Look at How Your Opponents Handle Their Chips

You can get some nice clues from watching how your opponents handle their chips. You can get insight about what they hold on a particular hand, and you can learn how skilled they are in general.

Can They Riffle?
The most basic and straightforward test is to see their comfort level with chips. Someone who handles them expertly – riffling them, cutting them smoothly, rolling them around the fingers and thumb, the speed with which they gather and stack a pot they've just won – this can give you a good idea of the player's experience level. Now, the best chip riffler in the world might just happen to be an awful player, but it's fair to generalize that confident chip handlers have had a lot of table experience. On the flip side, the guy who clearly is ungainly or slow at chip handling is a real novice.

Against a novice: 1) Be more inclined to take their bets seriously, and 2) be less inclined to bluff them. And against a skilled player: 1) Be less inclined to take their bets seriously and 2) be more inclined to bluff them. That's about as general as it gets, and often that advice has to be discarded if you see a novice playing like a maniac or a skilled player who doesn't play many hands.

There's also an opportunity here for a false tell. If you are skilled at chip handling, you can pretend to be clumsy and uncoordinated with chips. The goal would be that you would induce more bluffs against you (because your opponents will be following the opposite of my advice on how to play a novice) and people will take your bets and raises more seriously. Personally I don't do this a lot. First of all it's a ruse you have to keep up for the entire session. You can't let your guard down and absentmindedly riffle your chips. Secondly you won't have many friends left at the table if you're “caught” or found out as a faker, and I always recommend having a “best friend” image at the table.

I might do it once – the first time I put money in the pot – I'll make it look clumsy like I don't know how to hold chips. Let people create a first impression of you. But then abandon the charade after that.

Putting In the Wrong Amount
Next: let's talk about the people who put too little in the pot or too much. Often, novices won't be 100% clear on the structure of the game. In a 3-6 game, they may try to put in $6 on the flop, or $3 on the turn by accident. Sometimes they'll try to do something even more foolish, like trying to raise themselves after they've opened the betting and the action has gone around the table.

I treat these gaffes as very sincere tells. Someone who wants to bet $6 on the flop is strong, and someone who tries to bet $3 on the turn is weak. You'd think these would be prime opportunities for false tells – but frankly I've never seen that happen. Someone who tries to raise themselves, or put in too much money – they typically have the goods.

String Raises
There are some very interesting things to observe with string raises. The first is that a string raise is hardly ever a bluff. The second is that the person who cries out “That's a string raise!” is almost always weak. So observe those two and act accordingly.

But the great thing is, there's a wonderful false-tell opportunity here, on both sides of the equation. I have never done it personally, but I am convinced it would work beautifully. The first false-tell play would be to deliberately string raise, knowing that you will be caught and forced to withdraw the second bet. What a sneaky way that would be to get a free card. Imagine – you're on a flush draw. You deliberately string raise the flop, and all your opponents check to you on the turn. You've paid one small bet to see two additional cards. Barry Greenstein (see his book: Ace on the River) would almost certainly consider this unethical, and maybe that's why I haven't tried it.

The other false tell, which couldn't possibly be considered unethical, is to be the guy who cries “String Raise!” at a moment when you are concealing enormous strength. Wow. That would work wonders. Think of it. You flop a monster and decide to slowplay to keep as many people in the hand as you can. Some novice player attempts a string raise. You play sheriff and point out the string raise. Now, not only do you keep others in the hand, but you earn solid gold credentials as someone with a weak hand. I am waiting for a chance to do this; but like so many specific false tells and deceptive tricks, the circumstances have to be just right, and the opportunity hasn't presented itself yet.

The Quick Call
Online players know this tell very well, but if someone calls your bet very quickly, it usually signifies weakness. It's a lame attempt by the caller to impress you with his determination to call you down. Often it means the caller is on a draw and is impatient to see the next card. As with the other tells, there is a good false tell opportunity here. When I flop a monster and I want to give the other guy a sense of security, I quick-call his bets to project a little weakness.

Stacking a Raise vs. Cutting the Chips
Here's a chip handling tell that's never let me down. It concerns how players handle their chips when they raise. Generally, in low limit hold'em, a raise is less likely to be a bluff than an ordinary bet. But observe the chips. Say it's a 4-8 game and your opponent makes a raise on the turn. If he gracefully puts out a single stack of sixteen chips OR if he puts out a clean stack of 20 and then removes the top four, he is NOT bluffing. This rule is ironclad.

However, if he slowly or painstakingly cuts out 16 chips in stacks of 4, then you have to consider the possibility that you're being bluffed. The slower and more dramatic of a presentation he makes it, the more suspicious you should be.

Frankly, I don't see a lot of semi-bluff turn raises or pure bluff raises in the low limit games I play. It's probably because people realize after only a little experience that these games are showdown poker. You lose your appetite for bluff raises once you understand that someone will always call you down with top pair. Nevertheless, there will always be people who give it a shot, and the carefully cut, painfully-long raise motion is the surest givaway.

We've only scratched the surface of chip handling tells today, but hopefully these pointers will pay some dividends for you.

Betting For Information on the Flop

Here's a common situation. You limp in early position with something like 9-8 suited. Not a bad hand. In fact, it was the hand that beat John Malkovich in Rounders, so hey, it's a pretty good hand! A late position guy, a no nonsense player, raises. You and a few others call.

You see a flop of 9-7-2. Okay. Now here's the problem. Either the raiser had a non-pair hand like A-Q, in which case he will politely pay you off on every street. Or, he beats you with a hand like K-K, and you will lose a bet on every street.

So many players have no idea how to judge this, and simply bite the bullet and resign themselves to seeing a showdown, no matter how expensive. I'm here to tell you that there's a pretty safe way to determine where you're at, and make the correct action. What you need to do is bet the flop and wait to see what the raiser does. If he raises you, he has the big pair. If he calls, you're home free.

Remember, we're talking limit hold'em, for tiny stakes, against a group of anonymous players. Most novice, low limit players are not creative enough to deviate from the script. The script says they should raise with an overpair, and call with two high cards. If the raiser calls you, you may bet the turn and river for value – only perhaps checking if an ace or king comes off and you want to be cautious.

Now consider the scenario where you bet the flop and get raised. Here's what you do. You fold immediately. You need to have the discipline to fold. Don't put in a single additional dollar to chase your 5 outs, which may not even be good if they hit. There seems to be an unwritten rule that if you bet the flop and get raised, you are obligated to call. In some weird way, honor demands that you call one more small bet. But you really don't have to. Be the one guy in the universe who knows how to lay down a beat hand on the flop after testing the waters with a bet.

Most expert poker books would tell you to call the raise, or maybe even play back at the raiser. Why? Partly it's the philosophy of aggression aggression aggression. But mainly its because you don't want to get the reputation of the guy who can get scared off his hand. If you constantly bet the flop for information, get raised, and then chicken out and fold, it will only be a short time before everyone is raising your flop bets because they know your MO.

This is why I play anonymously. Every time I sit down to play, it's against 9 entirely new faces – people who don't know me from Adam. If I do see familiar faces, I know I've lingered too long in one casino. Don't stick around long enough for people to get a good idea of what you're doing. My bizarre looking plays and fake tells and Hollywood acting only work because I have a fresh audience each time. Folding on the flop after a bet is definitely a play your opponents can exploit in the long run, which is why you shouldn't give them a long run.

The Check-Bluff

Who would have thought that checking can sometimes be the most effective way to bluff? Sounds crazy but it's true. And the scenario it requires isn't really that rare.

Say you've got something like 2-2, and take a flop of Q-6-5 with 3 or 4 opponents. No matter what your position is, you may sense that no one is really enthusiastic about that flop. Maybe no one has a queen. It looks like it will be checked around. You sense a bluffing opportunity, and decide to bet. You get 2 callers.

So far, you're representing a queen, and the two players who called you are calling on the strength of a) a smaller pair that might improve, and b) the possibility that you are full of it. Both possibilities, together, justify a call in their minds. Okay, now of course we'd like to see a deuce on the turn, but what if it's a King? Now the board is Q-6-5-K.

And now here is where (regardless of position) you check. You give a free card. Friends, this is powerful, powerful confirmation to your opponents that you do indeed hold the queen. Remember that for a bluff to be effective, you have to sell the story. The story here is, “I have a queen.” You begin the story by betting the flop, and you confirm the story by being wary of the king on the turn. Checking is just the sort of action the Q-9 holder would take in this case. The Q-9 holder is scared of the King.

If you bet the turn instead, you raise the eyebrows of your opponent who has 6-7 or 9-9. He says to himself: “Why isn't this guy afraid of the King?” The opponent runs through the possibilities: “Does he have Q-K? Maybe a 6-K? But why would he have bet the flop without a queen?” It just doesn't compute. The most likely explanation is that you have nothing and are trying to buy the pot. This emboldens your opponent to see the hand through to the end, because, remember, he was basing his flop call not only on the strength of his middle pair, but on the possibility that you were bluffing. Your bet on the turn would help strengthen the possibility that you may be full of it.

So you check the turn and continue to portray yourself as the guy with the queen. Now, no matter what the river brings, you can bet with confidence, and unless the opponents have a Queen beat, they will fold. And because of how difficult it is to spike two pair, they will be folding a lot. The check on the turn persuaded them that they didn't need to play sheriff on the river. I have won many a pot this way.

There is one other benefit to the check-bluff on the turn, and it's psychological. Many players feel that when you bet on every street, your are in some way challenging their ability to have a good hand. You aren't giving them any credit for even the possibility of having decent cards. This bothers and frustrates them and invites them to call out of stubbornness. When you check the scary card on the turn, not only are you defining your hand very narrowly: “I like the queen but I don't like the king.”, but you are also deferring to your opponents in a way that will satisfy them psychologically. Once the opponent is satisfied that you have acknowledged the potential strength of his hand, he is okay with losing. He doesn't mind folding on the river because in a strange way, his honor has been satisfied.

That's just my armchair philosophy of course, but I'm convinced there's validity there. The bottom line is, sometimes you have to sell the strength of your hand by checking to the big turn card. Most bluffs are meant to convey that the bluffer has something really strong. This bluff however is meant to convey mediocrity, and it's timed with precision at a moment when you believe even a mediocre hand would scare off the competition. If an opponent does hold a monster, your surprise check on the turn will save you a bet. But if the other players have only tiny pairs, or draws, you will convince them that your queen is genuine and will win the pot on the river.

Playing Jacks in Late Position

All hold'em players know the agony and the ecstasy of pocket jacks. The fourth best starting hand in hold'em has a remarkably shaky performance record. There are so many ways to lose big with this hand. If the flop comes small, you have to bet aggressively and might be beat anyway. If the flop contains an Ace, King or Queen, it's difficult to know when to give up. Even if you flop a jack, you're likely to have a board in the heaviest drawing range, where everyone is chasing a straight or flush.

Therefore, jacks must be played quite carefully. And the beginning of that careful play is in the pre-flop. Most conventional poker experts, in my opinion, have it exactly backwards when it comes to playing jacks pre-flop. The conventional wisdom is that the later position you have, the more cause you have to raise. The earlier your position, the more wary you must be and more you should limp.

Now I can't speak for all betting structures and for all stakes, but in your typical 2-4, 3-6, or 4-8 limit hold'em game in Las Vegas, this advice needs to be turned on its head. Early position players should be eager to raise with jacks, and late position players, including the blinds, should consider a limp. Here's why. In low limit hold'em, no limper ever folds to a second bet. This is so important it should be stated again. In low limit hold'em, no limper EVER folds to a second bet. A limper may fold to a third bet, and the blinds (who aren't limpers) may fold to two bets, but in low limit hold'em in Las Vegas, NO LIMPER EVER FOLDS TO A SECOND BET.

Here's what this means. It means that if 7 people limp, and you raise on the dealer button, you will not persuade a single person to fold. Even the blinds holding garbage will smell opportunity and put the money in. And now, by ringing the dinner bell, you've got a table full of people with hands like K-9 and Q-8 and A-2 and 6-7 suited who are extra motivated to chase longshot draws. Unless you flop exactly J-2-2, you are going to be fighting a rearguard action and will be a big dog in the hand.

Now raising early with jacks produces a much different result. If you put the raise in before anyone has a chance to limp, you will get all of the riff-raff out of the hand before they have a chance to get lucky against you with A-7 offsuit. Pocket jacks plays well against few opponents who can't put you on a hand, and it plays poorly against 6 opponents who all feel they are getting proper odds to draw to anything. If you have jacks in late position and there are already limpers, then limp behind them and take a flop.

Most of the time, you will then have a good sense of how to handle the post-flop play. If the flop is all small, you can bet it, or if someone else does the betting you can raise it. But be prepared to release the hand if you get raised on the turn. If the flop contains one or more dangerous cards, you have the position necessary to make a smart fold if it gets bet to you. And if you do flop trips, then they will be very well disguised and you will be poised for maximum extraction. This is how I play jacks and I feel it is the most profitable approach in the lower limits.

I imagine that there would be a criticism here from the Sklansky crowd, who would argue that building a huge pot with jacks pre-flop is exactly what you want to do. According to Theory-Of-Poker logic, you want to put in all the money you can with the best hand and charge the maximum for all inferior hands to see the flop. I admit that my approach to the game overall is a risk-averse one. When I have jacks, I don't see them as the “best hand”. I see the jacks as an big underdog against a single, 8-headed hydra of an opponent – a super opponent who holds 8 hold'em hands and will choose the best one to showdown to me at the end. A late position raise with jacks just angers the hydra and gets it to fight harder. The early position raise lets me cut off half of the heads and convinces the remaining ones that there isn't anything here worth fighting for.

The Value of Check-and-Call

Conventional poker wisdom considers the check-and-call to be a very weak play. If you are ahead in the hand, you should be betting and raising. If you are behind, you should fold – unless you are getting the proper odds to draw. But even then, aggressive tactics like leading out and semi-bluffing are advised over the timid posture of a check-and-call. What I would like to do today is demonstrate that in a typical, low limit Las Vegas hold'em game, the check-and-call after the flop has a very valuable function.

Consider that you've limped in with K-J offsuit, and that the flop has brought the K-8-2. Ignore for now your position and the number of opponents. What should be clear from the flop is that if you are ahead, then you are comfortably ahead. No inferior hand has more than 5 outs against you. If, on the other hand, you are behind, then you are dangerously behind. You have no more than 5 outs to beat any superior holding.

This is, then, a somewhat thin situation for you. If you are ahead and you bet on all streets, you will only make money when up against a slightly inferior King, or against a novice player who will call down with any smaller pair. More likely, everyone will fold and you will win a tiny pot. If you are behind, you stand to lose quite a few bets, depending on how crafty the opponent is about concealing his strength, and how stubborn you are about calling his raises with just a K-J. This is too bad, because when we enter a pot with something like K-J, this flop of K-8-2 is just what we like to see. But on reflection, it has very little upside and a lot of downside when you approach your play with the traditional aggressive strategy.

So now consider playing this flop with the check-and-call approach. Let's consider early position against 2 or 3 opponents. In the scenario where you are behind, an opponent will bet and you will lose a bet on each street. There is usually no sure fire way to avoid losing this money, unless you have a particularly good read on the opponent. Sometimes you will be able to get away from the hand on the turn or river if you feel confident that your opponent is not creative enough to fire three barrels with anything worse than K-J. But consider that with an aggressive approach to the hand, you would have almost certainly been raised and therefore lost more. Check-and-call limits your losses.

If, conversely, you are ahead, then check-and-call can finally start to pay its real dividends. On the K-8-2 flop, when you check-in early position, you are encouraging the player with the 8 to make a play for the pot. And the later the position of the player with the 8, the bolder he will be. If this player bets the flop in late position, he will almost certainly bet the turn also (where you will pretend to be unsure and then call him again). On the river, he will consider just checking it down, but he may also feel that betting a third time is his only way to win, and then you will call a final time. You will win 2.5 big bets post-flop with the check-and-call strategy, as opposed to zero if you had done the betting. If, on the other hand, no one bets the flop and a free card comes off, you can consider betting the turn if the card is small, (thus representing an 8), or checking again if the card is a 9, 10, J or Q, (hoping that the holder of that pair will bet it), and getting paid off the same way.

What I am basically advocating here is a slowplay of top pair, something that poker books tell you never, ever to do. There's too high a risk, say the experts, that the free card you give will end up biting you in the ass. Well, I'm not so sure. Remember that if you are ahead on the K-8-2 flop, your opponents have no more than 5 outs against you. If you have three opponents and they had Q-Q, A-8, and 2-3 respectively, that is still only a total of 12 outs against you, and that is a worst case scenario. Sometimes yes, you will absolutely lose the hand after encouraging the player with A-8 to bet and letting him catch his ace, but there are two things to consider to ease the pain: 1) the times after check-and-call when YOU are behind and YOU catch the five-outer on the turn partially cancel out the times when you are ahead and your opponent catches the five-outer. Secondly and more importantly, you must keep in mind that in the long run, you win more money with check-and-call on that flop than you do with aggressive play. The pain of watching Mr. A-8 win with his turned ace shouldn't deter you from drawing out his 2.5 big bets on all the other occasions when he can't get so lucky. The results of any one hand cannot speak directly to the wisdom of pursuing that strategy in the long term.

Low limit hold'em players cling to the conventional wisdom that aggressive play wins pots. When you flop top pair with a good kicker on a board that contains no obvious draw, let the guy with second pair believe that he is ahead, and he will pay you off all the way to the showdown.