Thus far, my posts have dealt with how and when to play a hand in an unorthodox way. Most of the time that I play a hand in a strange fashion - especially postflop - I base it on some kind of read or some idea of what I want to happen on a future street. This is, of course, heavily dependent on reading my opponents' hands, and in my last post, I wrote about an example of an extremely narrowed down hand range when given a lot of information. Today, I want to go back to basics and talk about a few of the more simple online tells.

I frequently read about and occasionally talk to B&M pros who insist that it's much harder to read someone online than live. This is true, but only for a good player. Bad to decent players - in other words, the satellite qualifiers and midstakes players who are the bread and butter of the online tournament scene - often have some very basic tells that make it extremely easy to get their money.

Because I want to go on beating tournaments for a nice profit, I won't list all of them :) However, we can certainly talk about a couple of the more well known ones:

1)The Stars 4x raise tell

For whatever reason, Stars (and to a far lesser extent, Bodog/FTP) is home to a breed of player that insists on telegraphing his hand at all stages of an MTT. When this player has a regular hand, he or she will raise the usual 3x the BB. However, when the player isn't folding - and usually, when they have a monster - they will make it 4x BB instead, in an attempt to avoid being drawn out on. In fact, through observation, I've become fairly sure that when these players don't have a monster, it's only because they overvalue their hand; such a player might raise 4x of his 20xBB stack with pocket fives and instacall an all in, since, after all, he has to be a coinflip at worst.

Given enough luck, these players routinely make it deep in the biggest Stars MTT's. I also routinely see people ignore this tell and reraise over the top of EP 4x raises with outright resteals or with hands like 99-66, AT, and KQ. I firmly believe that this is a huge mistake, and have previously folded some huge hands to a single 4x raise from guys whose PT stats are on the tight side. When someone behind me decides to reraise after all and the 4x PFR's hand is shown down, I have extremely rarely been wrong - especially since, for reasons having to do with stack sizes and pot odds, it's very rare for a thinking player to fake this tell late in an MTT.

2)The timing check/call on the flop tell

The 4x raise tell is very well known in MTT's and tends to be a staple in AIM conversations between pros playing at Stars ("lol, this guy's raising 4x again. Thanks for making sure I don't double you up, I kinda liked my hand before this.") This next tell, however, is not as well known, and many people discount it as they do all online timing tells. In my experience, this is a mistake.

The reason usually given for people discounting timing tells is that the Internet distorts them, some people are playing 8 tables and up and just happen to act late, and so on. But most of the 'bad to decent' group doesn't play 8 tables, and many of them - especially the bad LAGs whose play style forces them into this particular tell all the time - feel they have to closely observe a table to do well. In other words, they usually act quickly...except when they check/call the flop with a marginal hand.

I'll be a little more specific and give out the hand that made me think of this tell as an article topic. In level 3 of a recent tournament I played, I raised 88 UTG with around 50 BB and was called by one player, the small blind. The flop came down Q53 with two spades, the SB checked, I bet 2/3 of the pot, the SB thought for at least 15 seconds or so and finally called.

What does the SB typically have here? Once in a while, he'll have a set or AQ and be deciding whether to call or checkraise, but this is rare. He never has a straight draw or a flush draw - both of those act much quicker - and rarely has any other queen (because to a bad player, any queen is the nuts on this flop and they'll always do whatever they want to do as fast as they can with their eyes bugging out.) So, most of the time, this is a weak hand unsure of where it is, such as an underpair (but not JJ-TT - on this flop, they call faster), the occasional AK, second or third pair and so on. While I would usually be unhappy with this check/call after an SB coldcall of a UTG raise, here, I was pretty sure I was ahead.

We checked through the offsuit 7 on the turn - I often bet again here but took a calculated risk that this player would bluff on the river - and he bet half the pot into me when the river was a rainbow T. I called and was shown Ac2c for a flopped backdoor flush draw, an overcard and a gutshot.

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So far, whether you've seen these before or not, this shouldn't be anything really new - almost everyone who's put in substantial time online has to have seen similar tells come from somebody or other. Next time, however, I'll talk about how and when to use tells to set up advanced plays.

Last time, I wrote about an HSNL hand where putting your opponent on a very exact range made it mathematically possible to determine the best line. In this installment, we are going to expand on that by going back to HSNL to read this thread. Descriptively titled "fullhouse", it contains a 100/200 NL hand between Grimstarr (a well known LAG) and another good online pro, Jinksop. This particular hand has some great hand reading material leading to a very tough, but necessary decision on the river.

Let's take it street by street. Preflop, with 25K stacks, Grimstarr completes 63o and Jinksop checks. The flop comes down 7 6 3, Jinksop bets the pot (400), Grimstarr raises to 2000, and Jinksop calls. What can J have at this point? Clearly, a wide range (any seven and up), but with the aggression factor of these games, we can rule out any set or better* and any big draw (98, for example, would drool to be all in here). What does J think G has after his raise? It can really be almost anything (with Grimstarr, I doubt 86 is the bottom of his 'real hand' range, not counting all the bluffs), but let's conservatively assume something like "draw/pair + draw/decent seven or better" for this particular ugly looking limped pot board. However, J does know that G will almost never show up with a set here since G will probably be raising any small pair PF.

*This deserves an explanation. As you can see, there's some good debate in HSNL about whether people will check hands like 77-66 in the BB when the SB completes heads up. I don't have the nosebleed stakes experience to comment on this, but the combination of checking PF and then just calling the big raise on that board makes no sense. Given that people frequently 4 bet A7 in that spot, it's very very unlikely that J has a set. By the same token, we can also discount 54, although PF makes that more likely.

The turn is the T and both players check. What can J have now? The T itself (not the club) won't usually have improved him after bet/calling a big raise, but he can definitely have whiffed on a CR with a flush or a straight. Most hands that he could have bet/called with are usually going to check/something on the turn, as bet/call, bet is a comparatively rarer line and the board just got uglier. G's range, though, narrows down considerably for J; good LAGs will not check behind small flushes on boards like this, and most other 'really good' hands will also bet. The hands that will often check behind here are bluffs that have given up, one pair marginal hands that check this board because they might be good but would hate a fairly standardish semibluff CR (bottom 2 pair is pretty much in this category) and occasionally bigger hands like 76/54 that also hate a CR (although these will often bet anyway.)

The river is the 3. J leads 3000 into the 4400 pot; not counting bluffs, occasionally, he'll be in here with a big one pair (really 2 pair) hand like A7, or a T that wanted to bluff and caught. Usually, though, this is the top part of his range, because a lot of G's 'vulnerable made hand' range from the turn is autocalling when the board pairs the river. For example, J cannot fully discount AA-QQ from Grimstarr, and nobody folds those with that action.

Grimstarr raises to 8k with his bottom full house. We can instantly forget any marginal hand raising this river (I hope you see why**); it's a bluff or a straight+ (maybe a very thin raise with A3 if he raised the flop with it), much more often a flush. Keep in mind that, if G has a flush, his range is heavily weighed towards bigger flushes - 4 3 doesn't check behind on the turn very often.

**This is only the case vs. thinking opponents. If you're playing 25NL vs. a guy whose hand range by this point is any two cards, you can often go ahead and raise something like A7 for value.

Now Jinksop shoves for 25K. High stakes poker has its share of legendary hands, and a 3 bet bluff in this spot would certainly be legendary, but we can discount it down to 'just about never'. However, he knows Grimstarr's range is essentially...let's say 15% bluff, 25% "big hand < a big flush", 60% "a big flush or better" (we can play around with the percentages, but it won't make that much of a difference) - but never sevens or sixes full. It's a rare spot where villain knows not just the lower part of your range, but also the upper. He also knows that Grimstarr will never call a 3 bet with a medium flush or worse (again, this should be self explanatory), yet he shoves anyway. Therefore, J is saying he can beat a flush, and 63, much like A x, is a bluff catcher. In a very sick spot, G has a full house heads up in high stakes NL and should fold it.

In the actual hand, Grimstarr timed down, called and was shown 73 for the slightly bigger boat. In my opinion, in addition to that money, he lost a few thousand almost as precious Sklansky bucks.

The bad news: I haven't seen a hand on the topic worth posting in the last couple of days. The good news: 2+2 is back up and does have something interesting. So, for part 3 of this series (although it's more like part 2.5), let's talk about this thread.

A quick summary: We're playing 10/25 NL vs. a fish who made a big raise PF. We have JT on a flop of JT3 and got bet/min-3 bet. From a superfish, this does certainly mean exactly an overpair (or possibly a set, but we don't really care - if we get stacked, that's poker.) His third raise makes it 1K and we both started the hand with 5K. Do we shove [4 betting less than AI is bad here, IMO, since it all but bludgeons "I have the nuts" into the guy's head] or call? Think about the rationales for each for a few seconds before choosing and then scroll down.

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Most of HSNL so far is picking 'call'; the ones that picked shove aren't giving a reason. That's unfortunately par for the course for HSNL these days, but to be fair, it's not really an HSNL question.

The reason for that is that there is a definite right answer to it. Of course, I don't mean that literally in this case, but all you have to do to find it is ask "How often does this guy fold an overpair to a flop 4 bet all in?" Once you know that, it gets you half the equation - namely, the $EV of shoving now. The math would take a little while to do, but at the poker table, just tell yourself "if he never folds, I own 3/4 of that guy's stack in Sklansky bucks". (I realize it's not actually 3/4. Close enough :) ) Incidentally, he will rarely fold if you take a while to make your decision - fish that raise 6x PF, then min3bet overpairs don't tend to fold to 4 bet shoves from LAGs on JT3 flops, especially live.

We determine the other half by figuring out the EV of waiting for the turn. This is the tricky part, and the part that only one person has gotten on HSNL at 10:15 PM EST. Most people realize that just calling the 3 bet minimizes variance - now you can get away when the turn is a 3 - and many will also think about the fish freezing up when an ace hits the turn and he only has kings. (By the way, since he will likely check an ace on the turn no matter what he has, you will either have to let him see 11 free river outs or lose all future value/bet half your stack while drawing dead. The same goes for a king when he has queens.) But usually, people *don't* realize how unlucky you are when a jack hits the turn - that card sometimes kills your action more than an ace - and almost nobody counts a ten as a bad card when it will often freeze the fish up, too. In reality, any Broadway is a very bad turn card for you, and *that's* why you should be pushing flops here.

But let's say you called (understandable - this decision is relatively close, and calling would probably be correct on an 873 board when you can make a full house and not lose Sklansky bucks over it. In addition, people do make weird plays live, and occasionally you just know the guy will fold to a shove but happily assume you have QJ on a good turn.) The turn is a 9 and he leads 500 bucks into the pot of 2K and change with 3100 behind. Now what?

Again, this question has a clear answer, feeding back into the earlier explanation. He still has tons of outs with everything except AA, and plenty with aces. Any card from an 8 up is likely to be a bad one for either your hand or how much money you will get in on the river, any 3 is as well, and unlike the flop, your stacks are absolutely perfect for a shove on the turn. There's really zero good reasons to minimize variance here - any variance isn't even likely to be on the fish's side.

So here's another thought about slowplaying - make sure you don't slowplay yourself into the nuts and make $0.

Since 2+2 is down today, I want to post this today to get some writing practice in, heh.

In my last post, I talked about the importance of knowing when to take an unorthodox line. When the typical decent player thing to do with a set is to raise, it's typical for a reason - it probably makes the most money against a generic opponent with a generic range in that spot. Therefore, when you call instead of raising, you should have a hunch that something is different this time; perhaps he seems weak, raising will be too obvious, he's way ahead or way behind on a scary board...it doesn't particularly matter as long as you have a good read. When it becomes important to vary your play, you should always rely on your hand reading to tell you when to do so.

In today's session, I wound up playing only one truly big pot. After a few limpers in the previously mentioned 10/20 game, I limped in the cutoff with A 8 and a $2100 stack. Six of us saw a 4 3 2 flop with 120-ish in the pot. Three people checked, an MP limper with $2700 bet half the pot, and an LP shortstack with $600 total minraised his bet. MP and I have a fairly long history in this game; I feel he's too loose and makes a lot of mistakes with deep stacks, but outplays the generic bad LAG's/calling stations and is definitely a winner. I had no history with the shortstack, but assume(d) him to be terrible.

[My flop decision is not what I want to focus on, but it's tangentially interesting enough to spend a paragraph on. This is a fairly breakeven spot - although it looks like you might have 15 outs+, you probably have around 12-13 on average at this point, maybe a little more. The times you're against something a set+ are somewhat balanced out by the times the shortstack has a smaller flush draw, but when you wind up all in with him, on average, you're probably around a 40-45% dog, and shortstacks simply don't fold enough after raising for there to be a lot of dead money. In other words, in a vacuum, you could go ahead and fold here. However, this is the perfect spot to camouflage your play with the nuts - you are never going to be that large a dog, you're up against someone with only 30 BB, and when you show the hand down, people will be forced to give you action when you have monsters. So, if you ever need to play draws aggressively, this is the type of hand where you should do it.]

Obviously, after the last paragraph, I went ahead and raised. I could've bumped the shortstack's $120 raise to 300 or so, but decided I'd rather just put him all in (the same line I'd take with 44 there) and made it exactly 600. I gave no thought to MP because, frankly, he should fold 99% of the time...except he took 10 seconds, went ahead and called. The shortstack thought forever but finally folded, and the two of us saw the Q turn. MP took ten seconds again and checked to me...

Let's pause here. This is a line that is often posted on 2+2 MSNL - someone flops a monster OOP, there is significant action behind, and every party involved knows that the OOP player has a monster whether he calls or 4 bets. The standard reply, for a number of reasons, is to go ahead and shove on the flop. Should MP have done that? I think it's probably the best line for 33 or better, but in fairness, I would likely call with my big draw regardless, and if he knew what I held, he should have called and shoved a safe turn. The second line is unorthodox, but given my hand range to make that 3 bet, it makes a certain amount of sense. What *doesn't* work is the c/c, check line that he took, because it's so painfully obvious he has a monster that my threshold for betting (remember we both have just over a PSB left on the turn) is somewhere between 33 and A5. Therefore, he gives lots of free cards to a range of (big draw, set+), a very dangerous proposition.

I obviously checked behind (after tanking a bit to make sure he wouldn't automatically put me on a draw) and fortunately got my 9 on the river. MP now thought a bit and led 700, just over half of our effective stacks. I obviously shoved with the nuts and he called after thinking a little while.

Before I say what he had, can you think of a hand that it makes sense for him to bet that amount with vs. my range on the river? The answer is 'none'. If I had a big draw, either I missed with something like 54, or made the nuts. If I had a set, perhaps I would check behind when the heart hit, but I don't think many people are capable of folding 44 to a shove in that spot/nobody folds a straight in that spot to a ~PSB AI under any circumstances, and I can't really put him on a flush myself. Furthermore, he almost has to call a shove with everything except 22 and maybe 33...so this bet doesn't work as a blocking bet, and it's not a good value bet, either. It's an example of FPS - a reluctant admission that he should probably bet, but no real idea how to maximize value or minimize loss. In fact, vs the range he expects me to have, he's probably about equally well off checking or shoving.

When the cards were turned over, MP held 6 5, for the flopped nuts with a big redraw. This must have been a very tempting hand to slowplay with, but misjudging my range and my ability to read his hand made it a very costly idea.