’t have raised the flop with just pocket aces, kings, or queens, so I put him on quad jacks and folded my pocket fives.”

Of course no one has analyzed a hand in quite this way, but many of the analyses do narrow down the possible opponent hand ranges very quickly based on things like preflop action and the presence or absence of a flop bet.

Narrowing down hand ranges, and using these reads to guide your play, is a fundamental no-limit hold’em skill. But it’s possible to be too sure of a read, which can lead you to making some bad decisions.

Even the most predictable players aren’t as predictable as we might think. Always bake into your analysis a chance that your opponent is doing something unexpected—and perhaps also something not entirely rational. This article is a light-hearted look at some of the weird stuff that players do.

A Strange Spot To Tank

In a recent $2-$5 no-limit hold’em game in Las Vegas, I raised 8 8 to $25 in the cutoff after two players limped. Both limpers called. After the call, the first limper had about $125 remaining in his stack. The second limper and I both had about $1,000 left.

The flop came J 9 8, giving me bottom set on a very draw-heavy board. The first limper surprised me by betting out $60 into the $82 pot. He had $65 left in his stack.

The second limper folded, and I raised all-in. My opponent then tanked for two minutes and folded!

He bet out for $60 in an $82 pot into a caller and the preflop raiser. And he did this on an extremely draw-heavy board where the equities of good hands tend to run close together (on a flop like this one, even against a set, a player with a hand like Q-J or J-10 is still in reasonable shape). Then he decided to fold for just $65 more when the pot had ballooned to $267—after thinking about it for two minutes.

I can’t even begin to conceive of what he may have had or what he might have been thinking throughout the hand.

When Big Folds Go Wrong

A few years ago I played a $2-$5 no-limit hold’em game at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. My opponent and I both had about $1,000 stacks. My opponent was a boisterous recreational player who made little to no effort to disguise his play.

He opened for $20 and two players called. I made it $100 to go, and only he called. I had K K.

The flop came J 10 7. He checked, and I bet $100. He check-raised to $200. I called. This player gave away so much information every pot, I figured I’d call and see what he did on the turn.

The turn was a brick, the 3. He shoved all-in for $780 into the $647 pot. My opponent began acting extremely confident. I started to think, and he told me that if I had anything to think about, my hand was no good. It was no put-on. This opponent was just having fun in the game and was extremely straightforward. Most poker players aren’t comfortable lying to your face, and I certainly didn’t expect it of him.

So I took his word for it and folded. He immediately showed me his monster that had him shoveling money so confidently into the pot—Q Q. It hadn’t even occurred to him that he might not be good, even though I had three-bet preflop, I clearly had a hand, and he was beaten by aces, kings, jacks, and tens.

Oops. I learned the lesson here that you can read how your opponents feel about their hands, but how they feel about their hands and how they should feel about their hands doesn’t always coincide.

The Most Unexpected Play I’ve Seen

The biggest head-scratcher I’ve seen happened in a $1-$2 no-limit hold’em game a number of years ago. My opponent in the hand was clearly a tourist, and he obviously wasn’t too experienced with the game, but he was experienced enough to understand the rules, follow the action, and make bets in time without the common newbie markers like string betting or splashing the pot.

Two players limped, including this opponent. I raised to $15 with A J. Both limpers called.

The flop came K 10 3. My opponents checked, and I bet $25 into the $48 pot. The first limper folded, and then the opponent I described above hit the tank. He thought for at least a minute. He was clearly immensely uncomfortable with the situation. It was a very peculiar reaction to a modest-sized flop continuation bet. I tried to decode it, but it was hard to figure out what might cause him to react this way.

He ended up calling. He had about $70 behind in the $98 pot, and I had him covered.
The turn was the 4, giving me a flush draw to go with my gutshot and overcard. My opponent checked. He had clearly been thinking about folding on the flop, and I picked up equity, so I shoved. I didn’t know what exactly was going on in his head, but I had so many outs to the nuts at this point that I figured he didn’t have to fold very often to justify the bluff.

My opponent looked absolutely crestfallen after my bet. He then began shaking involuntarily. I should say that there was nothing about this player that seemed out of the ordinary before this hand took place. He was a young guy, well-dressed, clearly in Vegas on vacation. He was the sort who was likely to be heading off with his friends to pay $300 for a table at a club later in the evening. And to this point, he’d managed to play an hour of poker without drawing substantial attention to himself.

“You’ve got the kings, don’t you?” he asked me. I sat silently. I now figured that he’d be folding. He had a ten or a hand like pocket jacks or maybe pocket eights. His reaction seemed overblown for a routine hand like this one, but you see people act strangely sometimes.

He finally folded face up. He had 10 10. He didn’t think I had a king. He thought I had a set of kings. He almost had a nervous breakdown, and then he actually folded middle set for just a $70 all-in bet.

The next time you might feel inclined to assume your opponent has to have one or two specific hands, remember these examples. Some players do the darndest things. ♠

Ed’s newest book, No-Limit Hold’em Made Simple will be available soon at his website edmillerpoker.com. You can also find original articles and instructional videos by Ed at the training site redchippoker.com.