OnlinePokerNews (OPN) presents an exclusive column of poker strategies with Adda52 Team Spades pro Aditya Sushant in which he’ll share his views on several strategy questions. With over 5 years of experience at live as well as online poker games, Aditya is one of the most successful professional poker players in India. In this weekly strategy column, he will share his thoughts on a number of poker strategy topics and give a detailed insight of this game of skill.
Apart from loads of money and the excitement of winning, poker is also a game to socialize. Players on the poker table keep talking to each other during the game and they have many interesting discussion trails as well. While many end up becoming friends in such table talks, it has been a part of the game strategy too. The pros of the game use such table talks to make reads on their opponents. In the 9th chapter of “Strategy With Sushi”, Aditya Sushant speaks about the poker table talks and how to get benefited with the conversations.
Q1. How table talk has been an integral part of poker?
Sushi – It’s generally a lot of fun to be social at the tables rather than just keeping quiet and only playing poker. We meet different kinds of people on the tables making a lot of stories, experiences to be shared. Also, if you’re good at it, you can use table talk to manipulate your opponent in key situations and extract some information.
Q2. What all players talk about during the game?
Sushi – There is always a variety of topics talked about on the poker table. Generally, players talk discuss about poker, upcoming tournaments or cash games, other sports, tv shows & movie, current affairs.
Q3. How table talk comes handy in making reads?
Sushi – Daniel Negreanu is a prime example of this. He has often been able to use table talk to his advantage and make some good reads in tough situations. You can judge the comfort level of your opponent in a hand by the way they talk. However, this should be practiced cautiously because, without experience, it can backfire on you.
Q4. “Will-you-show-if-I-fold” – how to handle such questions?
Sushi – Yes! Many players will ask you such questions for tells but you may just stay quiet or answer comfortably. For this question, you may say something like “I can’t tell u right now”, if u are not interested in showing.
Q5. What etiquettes should one abide by while talking during the game?
Sushi – I think one should not talk about the hand in play. Also, you should not try and influence other player’s actions in multi-way pots. Good etiquettes make you good friends in poker in the long run.
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