How do you interpret this tell? (long)

[mutiger91]

This is long, so read at your own peril [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Setup:

Tourney has fast-moving blinds, so only aggro play survives long-term.

Earlier in the game I went after a player who was bullying from position. Call this villian "Cowboy". He was calling raises from position, floating the flop and then betting/raising the turn. He had done it enough to rule out him actually having hands and the pattern was the same each time. I had the big stack on the table, a fairly TAG image for the time I had been at this table, pocket 77 in MP and raised 3x BB. Cowboy called. I c-bet the flop 2/3 of pot on a 10-high board. Cowboy called. Turn was a K. I figured if the 10 didn't scare him the K probably would. I also had a bigger stack and he was in fine shape if he folded there. I pushed all-in. Since I have a shaky hands tell, I sometimes fake it and decided to fake here. Cowboy commented on the shaky hands and folded...later found out he had pocket 8s.

During the first break, I overheard some guys from the other end of the table talking about my shaky hands. One was adamant that it was a false tell (guess I still need some work). Villian #2, "POW/MIA" (because of his hat) was not involved in the conversation, but he was close enough to hear it.

After the break, villian #3 goes on a stealing spree similar to cowboy. He was simply min-raising unopened pots preflop and then trying to outplay his oponents on the flop/turn. After 3 hands in a row of him doing this I look down at A7 in the BB. Not a monster, but stronger than a lot of the range I put him on. I considered reraising, but didn't want to make this a monster pot and decided to see what the flop brought.

The flop was 10-7-3 rainbow. A pretty good flop for me. Blinds were 200/400 and my stack before the hand was ~6K. Pot has 3200 in it. I bet out 2000. POW/MIA started out the hand with 5300 chips, so he's pot-committed if he decides to play. He pushes all-in. I contemplate a call and then he says:

"Any pair beats me right now...maybe" suggesting he has OESD. I've read Caro and I know weak means strong and strong means weak, but this guy also probably knows I've read Caro based on the earlier fake tell. Is he fake-telling back at me?

How do I best interpret his chatter here? I'm more interested in the reasoning behind the answer, since I obviously know what happened already.

BTW, I finished 5th after AA got cracked by QQ and got 4x my buy-in. Chump change compared to what I thought I would get, but hey, AA can kill ya.

[centaurmyth]

If your read indicates a reverse fake-tell then go with your gut on it. You were there. Whether you believe you are right or believe you are wrong, you are right. This is a classic poker play, one that will always have incomplete information.

And, this post should be moved to MTT.

[mutiger91]

I posted it in B&M because it was a live game and it had to do with flesh and bones people and how they act as opposed to internet MTTs (which tend to play a little differently). On the internet, they don't rush the blinds like this to free up tables for Friday night ring games and you don't get info like side conversations from break.

[centaurmyth]

the mods will decide. anyhow, you get what i'm saying otherwise? how much live experience have you had? in that context, how do you develop your feel for the texture of the game?

[mutiger91]

Maybe it does need to move, just sharing my reasoning. You sometimes get people in the chatbox online, but it's not like the way some people chat you up at the table. (This guy hadn't been a chatter before this hand, but I also hadn't seen him with all his chips at risk.)

I've been playing some variation of Hold'em live for about ua year and a half now. Started in $3/$6 no-fold-em Limit Hold'em. Moved to $1/$2 NL last April. Started playing some tournaments late last year and did especially well in December.

How do I develop my feel for the texture of the game? Hadn't really thought about this out loud before, but I guess I do something like this
1) Group players into general categories of tight or loose and

2)Try to understand how they are playing hands (e.g. what generally happens when someone raises? What sized raises get calls? Typically how many callers are there?

3)Try to find out what kinds of hands are being played through show-downs, deductions and players generous enough to show.

4) In this case, there's also tournament experience. I know in this tournament after the break when the blinds double, most people become suddenly short-stacked. They are limited in their flexibility. Bigger stacks can (and do) take advantage.

5) Look for exploitable weaknesses in other players' games. If I see someone do the same type of play several times, I'm likely to try to use this against them. (I did it twice above which is a span of ~ 1 hr.) For example, at final tables with several short-stacks, sometimes it's safer to reraise-steal than it is to try to steal blinds directly (and you get more BBs for the play, so you can project a very tight image, because you aren't playing much at all)

6) This kind of goes with the "how other people are playing" above, but I want to know how likely I am to be reraised and what my likely downside is before playing a hand.

Is this what you meant?

[centaurmyth]

If you follow this approach to the game, i surmise that you called his bet in your example hand, but your were wrong and sucked out/ had him out kicked. That is, if this was an "exploitable weakness."

If it is not, then you went against your approach, and came from your gut. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Overall your assessment of his style gave him a good chance to be on any two cards. So I agree with a call.

[somapopper]

It's like less than 3k for you to call in a 10k pot with middle pair, and you're gonna have less than 10bbs left if you fold. Unless he flipped his cards over I don't know how you can be thinking about doing anything but calling.

[mutiger91]

Pretty good prediction.

I called. My read was wrong. POW/MIA had QT, caught a Q on the turn and the river was no help for me. I was down to 700 chips. Then they broke our table. At the new table I sat down to AJ, went all-in and tripled. Next hand I had A8 and now ~2000 chips. I still had good position in an unopened pot, so I pushed again, 2 callers, one had 88, BB had J9s. Ace hit the flop and I was fully recovered to my pre-donk-call level and then took my foot off the gas and applied firmly to the brake for a while. ~ 10 min later the big stack at the new table was passive and I played him w/ 77 and the flop was 6-high. I pushed and he called w/ Q6. I never really made much progress from this point, just stole an occasional blind to stay alive. Had to fold a few thousand away, then lost AA to a small stack, pushed at the same guy the next time w/ JT (short-stacked) and he showed KK. That left me with < 1 BB and I was done.

[mutiger91]

[ QUOTE ]
...I don't know how you can be thinking about doing anything but calling.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's pretty much my thinking. If there was enough info in that tell for me to know with a high degree of certaintly I was beat, I didn't have pot odds for the call w/ only 5 outs. To a different player, I could lay that down, but just not that guy at that time. The net effect of his tell is that it left me uncertain and I went with my default action. Maybe I was overly optimistic, but I figured he would play back at me with hands less than top pair if he put me on a play against the steal and I actually had a shot at being good.

By posting what i really wanted to know is if I missed something. I was wondering if someone would say, "Tiger, you idiot, people who don't want a call tend to shut up, because they don't want to induce a call by accidentally saying the wrong thing!" or something like that. Just wanted to know how others approached the situation.

[GiantBuddha]

Against QT you're getting over 4:1 on about a 4:1 shot. In this spot in the tournament, I don't think you can fold once you've put 2000 in. If you wanted to let yourself get away from the hand, I'd say bet less on the flop. People usually talk when they want a call.