Comment from a poker opponent's neighbor weakens opponent's hand range

Examining some "second-hand" verbal tells from a high stakes hand featuring Tom Dwan and Doug Polk

Phil Galfond recently put out a video examining some verbal tells/behaviors from some hands Tom Dwan was involved in. It’s a good watch, and it includes quite a few ideas that I talk about in my books and video series.

In this post, I’m just going to focus on one behavior from this video: the first behavior discussed, where Doug Polk’s neighbor makes a comment about Doug’s hole cards, and the meaning that can be found in that.

In my book Exploiting Poker Tells, I refer to these kinds of tells you can get from an opponent’s neighbors “second-hand tells.”

Here’s that full video of Galfond’s:

Basically, Doug Polk opens in the cut-off and shows his hand to his neighbor, Wesley, who says, “I like this one… I mean, I like everything.”

One of the most obvious things we can pull from this is that it makes the strongest hands much less likely. It makes hands like JJ-AA and AK suited significantly less likely. This is related to an instinct to avoid drawing attention to strong hands: it’s the same reason for why players will instinctually look away quickly from pocket Aces, or look away from a flop quickly when they’ve flopped a set, these kinds of things. There’s a natural tendency to “hide one’s treasure,” and this is the same instinct an opponent’s neighbor can have, because they feel the same things they’d feel if they were playing: they’ve been entrusted with a secret and must act accordingly.

But aside from the strongest hands, as Phil points out, this can make many other pairs and strong hands significantly less likely (though not as unlikely as the strongest hands become). Pocket pairs in general, or high cards like KQs, become less likely, for similar reasons, and also because they are just more “serious” hands, which require more focus and thought. The weaker a hand gets, the less meaningful this pattern will tend to be.

Players with more “fun,” speculative hands also feel less need to be thoughtful and focused, because they know it’s unlikely they’ll be going far in the hand unless they connect quite well. And they feel less pressure to be stoic/quiet because they feel their hand is more disguised.

For all these reasons, small, joking comments early on in a hand about someone’s hand, whether from a player themselves, or their neighbor, will tend to be reserved for weaker, more speculative hands. One example of this: a player facing a pre-flop raise says something like, “I love this hand…” and then calls. This will often usually be pretty weak hands, like 96s or 53s, things like this.

Here’s one example of this kind of thing from my book Verbal Poker Tells:

High Stakes Poker, high stakes NLHE cash game, S1 E6, ~24:00
An early position player limps in. 

Eli Elezra announces, “Play my rush,” and limps in, too. 

Doyle Brunson limps in behind, on the button. 

Freddy Deeb says to Elezra: “See, you already declared a bad hand by saying, ‘Play my rush.’ You gave Doyle an edge there.”

Results: Elezra has 9♦ 8♣. 

Deeb points out that Elezra’s statement is likely to be indicative of a weak or medium-strength hand. If you heard this kind of statement from most players, you could feel confident eliminating the strongest hands from their range and feel more safe raising pre-flop with weak hands. 

It’s likely Wesley knew he might have given away a little too much info with that comment, as he immediately followed up and said, “I mean, I like everything.” A last minute attempt to throw some uncertainty and balance into the mix, for Doug’s sake.

I’ll include another example of a “second-hand tell.” This is an excerpt from part of a hand history from my book Exploiting Poker Tells:

Hand #54: Smiling and showing cards to neighbor weaken range, $1-2 NLHE cash game

There are two limps and I make it $14 with A♥ J♣. I get only one caller: a player behind me who is a loose, strange player. He smiles to himself as he calls; this makes it unlikely he has a strong hand.

The flop is 7♦ 2♦ 2♠. I bet $16 into $35. 

He calls, showing his cards to his neighbor and smiling. His neighbor also looks amused. With this behavior, he’s unlikely to have a 2 here; he’d tend to be focused and thoughtful with a 2, and less likely to show his neighbor.

His neighbor’s behavior also makes it unlikely this player has a strong hand. If his neighbor saw that he had trips, for example, he would likely also be stoic and thoughtful. He’d instinctually be concerned about potentially giving away the strength of his neighbor’s hand, and that would make him more cagey and stoic. 

I think this player’s most probable hand is a weak 7 or else an underpair to the 7. A hand like 33 would easily account for the amusement of both players.

I think it’s also possible, though unlikely, that he has AK. You will sometimes see a player show AK to a neighbor in a way that implies, “This damn hand never hits for me.” 

We can see from these examples how there are dangers to showing your neighbors your cards. It can be a good thing, in the sense that it induces a more playful, fun atmosphere, but there are obviously some big risks. And if our opponent shows us their cards, we should be aware of the information we might accidentally give away.