Agitated after moving all-in ?
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 9,530
5-5-10 game has been running for about 6 hours.
Player 1, buys in for $12k over the session, and slowly loses $8k. His mood gets noticeably sour after he loses $2k in what he claims was a cooler. It's like a switch flips and he gets very grumpy.
10 minutes later he's involved in a hand to the river. The pot is $1200, he splashes an all-in $1400 bet. While opponent thinks, Player 1 stands up and paces a step or 2 around his seat. The same anxious/grumpy vibe he's had for the past 10 minutes is intensified.
After about a minute Player 1 says "Whatever just fold"
After another minute Player 1 says "Ok fine call if you want me to stick around for another half hour"
...
What do we think about the relative strength of his hand based on his post-bet behaviour ?
- More likely to be a bluff
- More likely to be medium-strength
- More likely to be high-strength?
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,044
In general, standing up after making a big bet, and talking a good amount, will both be linked with strength. Also, taunting a player like this ("whatever just fold"), is especially linked to a strong hand.
A player being agitated, though, may throw off the usual patterns. Some people act weird when they're on tilt or whatever. This player's behavior would still, in a vacuum, make me lean towards folding, but I do think some small % of the time it'll be some weird player who likes to do a bunch of counter-intuiative/weird stuff like this when he's bluffing and/or on tilt.
But the combo of all these things would definitely lean me towards a fold. If he's bluffing, so be it; now you know for later the dude's capable of all kinds of weird ****. But in my experience it'll be pretty rare to see all of these combined behaviors from a bluffer.
Hope that helps.
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 9,530
From the ~4 hours I was in session with him, he looked loose but did not normally do weird things. It was obvious the "cooler" hand shook his confidence though... the table went from casual and fun to silent & serious. Either people felt the upset vibe (like me) or they realized blood was in the water (pros).
The opponent eventually did fold. My gut told me at the time that Player 1 had a mid-strength hand, but the pros at the table disagreed and were sure he had a nut hand.
