Live Play Thought

Obviously we all know that you are not supposed to look at your hand until it is your turn when you play live.

V takes it one step further:

You are on the button against the BB.
You raise 3x BB, he calls.

When the flop hits, you do not look at the cards that just hit, and wait for him to act before looking at the cards and deciding what to do.
This might take a bit more brain power (you have to link what he did with the cards in reverse order) but this may help avoid tells that pros may actual pick up on.

Thoughts?

vanquish said:

Obviously we all know that you are not supposed to look at your hand until it is your turn when you play live.

V takes it one step further:

You are on the button against the BB.
You raise 3x BB, he calls.

When the flop hits, you do not look at the cards that just hit, and wait for him to act before looking at the cards and deciding what to do.
This might take a bit more brain power (you have to link what he did with the cards in reverse order) but this may help avoid tells that pros may actual pick up on.

Thoughts?

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Yep. I have not seen a flop come out when playing live in a while. Watch them watch the flop, then have your look.

A super reliable tell is that they will glance at their chip stack if they hit (be careful not to assume the corollary: if they don't look it doesn't mean that they didn't hit, but looking almost always means they did hit)-- it's an unconscious action, so it is hard to hide.

alien, spot on as usual.

I play that way live as well. Also look for sagging (subtle) posture or dropping their hands. Those are solid tells for weakness or an unfavorable flop.

How about when its a table of solid players, surely you should get your look in before anyone else sees you. Otherwise your gonna have a full table of good players watching for your tells when you look at your cards.

tenbob said:

How about when its a table of solid players, surely you should get your look in before anyone else sees you. Otherwise your gonna have a full table of good players watching for your tells when you look at your cards.

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Then you go stone cold Chris Ferguson on them.

You have to be careful when just playing with tells, I've noticed a lot of people at 1/2 nl think a straight or flush draw is as good as hitting the flop.

aliengenius said:

A super reliable tell is that they will glance at their chip stack if they hit (be careful not to assume the corollary: if they don't look it doesn't mean that they didn't hit, but looking almost always means they did hit)-- it's an unconscious action, so it is hard to hide.

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Yeah, I have observed this too. Sometimes people in later positions will start counting out their bets etc too, as soon as the flop is displayed.

What other tells have people observed during live play, when a player is either weak or strong? Maybe this is a topic for another thread?

i miss live play...
haven't hit the casino in quite a while...
i can go 24+ hours straight...

I played live yesterday. Proud of how unreadable I am live

where do you play live?

nima said:

where do you play live?

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Usually with some amigos.

vanquish said:

Usually with some amigos.

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They're actually all very educated about poker; not your typical donkfest home game.

i've never played a live game before, which i hope i could make time for one real soon.

does people actually try to imitate what Chris Ferguson does? Like the same posture and thinking for some time before they fold/bet?

haven't seen anyone do the Chris Ferguson act...
poeple playing live usually are there having a good time spending some spare cash...
you'll probably considered weird if you act that way...
probably in big tournaments and high stakes you'll find people acting that way...
but not in regular cash games...

I'm like Ivey in regular cash games.

jayneseo said:

You have to be careful when just playing with tells, I've noticed a lot of people at 1/2 nl think a straight or flush draw is as good as hitting the flop.

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Actually the flush draw thing reminds me of another great live tell based on how the human mind works. When a flop comes out all in one suit and you see someone quickly check their hole cards, it most often means that one of their cards matches that suit but they don't recall which one and/or are just confirming it. If they flopped the flush, they will almost never be looking because the human mind recalls the suit and that both cards are that suit. It's only when one card is of the suit that they look (it's a subconcious thing). Obviously there is always a chance that a player could throw a false tell, but that doesn't happen nearly as often as you might think.

I actually got to do it very effectively once in a cash game. There was what I would call a very observant player (who was trying to not appear so observant), and appeared to play a pretty good game. I don't recall the exact holding, but I flopped the nut flush and immediately checked my hole cards anyway. Sure enough, another card of that suit never came and by the river I stacked him against his top pair or top two pair (don't recall, been a while). Of course it only worked because I saw that he was paying attention to the goings on at the table.

rickdraw48 said:

The strategy that you have described may have a flaw. I would lean toward the belief that such a subtle maneuver would rarely be noticed for it to be effective. Anticipating and looking at the flop are a normal part of the game. (unless bb has two sets of eyes how we he be able to notice you not looking while bb is looking at the flop) Itis not like the savvy player watching for a fish looking at his hole cards while they are being dealt. so while that strategy may work at one part of the game it does not have the same impact later in the game.

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Not sure who you're actually replying to since you didn't quote them, but watching your opponent when they check their hole cards and on the flop/turn/river is not flawed at all. It is exactly what you should be doing in live play. People constantly give off tells in live play and your edge is to see those things.

rickdraw48 said:

I also play live often in large tourneys since i live outside Atlantic City. I see the bigger impact players using betting as the key strategy. All those tables and all that commotion around you tends to make physical tells such as body language less noticeable, also the distractions and all the stray conversations at your table tends to make physical tells a very low percentage play. Where as chip strategy's remain the ultimate weapon. However in a small ring ganme at a buddys house or the final few tables of a tourney, if your good and I mean real good at reading people well thats a different story.

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No one's taking away from betting patterns. Betting patterns in live play are extremely important and in fact all tie together with phyical tells in how chips are moved around. But to simply ignore the players around you because you think there is too much going on doesn't mean player observation and reading players isn't effective, it means you need more practice.

And you don't need to be "real good" at it or have a natural sixth sense, reading people is part natural ability, part learned ability. And it can be improved on, but you have to recognize the value in it and put forth that effort. You can't simply write it off because a waitress is walking around , or there's a guy on a cell phone ten feet away, or the next table is very close and they're talking loud.

I was playing in a live tournament once, this guy raises, and this seasoned player calls him, who had folded to my raises a few times. After the seasoned player won the hand, the other guy asked, "How come you call my raises, but fold to her?" They said, "You have tells, she doesn't."

But yeah, I like to watch people on the flop even more so than pf. Especially when there are a lot of "touristy" players at the table.

Up front I will admit I have not read that book. But as with so many of the other poker books out there, the idea is not to look for specific things, but to work on improving you game in particular tho generic situations.

Read between the lines. I'm reading HoH1 currently, well, actually studying is a better description of what one does with that book, and I never expect to get into the exact situation he describes, yet find myself often in generically similar confrontations. He describes an approach to the actual play of the game, Caro adds his take on some of the more obscure aspects of the game.

I have read Caro's articles in the mags, and have a feel for what he is getting at. If he says look for the guy who scratches his nose before a big bet and respond like this..(blah, blah, blah), what I would take from that is to look for repeated mannerisms and consequent actions or inactions of every player at the table.

You can probably bet they are watching you. So now you know they are watching you, and you can manipulate your mannerisms to suit yourself, but they know you know they know you are watching their mannerisms, and will counter intuit your interpretations of their mannerisms whilst they know you know they are watching you do likewise!