Guide to Poker Tournament Footage

Transcript

1. FREE SAMPLE of Poker Tells Guide to Windy City Tournament Video (2015) by Zachary Elwood March 20, 2015
2. Contents Contents FREE SAMPLE - Poker Tells Guide to Windy City Tourney Video 3 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Tournament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 $1,000 Buy-in Windy City Tournament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2:00: Defensive hand movements, card shuffling . . . . . . . 6 5:30: Length of time shoving short-stack . . . . . . . . . . . 7 6:40: Early pre-flop reaching for chips . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Page 2 of 10
3. FREE SAMPLE - Poker Tells Guide to Windy City Tourney Video FREE SAMPLE - Poker Tells Guide to Windy City Tourney Video This guide was written by Zachary Elwood. Elwood is the author of the books Reading Poker Tells and Verbal Poker Tells. His website is at www.ReadingPokerTells.com. Overview One of the questions people ask me the most is: you’ve written great info about poker tells and it makes a lot of sense, but how can I find and use that information at the poker table when I play? This guide was written to aid you in the process of looking for, remembering, understanding, and correlating poker behavior at the poker table. It will be a written accompaniment to a specific one-hour section of a poker tournament video. It will draw your attention to the kinds of behavioral information and situations you should be looking for and trying to remember and understand. It is admittedly very difficult to spot and use poker tells, and I would never pre- tend otherwise. There are no one-size-fits-all tells, and human behavior can be immensely complex and tricky. Most reliable poker tells will only be valuable once you recognize that a specific player seems to have a specific pattern; this is why most strong reads will come after playing with an opponent over several hours, or even days. This is especially true for more experienced opponents. The other main way poker tells are useful is when a player can be categorized as very recreational and non-serious; in that case, many common poker tells may apply to that player. Page 3 of 10
4. FREE SAMPLE - Poker Tells Guide to Windy City Tourney Video Understanding and using poker tells correctly means knowing what situations to watch for, what behavior to watch for, and how much “weight” (i.e., importance) to ascribe to the behavior. This guide will hopefully serve to make you more effective at spotting behavioral “imbalances” and using that information to your advantage. Remember! It’s always important to remember that poker tells are a very small part of playing strong live poker. Most decisions will come down to fundamental strategic considerations, like your overall strategy, your opponent’s playing styles, or his bet- sizing tendencies. In a typical 8-hour $2-5 NLHE poker session, opponent behavior might only change my decisions two to four times. I want to reiterate that so that you know I’m not advising you to constantly be looking for ways to act on poker behavior; that can be dangerous. The Tournament The footage I’ll be reviewing in this guide is from a $1,000 buy-in charity tournament that took place in Chicago in early 2015. I played in this tournament and also did some commentary after being eliminated. I thought this tournament would make a good source of video to study because it featured almost entirely recreational, non-serious poker players. This makes it valuable for spotting common and useful amateur-level poker behaviors. In this guide, I’m using concepts that I talk about in my books Reading Poker Tells and Verbal Poker Tells. If some of what I say in this guide doesn’t make complete sense, I recommend reading those books first. That being said, it’s not at all necessary to read those books first. Page 4 of 10
5. FREE SAMPLE - Poker Tells Guide to Windy City Tourney Video Below I will give the link to the YouTube video. Under that are times that tell you the point referenced in the video (for example, 22:30 is 22 minutes, 30 seconds into the YouTube video), followed by a description of the behaviors described in that hand. One way to go through this would be to print out this guide and read it while watching the video, starting and stopping and replaying the video as you see fit. Remember: this is something I put together after watching the footage live and then reviewing it a couple times. It is admittedly very difficult to gather and process behavioral information quickly when you are actually at the table (especially when you can’t actually see the hole cards!), but hopefully this guide serves to show you the kinds of things you ideally want to be looking for and thinking about. Page 5 of 10
6. FREE SAMPLE - Poker Tells Guide to Windy City Tourney Video $1,000 Buy-in Windy City Tournament Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEYLxmyvyGg 2:00: Defensive hand movements, card shuffling This is blind vs blind. The small blind, Nick, has T8o. The big blind, Nader, has KQs. The SB bets the flop of AQ2r and the BB calls. On a J turn, Nick looks at his cards and then checks. As his opponent starts to count up chips, preparing a bet, Nick starts to move his hands around a lot, shuffling his cards, and just moving around in an agitated way. Finally, he steeples his hands, waiting. In general, these kinds of ostentatious and agitated movements from a player who has checked will indicate weakness. The main reason for this is that a player who has a very strong hand who checks in such a spot (who may be “setting a trap” or who is at least not concerned with an opponent’s bet) will tend to be more cagey, silent, and still. A player with a strong hand, when the pot is small and when they want action, generally doesn’t want to draw attention to themselves. Conversely, a player who is weak (as Nick is here) has more of a motivation to present an “obstacle” to his opponent’s bet. Sometimes this defensive behavior can take the form of defensive chip handling; this is when an opponent actually reaches for chips as if threatening to call an opponent’s bet. Usually, though, defensive hand/arm movements will be more subtle, as they are here, and be more in the form of small movements meant to subtly convey the idea “I’m interested in this hand.” Page 6 of 10
7. FREE SAMPLE - Poker Tells Guide to Windy City Tourney Video Even Nick’s double-checking of his cards before checking could fall into this cat- egory; if Nick were actually going to check a strong hand, it’s unlikely he’d draw attention to himself by checking his cards. It’s more likely he’s doing all of this behavior defensively. (But, not to get too in-depth here, it’s worth pointing out that a double-checking of cards from a bettor is more likely to indicate strength; this is because a bluffer is unlikely to want to communicate weakness or uncertainty by double-checking his cards. The behavior of bettors and non-aggressors is subject to different factors and varies a lot. This points to the importance of understanding the situation and not judging poker tells in a vacuum, without regard to the surrounding situation.) When players check to you, or are waiting for you to act, you should look for defensive, agitated motions. Try to remember that player’s behavior and their hand strength. Taking notes can be very helpful and can help you internalize the process of looking for and remembering such things. 5:30: Length of time shoving short-stack A short-stacked player, Gary, just calls in the small blind with JTo, and it’s heads-up, blind versus blind. The flop is J53r. He is first to act and takes several seconds to shove all-in. In general, the longer a short-stack player takes to shove all-in, the more likely it becomes that he actually has a decent hand. While this can vary a good amount, and especially vary a lot by player, it’s a good general rule that can help you in borderline spots or help you when trying to study a specific player’s tendencies. Page 7 of 10
8. FREE SAMPLE - Poker Tells Guide to Windy City Tourney Video How this can often play out and become meaningful is when a short-stacked player flops a flush draw or open-ended straight draw and immediately shoves all-in. They immediately realize they’re not going to be folding and immediately realize they should be the one to bet. They also may have an urge, perhaps even unconsciously, to display some confidence when bluffing, and betting quickly is one way to communicate confidence. Conversely, when the short-stacked player flops an actual made hand or a super- strong hand, there is often a pause. This is either because, for some middle- strength made hands, they actually want to think for a moment or, for very strong hands, they want to make it seem as if they’re thinking. Another pre-flop scenario: a short-stacked player looks down at AJ in late position and immediately shoves all-in. He has nothing to think about and his shove is a no-brainer in that situation. But say he had looked down at AA or KK or maybe AKs; what often happens in these scenarios is the player wants to, at least unconsciously, put on a slight act of hesitation or uncertainty. So often you’ll see a player in this spot wait a couple seconds before shoving. Now, in this hand, it’s entirely conceivable that Gary could have shoved immediately with JT on this flop. That wouldn’t have surprised me at all. But the point is that, the longer such a shove takes, the more it will be correlated, in general, with stronger made hands. For example, if I were his opponent and had a weak jack or underpair in this hand, I’d be very unlikely to call this shove. Whereas if he’d shoved immediately, and if there were more draws possible on the board, I’d be more likely to call with borderline hands, knowing there were many draws possible. As always, you have to keep in Page 8 of 10
9. FREE SAMPLE - Poker Tells Guide to Windy City Tourney Video mind the board texture and what someone’s possible range of betting hands could be. 6:40: Early pre-flop reaching for chips In the foreground, we can see Karolis, in the small blind, reaching for betting/raising chips, even before the button has finished folding. After the button folds, Karolis immediately puts in a raise vs the big blind. He has 62o. Early reaching for chips, or pretty much any ostentatious behavior from a waiting- to-act player pre-flop, will usually be a weak hand, medium-strength at best. Also, immediate raises (for the same reasons mentioned in the section above) will tend to be weaker in general. The main reason for this: early in a hand, players with strong hands generally don’t want to draw attention to themselves. They want to build a pot and want to ensure they get action. Also, players with a strong hand also have a tendency to pause a little bit before acting. They are focused on the situation and also may want to appear a little uncertain in their decision to bet or raise. In such a situation, if I were the big blind, I would be much more likely to 3-bet Karolis with a wide range of hands, feeling confident that it’s unlikely, because of his rushing to raise, that he has a strong hand. But, as with all behavior, I’d want to keep watching Karolis to make sure this actually means weakness for him. If I were to witness him doing this same pre- flop, premature-reaching-for-a-raise behavior with very strong hands later, I’d have to revise my read and realize that this is just his standard operating procedure. Page 9 of 10
10. FREE SAMPLE - Poker Tells Guide to Windy City Tourney Video END OF FREE SAMPLE. This sample is 9 pages long, with a good amount of introductory material. The com- plete guide is 32 pages long and is available for $25 at www.readingpokertells.com. Page 10 of 10