Mad Man Poker

As promised, this article will be about some tricks to train your read and instinctive reactions in a poker game.

 

Having a pristine read is more than a benefit while playing. It can sometimes mean the difference between giving up on a doubtful hand and winning on a monster call!

 

A first exercise I always advise new players to start on is “10 lies”. During the course of an entire evening, you and a friend tell each other little trivial facts. Literally one after the other, but in those facts are 10 lies. The one who can figure out the most lies in the other player’s stories is the winner of the game. I used to play this game during the year I played regularly in Ghent and people there even played this with stakes (every discovered lie is a point, every truth your opponent puts on a lie is a point and every point is worth a fixed amount of money).

This game teaches you to look for physical tells in a person and makes you analyse automatically how the pitch of a voice can change when someone is telling a lie. You’ll soon notice 3 things:

-         when someone lies, he usually is looking away from you or is very artificially looking straight at you

-         a liar usually brings up very strange details in his story. Too many details can also be a point of interest while analysing a story.

-         Only a limited amount of people is able to lie “in their own words”, look for phrases or structures your opponent would only seldom or even never use. What you are looking for here are things that you would hear on TV or read in a book, but is no part of your everyday lingo.

 

A second fun game away from practising while actually playing is “blind man’s bluff”.
You get dealt a normal Texas Hold’em hand, but in stead of looking at it and keeping it hidden from your opponents, you hold them against your forehead so everyone except you can see them.

The only way now of knowing what your hand is, is looking for tells in the other players.

What you are usually looking for are quick looks to your hand when someone else is taking some sort of an action.

For example: You see a player quickly glancing at your forehead when the strongest hand around the table (for as far as you could see) folds. Chances are that you have the best hand now.

This off course also works the other way around, is the weakest one folding, then automatically people will start looking for the new low cards. Most of these looks are a subconscious reflex and are over in a split second.

This game teaches you not only how to pick up tells from people, but also how to calculate your chances of having a better hand against any opponent.

 

The ultimate reading game however, is bluff poker. This game is not played with cards, but with 5 dice and a closed cup.

The dice go up from a 9 to an ace.

No flushes are possible, there are only 2 straights, a small one (9 to K) and a large one (10 to A).

The different combinations go:

-         ace high (check it, the lowest combination is A, Q, J, 10, 9)

-         one pair

-         two pair

-         the small straight

-         three of a kind

-         the large straight

-         full house

-         four of a kind

-         poker (five of a kind)

You can state every hand undefined (just saying “I have three of a kind”, but not stating whether these are 9’s or aces) or defined (saying “I have three of a kind queens”), where a defined hand of course always beats an undefined.

You start the game by mixing the dice in the cup, you then sneak a peak what is under it and state your hand. The player to your left then has to decide whether you’re telling the truth or bluffing.

If he doesn’t believe you, he lifts the cup for everybody to see. Were you in fact lying, then he wins the game, did you tell the truth, then you win.

If he does believe you, he may now take a peak under the cup, if he wants to, he may even take dice from under it and put them on the table. He then shuffles the dice in the cup and states a new hand. This hand has to beat the previous one.

The game continues until someone pulls up the hood or poker is reached. The winner of the last game, starts the new one.

This game teaches you how to bluff, since the game gives you no choice but to bluff, from time to time. But also teaches you how to pick out a bluff from an opponent.

 

Well, These three games should give you some fun and practice away from the green felt.

 

Until next time, take care.

 

Should you have any questions, see if you dare to call me first!

 

The Mad Man