Quote:
Originally Posted by apokerplayer
Curious to get people's thoughts on this.
When a player first looks at his hole cards, and stares for a couple seconds at the cards, does this behavior:
a) Make a strong hand more likely?
b) Make a weak hand more likely?
c) Not mean much
Like to hear all thoughts and opinions and any personal experiences you've had with the behavior.
In the following instructive youtube video of
Daniel Negreanu plays heads up poker with Todd Brunson, at the 11:40 mark, DN makes an easy read of TB's hand, because TB peels a look at his hand one card at a time.
If you understand about hand values in HU play, reading the 1st card looked at (longer look) as a King and the second card looked as a 2,3 or 4 (shorter look) is easily understood. DN then announces his read as K3 and gets the needed feedback that this is the correct guess.
The only problem, like many of DN's reads is that it was made at a moment when it was not all that useful. He is also informing TB that his behavior makes him readable and that he should stop his slow one card at a time BS.
It only takes a quick glance to read your cards. It should go without saying that this should be a consistent behavior irrespective of the strength of the cards.
As for a lingering look at both cards, I think it means some type of ambivalence and it is indicative of a moderate hand or a hand considering a bluff.
I've thrown away hands when I suddenly became aware that I stared at my hand too long for it to be bluff worthy i.e. I realized I've drawn too much attention and I considered that attention unfavorable. I could be wrong about that though, since my reaction is simply a case of bluffers liking attention and evidently me being no exception.
A really strong hand does not need to think that long. OTOH, this is a frequent reverse tell. Players will take longer looking at their cards and making a decision even when the decision is an easy one.
So what a lingering look at ones hand means will, as usual, be player dependent. With weak players, the tendency is for a longer look being moderate to weak I believe.
Where the player peels the cards one at a time is a special case of the long look, though after both cards have been looked at, it does become similar I believe. I think the distinction is important and relevant, which is why I point it out. Besides that, the DN vs TB clip of that particular hand is simply just plain fun to watch