Poker and the art of mind-reading

October 15, 9:42 AMDC Poker ExaminerMatt Pusateri

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Dimitri glared over at me, then down at his chips.  “One fifty,” he said, pushing out three stacks of red chips.  He leaned forward, resting his chin on his right hand, which was curled into a fist.

The poker room reeked of smoke from the noisy, clanky slot machine emporium a few yards away.  I didn’t know much about this guy: other than that he’d been sitting at the table for about an hour with a huge pile of chips, playing almost every hand.  He sounded Serbian or Russian and looked like a villain from a 1960s James Bond movie:  dark eyes, a thick neck, and a severe black crew cut. He liked to gamble, chasing draws, betting and raising recklessly. He was gutsy or fearless or stupid: probably all three.  A loose-aggressive player like this typically either wins big, or loses everything very fast.

Now everyone looked at me.  To this point, I’d played well and built up a small profit, but every chip I had was now at risk.  I had three sixes, a strong hand.  But if Dimitri was holding a seven, he had a straight, which beat me. I’d already invested a lot of chips in the hand, but I could fold now and escape with that I had left.  If I had him beat, I’d walk away with a huge pot.  But if he had chased and hit his straight, I’d be broke and end the night in disaster, beaten down by a bully. 

I peeked at my cards again, then looked over at Dimitri, watching for something, anything that might give me a clue.

* * *

Hollywood loves the “big bluff” scene.  Bluffs are about fear and intimidation; the bluffer becomes an actor, trying to portray himself as fearless and invincible, tricking his opponent to back down.   

This is where, supposedly, “tells” come in. 

In the movies, Matt Damon or Steve McQueen stare at their opponents and try to read their minds or “look into their soul.”  They notice a twitchy eyebrow, a curled lip, or a phony smile and detect the deception.  Somehow, they just sense it.  They make a heroic call, their opponent  crumbles, and the music soars.  

Professional poker players often claim to often be able to “read” their opponents, picking off tells and cashing in on bluffs. Two-time World Series of Poker champion Doyle Brunson further, wrote in Super System that he believes that many poker players possess some form of ESP, and that smart players trust it:

Some good Poker players actually employ a degree of extrasensory perception (ESP). While I've never studied the subject in depth, it seems to me there's too much evidence to ignore that ESP exists or that most people have it to some degree... You can't imagine how often I've called a player's exact hand to myself and been proven right...

In reality, and certainly for the average, amateur poker player with weak ESP powers, picking up a “tell” on an opponent isn’t quite so easy.

You can read Mike Caro or Joe Navarro’s books on tells and learn dozens of things to look for: bouncy legs, dilated pupils, eye contact, lack of eye contact, hands covering mouths, players folding their arms across their chests.  And sometimes those things tell you something.  Often not.  Some people are just twitchy.  People usually scratch their nose because it itches, not because they’re nervous. 

One of the best players at my home game is almost impossible to read and trying to watch him for a tell is useless: he’s just fidgety.  He’ll go all-in, then sit back, rubbing his forehead, scratching his ears, staring blankly with a dorky smile on his face.  Sometimes, that means he’s bluffing.  Sometimes, it means he’s got a monster hand and is thinking about what he’s going to do with your money if you call.  Trying to spot a tell or use your ESP against him is a waste of time.

And sometimes a tell is just wrong.  Years ago in Las Vegas, I got into a big hand with an older man who had just sat down at a table.  I bet, he raised, I reraised, and he reraised me back.  I had a good  hand, but he seemed very confident.  And then I noticed his right hand: shaking like crazy as it put out that fourth bet.   Most books on tells say that “shaking hands” is usually a classic tell that someone has an extremely strong hand:  most people’s hand shake when adrenaline runs through their blood because they are excited; it’s an involuntary physiological effect.  So I folded, thinking I made a savvy read.  But then, in every hand that followed, I noticed that his right hand shook.  When he reached for his orange juice, his hand shook.  When he told stories, his right hand shook.  More than that, the guy was an awful player with no clue how to play the game and quickly lost hundreds of dollars at the table.  I was a fool to throw away my hand against him: I didn’t have a tell – he was just an old man with shaky hands who sucked at poker.  Sometimes a tell isn’t a tell.

It’s good to be observant and watch your opponents closely, but a “tell” is a pretty unreliable way to make a big poker decision.  You have to consider something you notice along with a lot of other information:  how the opponent played previous hands, how much he or she bet earlier in the hand, and how likely it is that he might be holding the two cards that would beat you.  There’s a lot to think about, beyond the fact that he’s resting his chin on his fist and avoiding eye contact.  It might be a tell, or it may be nothing.  But sometimes, if you’re really on the fence when you make a decision, it can push you to one side. 

Doyle Brunson offers this bit of advice: “in the rare situations when all your card knowledge and best judgement leave you in doubt, go with your strong feeling ... and not against it.”

Seems like sound advice, at the table and away from it.

* * *

Dimitri was certainly the kind of wild player who tried to bully the table and bluffed a lot, but also the type who would gamble a lot of money with a hand like King-Seven, hoping to get lucky and hit a straight draw.

But what struck me was how quiet he seemed. 

Most of the time, Dimitri was loud, chatty, and joked with the dealer.  But right now, he sat there, frozen, like the Thinker (in a $60 fitted Jaguar t-shirt).  He didn’t look comfortable. The longer I seemed to be considering the call, the less happy he looked.  Either he was a great actor, or he was beat.

So I trusted my gut and made the call.  

When I turned over my sixes he slumped in his chair and shook his head, throwing his cards away.  A couple of the players to my right chuckled. The dealer pushed a small mountain of chips my way. 

You can’t expect to win every time trusting your intuition. Sometimes, your read will be wrong.  But every once it a while, your instincts serve you well, you spot something in an opponent that he doesn’t want you to notice.  Sometimes the movie has a happy ending.