Looking at Your Cards After Making the Flush

I normally wouldn't share something as awesome and as useful as my super secret flush trick, but just the other day at Sam's Town, some guy used it against me. It was the first time I'd ever seen anybody doing it back at me, and I've been doing it for years. For the record, he had me fooled. So it seems like the cat is out of the bag and others are doing the trick, so I don't mind sharing it.

It's simple. When you make the flush on the turn, quickly peek at your cards. It's a quick and easy way to make the guy with top pair believe that you're still on the draw. Don't do it in an obvious way (which in hindsight is what the guy at Sam's Town did). He made a whole production out of picking up his cards and studying them after the third diamond came out. Instead, you have to do it really quickly and quietly. Remind yourself beforehand that if the turn is a diamond, you will immediately and quickly peek at your cards. If your opponent is on the ball, he will see it, and it will look more convincing that you did it quickly.

Some caveats. You can't do this at your Thursday night home game against the same group, week after week. If you do, they won't be fooled for long. They might even start doing it to you. And you can't do this at the higher limits either, where any peek back at one's cards is considered amateurish, and is rarely seen. No, this only works in an anonymous low limit environment where you are an unknown player, and everybody looks back at their cards all the time.

It's a surprisingly versatile trick too. It can work wonders even if you have been the aggressor the whole way and now want to project a little weakness. The best and most effective false tell you can send is one that convinces the opponent that you are weak. That's the tell he wants to see. That's the tell that makes him feel all tingly inside. He wants to be fooled by it.

Generally you should be able to milk 3 big bets out of your opponent after fooling him in this manner. You can either raise the river when a blank comes out and get two bets out of him there. Or you can check-raise the turn and get one bet out him on the river. There are even 2 scenarios that I know of where you can get 4 big bets from the opponent after doing the trick.

Scenario 1: Check-raise the turn. Hopefully, after your false tell, your savvy opponent will conclude you are semibluffing. Then, when a fourth diamond fails to come on the river, check the river in disappointment and raise again when the opponent bets.

Scenario 2: Check-call the turn. Then, when the fourth diamond fails to appear on the river, make a big show of deciding what to do. Finally, decide to bet and give your opponent the staredown. Hopefully he will see this a desperation bluff of someone who had no business even calling to the river, and he'll raise you. Now you can put in the third bet and get paid off. The only trouble with this is, sometimes that fourth diamond really will come on the river, and now your opponent is convinced you made a runner-runner flush and he won't pay any more than a single bet.

All of this chicanery saves you from the least appealing outcome when you make the flush on the turn. The least appealing outcome is that you bet out in triumph and everyone else makes a wise fold. When the scare card hits and you are the one who made the hand, you need to learn ways to massage the opposition and convince them that everything's all right and that they still have the lead. The super secret flush trick is one of the best ways of doing this.

Note: there is one other occasion when I use the “fake peek” as a false tell. This is a super rare occurrence, but the two or three times I've done it it's worked like magic. This is when you have an overpair to the flop, and there's a two-flush on the board. Now, if the turn card gives you your set AND completes the flush, give your hand a peek. Again, it has to be quick and subtle. Pocket aces is especially good to try this with. Think about it: you turn a set of aces, and your opponent sees you checking for the flush. Now you've got his brain completely scrambled. If you river a full house and your opponent has a smaller one – hoo boy will you win a lot of bets.

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog: Poker Advice of Dubious Value. My name is Rowsdower, and I am a ten year veteran of the felt. I have played the lowest limit hold'em games I could find in Las Vegas and Southern California. I have played 1-2 at the Commerce. 2-4 at Mandalay Bay. 3-6 at Circus Circus. And when I am bold, 4-8 at Bellagio. Limit poker only. I sometimes win, usually lose. There are probably no Las Vegas poker rooms I have not visited. I try not to stay at any one place too long, because I don't want to get known.

I felt this blog was needed because the advice I see on television and in poker books is often so at odds with the kind of decisions and players you encounter in the trenches of low limit hold'em. When you play with beginners, with the drunk and with the confused elderly, people with multiple bandaids on their faces, people with questionable hygene, people with a permament unlit cigarette in their mouth, and people who bitch and moan over who gets the next seat change button - well, you're not dealing with rocket scientists.

Here I want to present real world advice on how to beat these people, gleaned from years in these kinds of games, and wholly unmoored from the typical poker strategy you normally read about. Most casual poker players will play mainly in these types of games, so why not be armed with the best information possible? Hopefully if you play in these kinds of games you will find something of value here.