e. Peekers

Spectators and players who have folded often peek at undealt cards or at hands of active players. Most peekers exhibit readable behavior patterns that give away the value of every card and every hand they look at. Those patterns are found in their—

• levels of and changes in interest toward peeked-at hands
• timing of peeks and repeeks
• reactions (after folding) to peeking at hands of ex- opponents
• eye movements and areas of interest immediately after peeking at cards to be dealt.

Players who allow others to peek at their hands encounter problems of—

• readable patterns given to opponents
• flashed cards
• upset strategy
• disturbed concentration
• more frequent, unsolicited peeking.

The good player carefully selects those whom he lets look at his hand. He lets certain players peek at his cards in order to—

• convey certain information to the peeker or to the other players
• advertise plays that encourage loose or poor playing by others
• create a more carefree and careless atmosphere
• upset certain players by not allowing them to peek
• encourage peekers to look at hands of other players.

The good player controls peeking by the following methods:

– He never peeks at cards of other players. That avoids any obligation to let other players peek at his cards. After dropping out of a hand, he concentrates on observation and planning strategy rather than wasting his time on peeking.

– He develops a consistent way of holding his cards to prevent unwanted peeking.

– When players ask to look at his cards, he refuses gently by a remark such as, “I’ll show you later.”

– Whenever possible, he buries his folded hands before anyone can look at them. He can then advantageously lie about them.

A new player, Charlie Holland, sits next to John Finn. Playing in his first big-stake game, Charlie is nervous and impressionable. John takes full advantage of this by using his peeking strategy to throw Charlie into permanent confusion:

In a hand of lowball draw, John discards a king and draws a seven low. Charlie holds a pat nine low. John has lured him into calling a large first-round bet and two raises. In the last round, Sid makes a defensive $25 bet; Charlie calls. John raises to $75 and everyone folds. John throws his cards on top of his discarded king and then pulls in the pot.

“What’d you have?” Charlie asks.

“A fat king,” John says, smiling as he picks up the cards and shows him the king.

Charlie Holland groans. With a drooping face, he stares at the large pot. “I should’ve called,” he moans as John slowly pulls in the pot while laying the larger bills on top for better viewing.

What does this have to do with peeking? Nothing yet…. The next hand is seven-card stud. Charlie drops out early to study John’s technique. He stretches his neck to peek at John’s hole cards. With an air of friendship, John Finn loops his arm around Charlie’s shoulder and shows him the hole cards—John has an ace-king diamond flush.

“We’ll kill ‘em with this ace-king diamond flush,” John says loudly.

Surprised that John announced his exact hand, Charlie looks at the cards again, then replies, “Yeah, man!”

But actually, John is not confident of his flush because he reads both Ted and Quintin for two pair, and all eight of their full-house cards are alive. He figures the odds are about 1 in 2 that one of them will catch a full house. He also knows that they fear his flush and will not bet unless they catch the full house.

Scotty Nichols, who folded early, is sitting between Quintin and Ted. With his head bobbing back and forth, he peeks at their hands as they catch new cards. Now, the last hole card is dealt. John watches Scotty: First his plump head points toward the highest hand—Ted’s queens over jacks. He peeks at Ted’s new hole card; immediately his head snaps over to check Quintin’s cards. Obviously Ted’s new card is not very interesting … he failed to catch his full house, John figures.

Now Scotty looks at Quintin’s new card. He looks again and then glances at Quintin’s up cards … then checks the hole cards once again. Scotty does not say a word, but he may as well be yelling, “Interesting! A very interesting catch for the full house!”

Adjusting his thick glasses, Scotty next looks at John’s up cards; his eyes then dart back and forth between Quintin and John while ignoring Ted’s hand.

What happens? Ted foolishly bets $25. Quintin raises $1. Scotty covers his smiling mouth with his hand. Expecting some lively action, he waits for John to get sucked into Quintin’s great trap. And across the table, Charlie Holland smiles; he waits for John to blast Quintin with a big raise. John Finn folds.

Charlie rises halfway out of his seat while making gurgling noises. “You .. you know what you dropped?” he stammers

“Yeah, a busted hand,” John says, shrugging.

“A busted hand.” Charlie bellows. His hand shoots to the table and grabs John’s folded cards. “Look, you had an ace-king diamond flush. You even announced it!”

“Oh, no! I thought it was a four flush,” John lies.

Quintin glowers at John’s flush and then shows his winning full house… Charlie sits down talking to himself.

Alert playing not only saves John money, but confuses everyone and sets up Charlie for future control.