Trading Tells

Last night at the Hustler was interesting for a variety of reasons – some of them “good/interesting” and some of them “bad/interesting.” Well, here at Grind or Gamble, we like to focus on the positive. At least, that’s going to be the policy for today. ;-)

The guy directly to my right was an OK player, probably in his mid-forties, and seated next to him was his fiancé. The fiancé was in her mid-thirties or so, had a huge rack, a low-cut blouse and a nice smile. This so happened to be the night I was wearing my graphic tee which reads: “Tell your boobs to stop staring at my eyes!” Needless to say, right off the bat the guy wasn’t a huge fan of mine. We weren't exactly enemies at the table, but amigos would definitely be even more of a stretch.

The night wore on, and some hands got played, whatever. But what I wanted to mention was the tell I picked up on him. On the flop, this guy would, from time to time, pause for a moment before saying smoothly, “I’ll check …?” and then giving the next person to act kind of a sidelong glance. I’ve seen players do this so many times – say that they check like it’s a question, then give you that look that says “Careful, there.” Usually it means that they didn’t like the flop, but their tone is one of caution to a player they think is likely to bet. It’s like they're pretending to be trapping you, hoping that you’ll check behind them and give them a free card.

With this guy, the complete opposite was the case. He performed the exactly same routine I’ve seen countless times before, but when he did it, it was a dead giveaway that he had hit the flop, wanted to bet it, but decided to check hoping someone else would take that as weakness and bet. Not once did I see him do that and then fold the hand to a large bet or raise. If he went through that routine, he would be more than willing to commit all of his chips.

I was pretty satisfied when that tell proved to be reliable time after time after time. It didn’t ever pay off for me, but I saw other players at the table trap themselves again and again against him. By the time I left, the guy had built his stack from $40 up to about $400 just by check-calling and check-raising people with that. I waited to exploit that tell with a monster, but the opportunity never came.

Later on in the evening, I discovered that I wasn’t the only player that was “awake” at the table. That same guy clued me in to a tell of my own, and I couldn’t have been more embarrassed. Despite my embarrassment, I was definitely happy that he let me in on it. Here was the hand that he exposed me on.

UTG had made it $4 to go ($1/2 NL game), and there were two callers (the guy and his fiancé) before the action got to me. In late position, I made it $20 to go with A-K offsuit. The original raiser, the chick, and the dude all called me. The flop came 7-6-7, two-toned, giving me the backdoor nut flush draw and not much else. It was checked to me, and I bet $30 of my remaining $62. The two others in the hand fold, and the guy starts thinking aloud.

“Well, you made it $20 to go preflop, and you bet $30 on the flop. Something’s a little fishy here. I think when you have a made hand like a pair preflop, you bet different amounts, like $12, or $15 … or you would have re-raised my lady to $24 instead of $20. When you don’t have a hand yet, or just have big cards, you bet round numbers. Multiples of ten. I think you’re bluffing, my friend. I’ll put you all in.”

The guy was dead on.

I realized that I do indeed do that. What a huge tell! Multiples of $10 when I had nothing, and other amounts when I had it. Yikes.

I wish I’d had a chance to take advantage of his tell the way he had mine. I’ll probably never see him again. But if I do … he’d better be extremely careful before he check-raises me again!