I Can't Believe This Didn't Make the Book!

On last night's episode of High Stakes Poker, which I watched during my lunch today courtesy of the magic that is PokerTube (and by the way, this is your signal to STOP READING RIGHT NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED), Phil Hellmuth gave an entertaining lesson in table talk.

The first hand of the episode, Hellmuth opened to $2200 in early position with 7h 2h (the players had a standing prop bet that anyone who won with 7-2 would be paid $500 by every other player at the table). He was called by the small blind and by Mike Baxter in the big blind, with Jh Tc, for a total pot of $7,400.

The flop came Qc 9d 5s, missing everbody but giving Baxter an open-ended straight draw. The action checked to Hellmuth, who bet $6,000. After a fold by the small blind, Baxter called the $6,000 bet. The turn came Qc 9d 5s Th, making a pair of tens for Baxter to go along with his straight draw and, incidentally, giving him a lock hand. He checked to Hellmuth, whose bet of $17,000 put Baxter in a really tough spot.

Baxter was leaning with his elbows on the table rail, hands in front of his mouth, and grimaced at Hellmuth's bet. He looked slightly to the right, then stared down at the board, weighing his options. He rubbed his chin against the back of his hands, uncertain what to do. Hellmuth noted all of these actions and said to Baxter, "I know you have ten-jack, and I know you're calling already. I'm charging the max. *pause* The river's gonna be cheaper."

Baxter didn't look up at Hellmuth once, but continued to stare through the board for a few moments of silence. Hellmuth, perhaps trying to goad Baxter into a fold (or perhaps just being his egotistical self), then added "And I'm tough to read, because I talk with my big hands too. I *could* be bluffing..."

After a few more moments of thought, Baxter put $10,000 into the pot. Hellmuth asked "Is that a call?" Baxter replied "Yeah, I call," and added the other $7,000.

The river was no help to anyone: Qc 9d 5s Th 6d. Baxter again checked to Hellmuth. Into a $54,000 pot, Hellmuth bet $44,000. Baxter didn't instantly call, but he did eventually make the call, tabling the winner in a huge pot and prompting a classic Hellmuth blow-up.

Now, there's no way we'll ever know if Baxter would have folded his tens on the turn but for Hellmuth opening his yapper. Saying "And I'm tough to read, because I talk with my big hands too" couldn't have helped Hellmuth. A sharp player (and who's to say Baxter isn't that sharp?) may have picked up on this little linguistic slip and realized that there was an incredibly high likelihood that Hellmuth was bluffing and that a pair of tens was the best hand.

It also looked incredibly fishy for Hellmuth to bet $44,000 on the river, after calling Baxter's hand on the turn and telling Baxter that he'd make a smaller value bet on the river as long as Baxter didn't hit. At that point, the "story of the hand" completely fell apart, and all because Hellmuth couldn't keep his damn mouth shut on the turn, thinking that he would be able to bully the "Live One" into folding.

The point of this post isn't to claim that good poker players never engage in table talk. Like anything else, table talk is a stylistic choice. There are advantages and disadvantages to playing the monk or playing the mouth. The point is only to show that sometimes when you talk, you may be saying more than you think you are.