Hello everyone, fish here. First thread.

There are weekly play money tournaments at my local bar down the street where you can win

$100 for 1st place
$50 for 2nd
$30 for 3rd

So there are a range of recreational, and serious-ish players. However, a lot of these guys do go to other states where gambling is legal to play, so these are the more serious guys. However the environment is always very friendly.

This older guy was in a 3 way pretty decent sized pot pre-flop. He started making pretty funny remarks such as "Alright lets see if I can't beat these odds". When flop came, Kh 4c 7h he goes "Agh! Not what I need". but he still decides to limp in with another guy betting small. Pretty easy tell now that its in hind sight. Turn comes a Jh and older guy says "Damnit. Not a Flush draw" In a nutshell, he slowplays, and oscars an Ah8h nut flush and ends up taking the big pot. Which I found absolutely hilarious

However, a few weeks later (same players), this younger guy more or less does the same thing preflop but says "Come on Jack! Jack!" Jack comes on the flop, and he seems to be value betting, but I didn't believe him. It sounded like another bluff preflop, but he stopped talking after the flop came. I couldn't tell if it was because he was now expected to value bet by everyone at the table, giving away that he actually had paired his J, or if he just threw out the name of a random card when he was holding something different. Turned out he was holding a J, and he took down the pot.


What do y'all have to say about these hands? These guys played pretty well. Although this is more recreational playing, I believe a lot can be learned from this. Is this something you would do? Especially the 2nd situation. Would you, or would you not believe him?

Thanks guys!

1) Typically when a player makes a statement there is usually some amount of truth to it. But since you 'generally' aren't allowed to tell the truth in poker you need to sift out which parts are true. I find that players usually state the opposite of what they want a player to do ... Your player starts his statement with "Not" and yet calls anyway (opposite). Pretty obvious he's on a draw now but maybe without a pair (truth).

The second comment again starts with "Not" but coming from the previous aggressor it very well could be concern and thus he slows down by checking. This could also be a reverse tell in reaction to the first comment.

2) When a player goes silent it typically means he wants to be less obvious and not draw attention to himself or his actions. In this case a very good indicator that he does have a Jack ... and maybe two in his hand for a set!! Less likely a set simply because a player with JJ pre-Flop probably wouldn't want to draw attention to a board containing a Jack. No matter what it's very likely he hit the board .. perhaps a set of some other card?

In your 'social' environment it may be difficult to determine tells from reverse tells, especially the verbal ones, if their is that much interaction between players. GL

Thank you! Your logic seems very straight forward. Having someone explain why is easy to understand, but hard to figure out yourself in practice. Almost like difficult college classes I really appreciate the input and will definitely help me read better in the future!

Good post by answer20 but I will say that him calling for a jack makes JJ pretty unlikely IMO. There is usually some amount of truth to calls for cards, but they will rarely be super-direct; they'll usually be quite indirect and verbally playful in some manner. And usually the player won't say it if it truthfully is talking about a very strong hand. Typically players are more cagey and don't want to kill their action if they hit a super-strong hand. This means that while he might have a J in his hand, it'll be rare for it to be JJ. (Another possibility of a playful but indirectly truthful call-for-a-card is him calling for a Jack with a hand like T-9, making a straight draw more likely.)