Out of the Mouths of Babes

I was badly torn between two titles for this column, which relates a true story I believe will provide you with an easy-to-remember example of a useful poker lesson. The other option was Sed Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custudios, Latin for, "But who is to guard the guards themselves?" (You remember Latin, that's the language former Vice President Dan Quayle apologized for not being able to speak when he went to Latin America.) The phrase is also sometimes translated as, "Who watches the watchers?"

Casinos are quite familiar with the "who watches the watchers?" problem. Although most of the security cameras are designed to protect the casino from dealer theft (protection from customer theft and cheating are useful but secondary benefits), casinos also know they must keep an eye on their own security guards.

It was true in ancient Roman times, and it's still true today: You've got to watch over the guards, watch the folks who are watching those who are watching the guards, and … well, it can keep going for as many levels of paranoia or cash temptation that seem warranted.

Now, as to why I had trouble choosing between an obscure Latin phrase and a title that had the word "babes" in it, you'll need a little background.

Recently, in the closing hours of a fun weekend playing a private poker tournament with some friends in Chicago, two friends (Howard Ring and his brother Robert) and I were playing a series of threehanded no-limit hold'em tournaments. The money and pride aside, there was a huge incentive not to get knocked out first, because our rules forced the first player out to deal for the other two the rest of the way.

I found myself in this unenviable position for the first time in four tournaments (yeah, terrific, three straight wins; if I'd won six more in a row, I then finally would have won the buy-in for the main event) when Howard's 9-year-old daughter, Julia, came downstairs to watch. She wanted to know if she could look at her father's cards, he agreed, and with a certain degree of surprise, I asked, "Aren't you worried that she'll give something away?"

"No, of course not," Howard said, and indeed over the next few hands, Julia looked and didn't say much of anything as the button moved back and forth. After a little while she asked her Uncle Robert if she could look at his cards, too. I envisioned even more potential difficulty there, but Rob wasn't worried, either – this wasn't exactly high-stakes poker – so each hand started with Julia seeing both her father's and her uncle's cards.

"Should I raise him, Julia?" Howard asked at one point, but before she could answer, he laughed and said, "Don't answer that, of course, honey," and she didn't.

The next hand, Julia looked at Howard's cards, and her jaw dropped open and her eyes grew big as saucers. (Picture what you might look like if your all-time-favorite sexiest movie star walked up to your best friend and said, quite seriously, "This party is boring, how about you and I get out of here and have a drink.")

In case Julia's eyes and jaw weren't a good enough tell, she simultaneously (and rather loudly) said, "Holy smokes!" All of us laughed until we were in tears, including Robert, as Howard raised from the small blind on the button. Robert, refusing to believe the whole thing wasn't a setup, decided to call. The flop came K-9-4, Howard bet, Robert folded, and Howard showed his two black aces, the A A.

The game stopped for about five minutes while everyone attempted to keep his convulsive laughter from shattering a rib. I rolled off my chair gently to make sure I wouldn't fall off and just lay on the carpet. I don't think I've laughed that loud and long for a decade. The oddly emphatic expression "Holy smokes!" would have been enough, but combined with those innocent eyes and face, we were helpless.

How should this "truth is funnier than fiction" tale help you? We all know it's a frequent cardroom phenomenon for a player to have a friend or significant other sit behind him or her to observe (or, as we like to say in another of those phrases that we may need to clean up a bit for poker to play well on prime time TV, to "sweat"), and as children aren't allowed in cardrooms, most sweaters are usually aware that a loud "Holy smokes!" is probably giving away more information than is optimal.

Nonetheless, the poker equivalent of that old Latin phrase, "Who watches the watchers?" comes into play here. You should be watching the watchers, because usually they aren't anywhere nearly as good as the actual players in avoiding tells, to say nothing of grade-C acting on reverse tells. A watcher who suddenly grows acutely disinterested in a hand has probably just told you that the player is holding something like 3-2 offsuit or A A (in other words, it's either real disinterest or a bad case of "I better not give anything away"). When you factor in what you've observed of the betting action, it probably isn't too hard to figure out which is which.

Anyway, now you know why I had trouble picking between the two titles: The poker community includes many good parents who are familiar with the funny lines that come "from the mouths of babes," and of course we have quite a few bar-hoppers who are interested in the other kind of "babes." On the other hand, a title that sounded like a reference to the newest weight-loss fad, the custard diet, couldn't be easily dismissed in a community that has embraced stomach-reduction surgery as "widely" as ours has.

Young Julia Ring (it's a shame this was threehanded poker, or I'd forever have a new definition for a "ring game") gave us all a laugh and a line that at least three of us will always remember, but she also led you to a tip you should remember. Your poker-playing friend's friend (the watcher) probably means well, almost certainly doesn't want to cheat to help, and wants his/her friend to win. Despite those good intentions, you will probably find that the watcher's relative lack of experience in avoiding tells and inferior acting occasionally gives you a significant edge.

Naturally, just as we need to remain alert for reverse tells, so too do we need to be aware of preplanned "watcher overreactions." If there's a way for a poker player to find an angle, sooner or later at least one will. Nonetheless, whether it's a sidesplitting comment that comes "out of the mouths of babes" or an overly furtive glance away, information that the watchers unintentionally give away is part of the rich tapestry of information available to those who continually search for it. (Sorry, neither tapestry nor tapioca is available on the custard diet.)

Who knows … if you do keep searching for information, maybe one of these days you'll need to hire a guard to walk you and your winnings out to your car … and a guard to guard him … but, no, not a guard to guard that guard, because if you've won that much money, you shouldn't be driving home with it. Get it into a safe-deposit box, put it into an account and wire transfer it, get a double ID check cut, or take any of a number of other precautions that, on reflection, seem a lot safer than worrying about guarding the guards.