POT THEFT! Poker is one of the few activities in modern life where stealing is entirely permissible. Stealing a juicy pot is something of an art form but it can and should be developed as part of a complete skill armoury. One of my favourite attempts at pot theft is based on quite good psychology. If the flop is giving off clear signals of a potential flush or even a straight, as in the case of King and Jack of spades and let’s say a nine of hearts, then this is an excellent opportunity for taking down the pot. If you’re at a full table clearly the psychology among all of the players is likely to be that someone somewhere is holding either two spades as their holes cards or maybe even a ten and a Queen, putting them on a strong draw to a premium hand.
YOUR STEALING STRATEGY This underlying doubt in your opponents’ minds is your signal to act. Unusually for poker strategies it is best to try this stunt from EARLY position with a healthy raise. It’s likely of course that the player to your immediate left is going to possibly sense you’re on a theft mission but he’s also going to factor in his own hunch that “someone-somewhere” at the table is going to have the keys to the flush or the straight draw, so he folds anyway. This psychology often filters round the entire table and in eight cases out of ten you’ve “stolen the pot”! There are other ways and opportunities to steal a pot but this one I’ve pulled off on a good few occasions with everyone folding without any need to confront either the turn or the river. If a similar opportunity presents itself, give it a whirl.
FLASHING THE TURN I read a question posed in one of the online chat rooms about the ability of some “live” dealers to “flash the turn” to a third party. The questioner wanted to know if this was really possible. Well, it is possible. I have seen slow-motion video of this being performed in Las Vegas and it is an amazing skill to behold. It happens so fast, like a sleight of hand trick, that even seasoned players might not spot it. An extremely gifted dealer can, having dealt all the hole cards to the table, pin-point the turn card within the pack he is holding and literally flash it into a third party’s line of sight in an instant. It requires the same hand speed as so called “peeking”, which is an easier trick to pull off, but the card selection within the pack is off the graph in talent terms. So if you’re looking for another reason to play online rather than visiting bricks and mortar card rooms, there you have it. Automatic programmed robotic dealers can’t flash anybody and they’re totally random and regularly inspected at the large branded poker sites.
