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Server Time: 11/20/2009 9:36:52 PM PACIFIC |
 Exploring the anti-hollywood, stdioh, 1. May 2003 11:15 | ||
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| Some may call me an angleshooter for it, but I think that a Hollywood can be a valuable and morally acceptable part of a poker player's repertoir. What I mean by hollywood, for those who don't know, is acting in such a way as to indicate strength, when actually weak and trying to pull off a bluff or vice versa. Hollywood is common among bad players, but it also works well on bad players. Mike Caro wrote quite a lot in his _Book of Tells_ about the, shake-my-head-sigh-gee-my-hand-is-so-bad-I-may-as-well-bet kind of tell. The fish indicates weakness and goes ahead and bets. Likewise, there is the fish who rivered aces full and now bets and then starts watching TV - "See I don't care about the hand - I'm watching TV so I don't do anything to make you fold, like look at you." A couple of the dealers at Brantford started calling me Hollywood because I would ocasionally employ some 'fake tells', but certainly not so hamfistedly...one of them seemed to always be dealing when I pulled some crap. Were a Hollywood works nicely: First of all, Hollywooding is only something to use against poor players - they have to be good enough to be paying attention to you, but not good enough that they see through your BS. 5-10 and 10-20 players, under the right circumstances. And you can't pull it twice in a session without them catching on. Here's a typical place to Hollywood: You're holding KK and you reraise preflop and three of you see the flop. You flop top set, but there is a flush draw on board. You bet and get raised by the original preflop raiser- it gets capped with a third player dragged along. The other agressor is a big of a dumbbunny. Now the turn is an ace and you're pretty sure that he's made aces up, but is drawing to 2 outs on the river. It is now time to roll your eyes, sigh ever so slightly and look disgruntled. Now when he bets you stare him down and convince yourself to think, "Do you really have an ace? I'll challenge you," and throw in a raise. You're hoping that he'll reraise, that you can call, and that he'll bet the turn. As long as you are confident that he isn't slowplaying AA, you're just fine. This is also something to do when your AA finds a ragged flop and a third ace hits the turn. Your agressive betting looks like it is in trouble, but you're just going to hang on to the hand. Now that is all good and well, but what I wanted to focus on here was the anti-hollywood. What's that? That's what you do to the good players. It'll drive them into a tilting rage if you show your hand, quite often too, and they will be questioning their reads for a long time. Now, appologies to Mike Caro for hurting people who read your book. If you want to anti-hollywood, read Caro's Book of Tells, then do the opposite of what fish are supposed to. When I sit at the table I'm wearing a big suede cowboy hat and a hawaiian shirt and I talk and chat and be friendly and play a fair chunk of hands (I'm no maniac, but I'm loser than most winning players at the 10-20). When you see the 50-100 player who is sitting there while he waits for a bigger game, it is time to grease the anti-hollywood wheels. It'll be a big pot and the two of us will finally get to be heads up on the river and I've got nothing. My up/down straight flush draw didn't pan out and there are 20 big bets in the pot. And I'm sure that Mr. 50-100 player (who has to be a marginal loser at the 50-100 - don't try this on a sharp fellow like Roy Cooke or I'm sure he'll get the best of you) is holding onto something that he could be bluffed out of if the pot were small, but that he would never lay down to this enormous pot. Most players won't bluff here because they know it won't work. If conditions are just right I'll bluff with anti-hollywood. That is, I'll pretend I am "Mr Hooper" (one of our big regular fish), make a quick bet, and then start watching TV and try my hardest to look really bored. 50-100 guy looks back at his cards and says to himself, "Oh crap, did this idiot-hole just hit a set on the river?" He'll go into the tank and I'll know I've got him. If his cards hit the muck, I'll often expose my bluff to try to tilt him and he'll feel like a small child for not paying that wee bet. If it works 1/20 times it will pay for itself and if you are selective about using it, it'll work more than one time in 20. Just don't do it to the same guy twice. What is the anti-hollywood exploiting? Ego. It works against a player who figures that he is much better than you and that you are a losing player. He's read Caro's book and knows what it means when you shake, look at your chips, act fast, act slow, stare away, stop breathing, etc. Now he thinks he has a chance to exploit this great tell and isn't he cleaver. He decides to be advanced and save a bet by folding on this enormous pot, and probably figures you're the sort to say, "I had it," and show him the set you rivered, vindicating him. When you show him this catastrophic fold and open his nose, it is worth it in returns even if it only works 1 time out of 21 Oh, and one more quick example of the hollywood. Playing on a table with two maniacs (which is harder to do well than you might think) and I have AKo. Maniac 1 raises UTG blind and I reraise, but as it looks like an isolation bet, 5 of us see the flop (and the blind betting maniac was good enough to look at his cards, say, "aha," and cap it. "Aha," here means, "Crap - I have nothing, but I'm going to somehow try and take this pot anyway. Gimmie 2 pair baby!" When the flop came AKX, I was happy as a clam, but I didn't want somebody making a straight draw or the available flush draw. I bet and got raised by a solid player, then reraised by maniac 2. I knew that they would pound it up on their own and that the solid player had worse than AA or he would have been the capper to limit the number of players while keeping in the maniacs. Turn is my miracle K. Little sigh - little head shake - little eye rolling - nothing dramatic. The two go to town on eachother and I make what appear to be crying calls. Now on the river the solid player leads and the maniac just calls - my turn to shine - I raise and the solid player calls and the maniac, says, "I have to keep you guys honest" and he comes in too. They were both drawing dead on the river as the maniac held an ace with no kicker and the solid player held AQ with a flush draw that never came - too bad it didn't. The moral of this one is that the solid player wouldn't have gone so hard against the maniac if he thought I was holding a king, but because of my flop betting he put me on an ace and was happy to drag me along. My apparent dissatisfaction with calling and recalling afirmed that. He'd learned to recognise "oh gee crap I guess I'll bet," but hadn't graduated to see through, "oh gee crap I guess I'll call (and then call again when it gets capped)" This last situation is also a key in playing a maniacal table. Be prepared to overcall a lot and let somebody else play the maniac up when you hold a monster and they are both drawing dead. | ||
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| Re: Exploring the anti-hollywood, noiseboy, 1. May 2003 11:28 | ||
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| I've tried to do this reverse tell thing from time to time. One example is mimicking a tell that I see some people do, where they reach for their chips immediately after looking at their cards if they intend to bet. I'll do this sometimes if I have a something that I don't want to pay to draw to, and I'm in late position, if it works, sometimes I'll get a free card. In order to set up this fake tell, I will also sometimes reach for my chips when I DO intend to bet, but would prefer not to pay two bets. That way they get it in their mind, so that I can exploit it later. It sounds like you've given this a lot more thought than I have. I'll have to go back and read Caro's book again, maybe invest in an acting class! | ||
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| Re: Exploring the anti-hollywood, stdioh, 1. May 2003 11:57 | ||
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| It is difficult to do fake tells and anti-tells well. The reason is that you have tells that come off you that indicate that you are faking! With the anti-hollywood, this works to your favour because you are faking faking. Thus anything that you do which indicates dishonesty actually helps you. | ||
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| Re: Exploring the anti-hollywood, shorn, 2. May 2003 06:59 | ||
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| Another thing to do is to use the "OK, if you won't bet then I guess I'll steal" anti-tell when you are really weak. Shrug your shoulders too and cards from opponents are flying into the muck! | ||
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| Re: Exploring the anti-hollywood, stdioh, 2. May 2003 07:31 | ||
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| That reminds me of one of the guys I play with. He's a very competent player and he playes 10-20 and 20-40, but any money he makes from playing well he blows away on silly tells. He's got a "heheheh ok, i'll steal," thing and he is totally honest about it. I love having no hand at all in early position and having the flop check around and this guy doing his chuckle, "duh, I'll steal." I reraise and everybody else is out and then he says, "Ok, you got me." and mucks then and there. | ||
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| Re: Exploring the anti-hollywood, Wren, 2. May 2003 07:46 | ||
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| Snick snick....I love that guy. I wanna give him a hug. I think I will the first time I sit down at the 10-20 with him :O) | ||
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| Re: Exploring the anti-hollywood, stdioh, 2. May 2003 07:50 | ||
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| Yeah, and he's a really nice guy too. The only thing that I can't stand is that he comes off of the Pai Gow table with a handful of green chips and puts them into play and that slows things down more than you would think. | ||
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