The Face of a Winner

There’s a guy I play poker with who likes to point out people’s physical tells. But, he doesn’t do it at the table. At the table, he’ll tell you that later, in private, he’ll tell you, so he doesn’t give away your “secret” to anyone.

To be honest, if I picked up on someone’s physical tell, I would a) not make anyone aware of the tell (especially the guy with the tell), or b) not reveal the tell even in private. What you should do is crush the other guy when you get the opportunity to take advantage of the tell.

But, he’s a nice guy and I think he actually is trying to be helpful. We talk about cards a lot and about how to play certain hands, so this kind of goes hand in hand with that. I’m certainly not going to complain if he helps me plug holes in my game.

So, there was a hand where I made a pretty aggressive play. He folded and then told me that later he needs to show me something in the mirror.

I replied, “What? The face of a winner.”

I could end this blog entry right there, but there’s more.

I didn’t quite get the riotous reaction from the rest of the table that I was expecting from my comment. Come on! That was quite a witty comeback, don’t you think?

Anyway, I knew what he was talking about, but I wasn’t actually aware of it until he “discreetly” pointed it out. And, yes, I’m going to reveal my tell in the hopes that I can be careful enough to control it in the future.

I tend to furrow my brow when I have a tough decision to make. It’s not much of a tell, but the lack of the tell probably indicates that I have a monster hand or at least a hand that doesn’t require much thought.

So, a hand or so later, I pushed all in. I think I had JJ. It gets around to my friend and he’s deep in thought. I say, “Oh wait! Let me get my game face on.” and I furrow my brow. He cracks up, “oh…you know what I’m talking about!”

He folded.