Hat trick on the turn

I'll bet every time it worked, your ace high was the best hand on the turn. That makes it a good bet to protect your hand.

[winky51]

Nope they run 50/50. The math is mostly easy. The hard ones are that you have to spot the right times mathematically raise to either eliminate opponents, save you money if you are behind, or raise to get more money n the pot when you are ahead. All these are more complicated analysis parts which I am constantly improving. PM does this very very well. He has showed me errors in my game when it comes to the analysis and why and how I need to bet. Thats the difficult part of the math.

Everyone has a different level of instincts. It can be developed over time and grown. Stu Ungar, Matasow, and Phil Hellmuth have great instincts. Phil Ivey has even been quoted "math is not as important as instints". Players like Lederer and Ferguson are emotionless rocks that make their tells on psychology and math analisys then combine the 2 for a result. Ferguson has admitted he has trouble reading players, but they have trouble reading him too.

Instincts are quickly improved just by picking up some pshychology books and Mike Caro's book on tells. The harder part of instinct comes from being intraspective. Know yourself and you will know others. Seems easy? Not! You have to be completely honest with yourself and learn to interprete each and every single response, action, and why you did it on the subconscious level. Once you are able to be this way you understand the mind of others. We are all human, we all have the same chemistry, fears, and our own little pattern.

So to answer your question they are both of equal importance. Just some are better at one that the other.

[SeaEagle]

Daniel Negreanu's viewpoint

If you don't want to read the whole thing, here are a couple of salient quotes:

"for the most part, a great player makes his read based on the actual betting that took place, not the facial tics."

"Now, I shouldn't be telling you this, but I will anyway. It's simply a scare tactic used by many pros to make you feel uncomfortable."

[crunchy1]

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Nope they run 50/50.

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You're wrong.

It seems like you're letting your short term results reinforce an incorrect strategy (maybe not incorrect but, at the least, flawed conecptually). This is a dangerous game you're playing.

As far as those quotes you gave from a few pro players... #1 - don't believe everything you see on T.V. - poker programs (as is any program) are fuled by ratings. #2 - I've seen some of the quotes you mentioned. I've never seen any of those quotes in the context of limit poker.

[damaniac]

The other big thing in this is that they all check again. Passive players (and aggro ones as well) will often check to the raiser, regardless, on the flop. But once the flop gets checked through, they are betting most decent hands (even fairly passive players) and at least check/calling with a pair, if these are the loose passive standard players we all know and love. So once you get checked to again, your hand really is good a large portion of the time (assuming AQ UI or something).

[winky51]

Its not facial ticks or one exact thing, not even close. Its lots of little things that add up to a determination if a player is weak or strong added to math and analysis. Both are together to forumate the right play.

Your telling me you never made a play at the pot because you could tell an opponent was weak even though he was betting? Or that you don't use their personality against them.

I had guys that their tells were so blatently obvious I could play my hands accordingly. One guy would look at the flop only when he had a strong hand, and look at the players when he was weak. Another would always, and I mean always say "I guess I bet" when he had a strong hand. Another guy would talk and make slight jokes when he held a monster and was trying to give you the impression he was weak. Another player would look you in the eye when he was strong. Online players will delay a long time like they are thinking to trick you into check behind for the free card. Or auto call on a draw. These are all tells. Some players are much more sutble about it. You really have to find what can give you a hint to their hand. Sometimes its a reaction to a statement you say even.

Tournament last week I had QQ and raised. I real conservative player looked at his cards looked at my stack and pushed. The pot was just so that this player could have AA-99. If I lost Im out. I made a simple statement based on what I knew about him so far "A guess your AK doesnt want a call" and his reaction told me everything I wanted to know, he had a smaller pair, and I called. He reacted instinctivly like he just got the punch line of a joke. In other words he figured by my statement I had the smaller pair otherwise if I had AA-QQ Id autocall like is common in these tournaments. I played the player, his experience, and his instints to make the call. I was at the final table and losing there would have cost me a lot of money. I could have folded to fight another time.

Something like that even I would have trouble not reacting to because my mind would get excited thinking my JJ was good because the other player looked worried. Thats why when I put someone to a decision I go off in lala land and think about something else ignoring the other player.

Fine we disagree but look at it this way. If you can read a player then its like he is playing with his hand face up.

You could have 72o and him AKs and both of you miss the flop. If you know his hand you can make him fold or pay you more when you got the better of him.

[WillMagic]

This situation comes up rarely for me because I'll almost never check the flop in this spot. The flop has to be a complete [censored] disaster (three of a suit I don't have etc) for me to check. Otherwise, betting isn't expensive, it's still possible you have the best hand, and it sets you up to take a free card on the turn.

Will

[crunchy1]

Ambiguity is rampant in this thread.

First off - I never said that tells are useless. However, you never really clarified if your OP was referring to LIVE gameplay, ONLINE, or both. This is a big distinction in the response I would give.

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Its lots of little things that add up to a determination if a player is weak or strong added to math and analysis. Both are together to forumate the right play.

[/ QUOTE ]
You're correct in saying this. However, earlier you suggested that the ratio of one to the other is 50/50. I think you're wrong.

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Your telling me you never made a play at the pot because you could tell an opponent was weak even though he was betting? Or that you don't use their personality against them.

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Absolutely. However - again we're not distinguishing between a critical factor. Are we playing LIMIT or NO-LIMIT. The value of read-base play is clearly related to the size of the bet you're able to make. A given player may be weak-tight and fold too much but, he's going to make far fewer incorrect folds when he's faced with a bet only equal to 1/10th the size of the pot or less versus a pot-size or greater bet. Also, this should go without mentioning that, the magnitude of his mistakes are amplified in the no-limit context.

You're responses are so general that they don't much account for the vast difference that the game we're playing makes in your statements.

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I had guys that their tells were so blatently obvious I could play my hands accordingly. One guy would look at the flop only when he had a strong hand, and look at the players when he was weak. Another would always, and I mean always say "I guess I bet" when he had a strong hand. Another guy would talk and make slight jokes when he held a monster and was trying to give you the impression he was weak. Another player would look you in the eye when he was strong.

[/ QUOTE ]
These are definitely great tells that you're picking up on. However, these tells are a small part of the information that you should be using to base a decision on. You're certainly not using these tells to put your opponent on one specific hand - you're using them to assign that player a range of hands. Once you've got the range - it's all mathematical going forward. You're going to use that range, the probabilities of him holding each hand in the range, the pot size, the strength of your hand, the players left to act in the hand and their ranges, etc, etc... to make your final decision when the action is on you.

[ QUOTE ]
Online players will delay a long time like they are thinking to trick you into check behind for the free card. Or auto call on a draw. These are all tells. Some players are much more sutble about it. You really have to find what can give you a hint to their hand. Sometimes its a reaction to a statement you say even.

[/ QUOTE ]
I've said this before and I'll say it again. Online tells SUCK! There's zero reliability in an online tell. They mostly have to do with timing which can be affected by many factors out of your control or ability to observe. If you're giving a ton of weight to some player's "online tell" at a decision point and acting in accordance with a pre-set strategy to that stall (or auto-bet, etc...) I think you're going to find that you're costing yourself a significant amount of money in the long run.

Let me reiterate - I'm not dismissing the impact of tells on your decisions. I'm disputing the weight of importance that you're giving this them in the overall scheme of things.

[winky51]

I do agree that online tells like that are of LESS value. Math and analysis, betting patterns are of higher value there. I say by quite a bit. I meant to say live they have the 50/50 value. Id say online.... thats tough but probably 90/10.

Online you can't see if your opponent is checking his hand to see if he is suited or has a guy draw. You cant see them grab their cards like they are throwing them away.

In live games I feel like I have xray vision at times or I'm using the force when dealing with these players. I MUCH prefer live play. But online its a bitch to read.

Like last night I played 500+ hands, took a beating to the fish, and I made 2 real reads off of timing tells. A successful bluff, and a catching a successful bluff.

If it was a live game for 500+ hands which would be what around 14 hours of play? The tells would have been much much more.

And yes in limit there are fewer tells because the betting is structured and the stakes are not as much.

Also when playing with experts tells go down in value. I am used to playing fish, fish, and more fish. I don't want to play crunchy1, neverwins, or anyone named "Iamabigfish".

I want to play crappy players.

I do feel NL tournaments are where tells come out the most.

I took 3rd last week in a small 130 man tournament and my tell skills were accurate for the players hands when I was in or out. of course the ones I saw.

So live has much more value for tells than online. Good players drop this percentage even further because they dont give off as many tells. I know I have a specific pattern for playing tournaments, its statue like. same betting motions, same posture, same talk (nothing). Once in a while I catch myself giving something away.

Thanks whoever posted the Daniel article. BYW Full Tilt has some show on about asking the pros questions. I found it useful. Its on ESPN.

Good discussion crunchy