At A Poker Table Every Action Has A Reason

How many times have you seen an opponent turn up a hand and just sit there shaking your head saying something like, “How on earth could he have done that?!?!?!” Well, the answer to this conundrum isn’t that your opponent wasn’t thinking; he just wasn’t thinking along the same lines as you do.

Here is an example that always vexes me: I’ll see someone play 84 off-suit to the river, calling on a flop of AKJ, and catch running 8’s to make trips and beat my AK; and then somehow they fold on the next flop to a single bet! A true WTF moment! Really, what could he have that is worse than 84 off-suit on an AKJ flop?

Well, in my never-ending quest to understand the mind of the poker world’s biggest donkeys I’ve come to this conclusion: Yes, they are thinking, but it’s so far from any semi-decent poker player’s train of thought that it is downright perplexing. Here is what my 84 off-suit friend is actually thinking: “I know my hand sucks, but if he has a small pair I can bluff him out.” Then an 8 falls on the turn and he thinks: “Well now I have a little something, so I’ll just call.” And of course the river needs no explanation.

This is why it’s so important to have a decent read on how your opponents’ play poker; it will clue you into their thinking, which will enhance your ability to put them on a hand.

This concept doesn’t end with donkey plays though. When I say every action has a reason behind it, I mean EVERY ACTION.

If your normally ‘in rhythm’ opponent suddenly pauses, it’s for a reason -maybe he is faced with a marginal decision, or maybe he is “Hollywooding” to get a call. Whichever it is, the pause is for a reason.

When a player does something out of the ordinary for them, no matter how slight, there is a reason behind it, and the more you are tuned into their play the easier it will be for you to pick up on the meaning of the action. So, whenever you spot a tendency in an opponent’s play, like betting the same amount every time, file it away, in case they deviate from this strategy: it’s these deviations from the norm -the outliers– that will tell you not only what the norm means, but also give you a highly exploitable tell should they continue to occasionally deviate and make the same play for the same reason.

One of the most common occurrences of this is a delayed call. In these cases it’s almost always a case of a close call that could go either way: People tend to only Hollywood their folds and their big-bets. When a player tanks over a non-all-in call it’s almost assuredly a sign of a difficult decision.

So, don’t simply write-off a peculiar action as an anomaly, it’s more likely there is a reason behind the play; and if you can figure out what the reason is you will have a powerful weapon to use against this particular opponent.