Will Subscribe two situations where opponents close to said their hands and made hero confused.

Situation 1:

Opponent in this case is famous at the local club (because he plays a lot of hands without see him cards - Recreative player). Do not remember exacly the bets on flop and turn, but only the river matters.
The final board is : 45K 7 8
On the river hero checks (with KK) to the villain who decided to see him cards.
Villain look at the cards, look again to the board and bet about 80% of the pot. Hero tank about 20s, and villain says: any 6 makes a straight (or something close to that)
Hero do not have the info if villain is capable of bluffing, but I called and villain showed A6s.

Situation 2:

Another recreative opponent, and again only the river matters.
Final board is: 234 K 3
Hero has A5s.

Hero value bet river, and villain shoves. Hero looks at the villain and villain says : Be carefull kid, river paired the board.

Hero calls, and villain shows 34s.


What confuses me, is that they dont wanna say their true hand. Shouldn't this be a reverse tell that they dont have the real hand ?

Thanks for any thought!

Do they do this with other players....or just against you?

What does the underlined mean? In both examples they did announce their true hand.

Just against me

Exacly. That confuses me. I thought that they wouldn't say their true hand, i thought that they just would like to rep that hand

They didn't 'say' the hand/holding .. they made a statement about a 'poker' fact. Saying "I have ... " is not allowed, but a statement about the board is allowed HU in most places.

It is very common for players to talk about only hands they beat or have, but if this guy is 'famous' then he may be well practiced at deception. (A player talking about JJ will typically have QQ/KK)

It's possible that these player's have a read on you somehow and have figured out how to press emotions. I assume they have seen how you 'act' from previous hands and are attempting to challenge something in your personality to get you to call.

It's certainly possible that it wouldn't have mattered, but how did the betting go on the Turn in both hands? Certainly in H1 I'm pounding this Turn once the board semi-connects so I can react to his looking at the cards. H2 probably goes the same way regardless .. especially if you checked the Flop, which I'm guessing you did 'to trap'.

Pride is a bad 'emotion' at the table, and again I'm not sure that either of these hands plays out differently for me either, but take a good look at how you are seen at the table and what your opponents think you have when coming at you in such a manner. GL

Poker Tells 101 would suggest that:

If villain sees you thinking hard about a decision, and they start talking about hands, then they probably feeling strong because they became comfortable enough to start talking.

Thank you, guys

Hey Hello,

You'd think people betting strong hands would be unlikely to make "strong-hand statements", but in actuality strong-hand statements from bettors are pretty hard to interpret. For two reasons:

• Players with strong hands are sometimes so relaxed (especially if they are already assured of a big pot) that they'll say all sorts of weird things, including making both weak-hand statements and strong-hand statements.
•*Sometimes players betting strong hands may be attempting to trick you into calling because they think a lot of people have the 'weak-means-strong' and 'strong-means-weak' belief. (And you can see how this isn't that bad an attempt, at least for some players, from this post.)

The whole "weak-means strong" and "strong-means-weak" idea breaks down a bit when you are talking about strong hands. In a lot of cases, for the more exuberant behavior, strong will just means strong.

On the other hand, weak-hand statements from bettors are very valuable. You will hardly ever hear a bluffer making a big bluff make a statement that weakens his range. (It does happen, but it'll usually be either from quirky players who say a lot of weird stuff or experienced players trying to trick other experienced players.)

So long story short: when someone making a big bet makes a strong-hand statement, try to think about other factors, not just the fact that it's a strong-hand statement. Factors like:

• How relaxed/loose is his verbal behavior? How boisterous? The more loose/dynamic it is, the more likely he's actually relaxed.
•*How unusual/strange is the statement? The more unusual the statement seems, the more likely it is that he's relaxed. If a bluffer's going to make a strong-hand statement, it'll usually be fairly neutral or something that is commonly heard. Bluffers generally don't want to make you suspicious by saying something weird; they'll be more likely to say something rather ambiguous or normal-sounding.

My book Verbal Poker Tells talks about these kinds of things. A lot of the patterns in the book are variations on interpreting weak-hand and strong-hand statements.

Thanks a lot for the answer.

I'm certainly gonna buy your book zac! Thanks again