Not looking at your cards until it's your turn to act...

C

CXC

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Does anybody else play like this. I've been reading Phil Gordon's Little Green Book and he makes note of how he never looks at his cards until it's his turn to act.

I never look at my cards before it is my turn to act. I find that if I look at my hand as soon as the cards are dealt, I am often uninterested in the action if I have a bad hand and overly interested if I have a good hand. Players who are paying attention can easily pick up this tell use it against me when deciding if they should play their hands. Waiting until it's my turn to act before looking at my cards also helps me to stay focused on what everyone else is doing. By concentrating on how each opponent acts before the flop, I often pick up valuable information that helps me later in the hand and in the game.

This sounds like a really good advice to stay focused on the game. Anyone else who does this?
 
CuttleFish

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Hi CX,

I drift in and out on this one. Sometimes I pick them up straight away, sometimes I wait and look. I have never found it to be as good a tell as it sounds though. A lot of people know about the "looking down at their chips means theyve got a hand" thing but this can be distracting. For some people having a hand means pocket 3's in early position.

One thing I always do though, once I have picked up my cards, is look at them for about 10 seconds, memorize them and put them down in the same place, safely out of the way. I look at them for the same amount of time whether I have AA or J2o. I do this mainly so that I never have to re-check my cards and give info away (most people will re-check their hands on a draw to make sure they have what they think they have).

Good luck.

CuttleFish
 
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BlueNowhere

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I just look because any of the fields I've palyed live players aren't intelligent enough to pick up on betting tells so they will never notice body tells. I'd say in most tourneys you wouldn't even need to worry about what tells your body gives off but be more concerned if you can pick up on sombody elses.
 
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DEdwardsNJ

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I just look because any of the fields I've palyed live players aren't intelligent enough to pick up on betting tells so they will never notice body tells. I'd say in most tourneys you wouldn't even need to worry about what tells your body gives off but be more concerned if you can pick up on sombody elses.
Yeah, your average buy in live tourney, I'm not too concerned about people picking up on my tells, but if you are looking at your own cards as soon as you get them, then you are obviously not looking at other people when they get their cards, so waiting until its your turn to act is probably still pretty good advice to help keep you focused on everything that is happening at the table.
 
OzExorcist

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In general it's very good advice - even if you don't think the players in your game are good enough to pick up tells on you based on when you look at your cards, it can very much affect how you approach each hand.

If you look at your cards straight away and see rags, your brain almost invariably switches off and stops paying attention to the hand because it knows your sole involvement in the hand will be folding when the action reaches you. In that state of mind, it's very easy to miss important information you could pick up on other players as they look at their cards and make their action.

Put it this way: there's really no downside to following his advice, and in some games there's definitely an upside.
 
pfb8888

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this is what slows the game down...
if you know exactly what you plan to do with every hand in every situation then fine ...focus on others and wait
but if not you risk making a hasty decision or giving away your hand anyway
 
MediaBLITZ

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You should be thinking about what you are going to do with the cards you see - before you see them.

this is what slows the game down...
if you know exactly what you plan to do with every hand in every situation then fine ...focus on others and wait
but if not you risk making a hasty decision or giving away your hand anyway
 
flatcaller

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yeah this is good advice because you become way more observant, it forces you to be. also it avoids tells for other ppl. So many times i know when the player to my left will be folding just because they have obvious fold jesters and in turn ill make a move knowing i have one less player to worry about. If you look at your cards right away you probably will start making habits that you may not be able to break, like not putting you cards under chip protector when u r going to muck. ppl do it all the time....
 
MediaBLITZ

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Position, position, position! Its like real estate :)
Yes Cuttle, in relation to your position. Point is you don't wait to see your cards to figure out what you are going to do.

Example, Just last night in $1-3 cash I am in late position. Limp, raise, reraise from old lady major nit (whom I had played before) - comes to me - if I don't at least see QQ I am out of this pot. I look at TT. Fold (after taking a few seconds to confirm the previous action in my head). Historically speaking this old gal had either AA or KK. I know that's terrible PF ranging but no way she was reraising without a monster.

If I am not already considering my hand before I see it, well TT might look better than it actually was. And if I had looked at it before the action - well I might have made some sort of stupid commitment to playing the hand.

Instead I was totally objective in studying the action and was able to make a rational decision as to what I needed to be in this pot before seeing my hand. Did it hurt to fold TT? A little, but not as much as it would have getting involved in that hand.

INCONSEQUENTIAL HAND RESULTS
She had KK and this other wannabe shark I had never seen before thought it was a good idea to keep calling her 1/2 pot raises on each street with JJ. The board never saw any paint (nor a T).
 
Tom1559

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I agree that this is good advice. Paying attention to what is going on before the betting gets to you can provide meaningful tells which you can use to your advantage. I tend to adopt this tactic pretty much most of the time.
 
JusSumguy

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I agree that this is good advice. Paying attention to what is going on before the betting gets to you can provide meaningful tells which you can use to your advantage. I tend to adopt this tactic pretty much most of the time.

Many times, just by paying attention to the action and tells rather than our cards, it turns out we don't even need to look at our cards to know how to play a particular hand.


:icon_salu
 
dj11

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I keep trying to not see my cards, but I haven't found the option yet.......;)
 
smokeme

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this is like the movie rounders when dood plays blind for the judge guy or whatevers against his buddies lol. rounders :)
 
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I play in a live league, yep I've gotten in the habit to look at everyone just to see if there giving any tells, but most of them are pretty good by now and have the same look, but yea I've learned it's best to look at the table before you look at your hand, then make a choice!
 
dadsrus

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i find myself doing this alot in live tournys i wait till the lastest possible chanec to take a peek at my cards then play poker accordly i find it gives me a chance to gauge the table and see who's wanting to fool around a bit or who has a hand they are just itching to throw away
 
WEC

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I almost never look at my cards before it gets to me. I generally am watching all the other players look at their cards, and how they move to their chips, how they pick them up, how they bet them on the table. I then watch to see how these movements change as the day/night moves along (and what cards they are holding obv).

If you play enough live, you realize tells can make a difference. If you play on playing live a lot, I would suggest picking up one of the "tell books" so you can at least pick up the standard "eye movement tells", and other standard movements. Some players give away a lot in body movements, etc. The shaking hand while betting is one of my favorites and you can rely on it a large majority of the time (surprisingly, it almost always means this player has the NUTS).
 
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peedee91

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i try to look twice...when no one is looking.....each card as i get them...and then right as the flop comes out bc everyone is lokking at the flop
 
JusSumguy

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i try to look twice...when no one is looking.....each card as i get them...and then right as the flop comes out bc everyone is lokking at the flop

It's very important to look at the table reactions when the flop hits.


:icon_salu
 
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dlam

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I generally look at my cards immediately after I watch the other players and way before it's my turn to act. It hard to observe everyone but I like to watch their hand action right after the flip the corner of the card. If they move their hand quickly to their chips right away it generally means they want to bet. It their hands remain motionless likely no. Not the best tell but it does work most of the time and it's helpful to know. The only time when I have look late at my cards is at the SB or BB or straddle. Was playing double straddle and I was UTG single straddle didnt look at my cards. 5 players limp in when it was my turn I squeeze without looking at my cards and picked up the pot Afterward I looked my hole cards and they were Q4 o. Definitely something I would not have tried if I looked at my cards first
 
JusSumguy

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I like to watch their hand action right after the flip the corner of the card. If they move their hand quickly to their chips right away it generally means they want to bet. It their hands remain motionless likely no. Not the best tell

It's a very good tell.

If a player immediately looks at their chips after seeing their cards, you might wanna muck... unless you're made, of course. ;)


:icon_salu
 
ONaRoll

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I never look at my cards right away but don't wait til its my turn to act either ,somewhere in between works for me
 
Leo 50

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I always wait till it's my turn to look, that way I've seen what has happened before I act and I try to keep an eye on anyone behind me as well.
Once I look I try to take the same time, each time, no matter what I have.

Then I take a small page out of Ferguson's book and wait to act even if I am going to fold. (just a few seconds)

Keeps everyone guessing

:cool:
 
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It's funny to watch how some players do something so different from their usual motion after the flop hits. Especially with AAx flops with multiple players postflop. One guy UTG turn his head full circle to look at every players stacks then proceed to check. Pretty obvious
Another table ,same flop another player UTG does this unusual exaggerated check I never seen him do earlier. He was checking liike he was trying to make hamburger patties with his hand. of course both was holding Ax with made FH
 
Kenzie 96

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this is what slows the game down...
if you know exactly what you plan to do with every hand in every situation then fine ...focus on others and wait
but if not you risk making a hasty decision or giving away your hand anyway



Most who play slowly are multi-tabling or are doing it to hopefully piss other players off, like those who show needlessly or rabbit.
 
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