Table Poker Flashcards
How do you control the information flow (and win the information reciprocality battle)?
By sending less and receiving more info than your opponents do.
Are there any rules that require you to speak during poker?
Nope!
What are the 3 main body parts that can give away information?
The face, hands, and mouth (speaking).
The following describes what style of poker coined by Tommy Angelo?:
On the outside, it is the classic poker face, extended to the entire body, and maintained through sixth street. On the inside, it is no complaining, no blaming, no regretting. It is stillness. It is readiness. If you wanted to go all the way with it, you could think of it as being like absolute zero, the cessation of motion. It is knowable in theory, and forever approachable, yet unattainable. Or you could just think of it as sit up and shut up. Today, when I am playing primarily for profit, I play this style of poker. I wear a baseball cap, no sunglasses, and no lettering. I rarely make eye contact. I do not speak unless spoken to, and even then, I do not react to questions or comments about poker. I have found that the less information I send, the more I focus on the game. And when I am focused on the game, I send less information. When I employ this style of poker, I fight on both fronts of the information war simultaneously.
MUM POKER
Mum poker is not about not talking. It’s about not talking about certain things, namely, poker things. Mum poker means not talking about poker plays, poker thoughts, and poker feelings, especially the recent ones. And it means not talking about poker
players, especially the present ones. Mum poker means not saying certain words and phrases when
you play. Words like ace, king, queen, spade, heart, pair, straight, gutshot, river, etc. Mum poker also means not being a dickhead. If someone asks you if you like your food, answer. If someone asks
you if you like your cards, don’t answer. That’s mum poker.
The following are tips for?:
Close your lips, but do not close your teeth. This keeps your jaw muscles unclenched and still. Put your tongue behind your upper teeth. This keeps saliva from collecting at the top of your throat and causing you to swallow. Aim your eyes forward and
down, at flop depth or shallower. This minimizes blinking. Now consciously breathe.
Constructing your poker face.
All of the following actions are tips to?
Stop talking, reading, eating, or looking around.
Sit up.
Notice that you are breathing.
Glance around the table at your opponents’ stacks. This brings your attention to the table, literally. Plus you gain essential information.
Watch the cards being dealt.
Are you one of the few, the proud, the slightly goofy? Are you willing to take on the abacus challenge? See if you can remember to move one chip from one place on your stack to another while the dealer is shuffling. It doesn’t matter from where to where. Any move’ll do. If you can do this for a few hands in a row when you are feeling good, that’s good. If you can do it for a few hands in a row when you are feeling bad, that’s really good. If you can do it for an hour, that’s super. If you can do it for a day, that’s superhuman.
In games where the house collects by the half hour and the players agree to use a “time pot,” I keep one or two well placed $1 chips on top of my stack until time is paid to remind me that the next hand is a time pot.
Take control of yourself and get set before a hand.
Which direction should you constantly be looking in order to pick up tells?
LEFT
If there are three or more players in the pot and the action is about to be on you, right is the wrong way to look. The players on your right are going to fold, check, call, bet, or raise, whether you watch them do it or not, and you will always know what they did before you act. When you look to the right, you look into the past. To see your future, look left.
Look left over and over and over to build up profiles on the preflop and postflop behavior of the opponents on your left. That way, when they send some useful information, you’ll see it, and you’ll know what it means.
There is no bad time to look at your left-hand opponents before the flop. The second-best time to look at them is as they look at their cards and just after. The best time is at the moment the action gets to you. That’s when your left-hand opponents are most likely to be revealing their intentions.
In order, which seats are the most useful seats for looking left?
cutoff, the hijack, the button, and the small blind.
From the small blind, if you look left and you see that the big blind is going to raise, this is information that could turn a correct call into a correct fold. Likewise, if you know that the big blind is going to check, a borderline fold could become a correct call.
From the button, looking left means looking at the players in the blinds. If you can detect any reliable foreshadowing in this common and volatile confrontation, it could weigh heavily into your preflop decision.
From the cutoff seat, you only need to focus on one player, the button. If you see that the button is going to fold, it means you are the button. How huge would it be to have an extra button hand now and then? That’s what you earn when you know and notice the mannerisms of the player on your left. If the player on my left routinely telegraphs his preflop intentions, I come to extra attention when I’m in the cutoff. I want to know how much he likes his hand before I decide how much I like mine.
Next is the hijack seat. From the cutoff, I start with one player behind me. From the hijack, there are two. This means that the chance that I’ll become last to act from the hijack is only about half as good as from the cutoff, unless I look left from the hijack and I see that the cutoff and/or the button are going to fold. Then the hijack becomes the cutoff or the button.
After the flop, I keep looking left. Even if I have the button, there is still stuff left to see. Let’s say it’s a threeway pot and I have the button. Joe is first to act and he checks. Moe is next to act. Who should I be looking at? Answer: Joe. And all I should be looking for is an answer to this question: “Does Joe look like someone who is about to checkraise?”
Here is another postflop look left. Playing limit hold’em, there’s three players, and I’m in the middle. We’re at the turn. My hand is AJ, and the board is A-K-9, 8. The first player bets out. What should I do? I should look left. If my left hand opponent indicates that he is going to raise, I might fold. If he indicates that he is going to call, I might raise. If he indicates that he is going to fold, I might call. If he doesn’t indicate anything, well, at least I looked.
What is the main reason that looking left from early position is less profitable?
There are too many players to look at.
Look at your _____ without hunching down.
Keep your ______ contained and don’t point them at the ceiling.
CARDS
THUMBS
The following list is how not to?
Do not impede the dealer.
Do not leave your chips in racks.
Do not block lines of sight to your cards.
Stack your chips.
What should you do if an opponent wants the same seat that you want?
Defer. Let them take it. Competition does not
require confrontation. Do not compete for a seat. Compete for the money.
*Put planning and practice into how and when your chips move from your old seat to your new one. Anticipate the situation and base your actions on not slowing down the game. For example, if you know you can’t get to your new seat in time to play the next hand in tempo, just tell the dealer to deal you out. If you use racks to move your chips, that’s fine. But the most efficient and stylish way is to slide your stack, even when it is huge. Stack sliding is an excellent skill to have for seat changing, and also for betting at no-limit. Next time you are near a roulette game, watch how they do it. Think of the bottom layer of your chips as a tray that your other chips are sitting on. What you do is slide the tray across the table. If you are changing seats and it’s a long move, slide your stack as far as you can toward your new seat, then walk around the table, reach your splayed fingers to the back and bottom of your stack, and steer your chips to harbor.
What is the most important thing about the action of folding?
The most important thing about folding is that other people don’t see your cards or thoughts.
The basic position for folding at mum poker is to keep your forearm on the rail, lest the whole appendage start talking. How do I fold thee? Let me count the ways.
Forehand spin
Backhand spin
Thumb flick
Forefinger flick
Chip flick
Lift and toss
When you fold face up, the message that is sent to the table, whether you intend it or not, and whether you realize it or not, is this: “Dear table of people. It is very important to me what you think of me. It is so important that I am willing to give you the most generous gift of information I can – I will show you my cards – just so you know that 1) my decisions were justified, and also that 2) I am unlucky. I know it will cost me money to reveal my cards and feelings to you. But that’s okay. That’s how much I
value your opinion of me.”
If you always fold face down without ever showing even one card to anyone, the message that is sent, and received, whether you intend it or not, and whether you realize it or not, is this: “I don’t care what you think about how I play. I don’t even care what I think about how I play. Oh, and by the way, I am impervious to everything.” Fussless folding fortifies.
When should you verbally announce “check” rather than tapping the table?
When neither the dealer nor the next player to act will see you check.
Here are two things to not do when you check with your hand:
Do not change speeds or balk. For example, do not lower your finger tips nearly to the table’s surface, stop, and then complete the check by touching the table.
Do not extend a hand with visible chips in it held in a betting posture, and then turn your hand over and check with your knuckles.
How to Play No-Limit with Ruthless Efficiency
Bet with your _____, not with your mouth.
HANDS
