Poker Strategy If All Else Fails, Count on your Fingers

I watched this particularly strategic bluff pulled off in person by Rebecca Rosales, a pretty great up and comer in the poker world, Rebecca plays poker at home tournaments, as well as underground poker rooms and casinos in Oregon when she’s not pulling off bluff’s like this one at the tables in Vegas.

Rebecca was fairly new to the poker room at Ti, and had asked a couple of the questions that will get ya mistook for a beginner at any poker table. Chip denomination values, game levels offered, etc. As Rebecca will demonstrate in this bit of poker strategy, being a newbie is not always a bad thing.

We sat there at this mid level limit poker table with another semi pro poker player friend of mine, a Rock. My Rock friend never plays less than an AJ and up range, he plays strong strong hands and he’s hard as... a rock... to get off of a hand.

Rebecca having been mistook for an ‘altogether n0ob’ was getting plenty of action, which could pay off in dividends as a loose aggressive player. Rebecca see’s a lot of flops; she digs in deep when she hits, and she lays anything else right back down. I’d say an 87 suited is one of her favorite starting hands.

So, Rebecca is getting plenty of action, she’s open ended, she has a flush draw, there are straight cards on the board, and she’s betting. She’s in trouble though, and she doesn’t know it, she’s betting right into Steve the rock.

Maybe she did know it after all, and was adding value to the pot. The river card came, a total brick. Rebecca counted on her fingers  “five”, she mumbled under her breath lightly touching her thumb, “six” she said as she tapped her pointing finger, “seven”, she whispered, “eight” to the ring finger now,” nine” she said happily as she tapped her pinky finger.

Rebecca looked up at the dealer and she ever so sweetly asked how much she could raise. Then and there at the Treasure Island Casino all three of her opponents mucked their hands and she took down the pot without actually making a bet.

Knowing the two players very well I was later privy to this inside information, Rebecca had a busted straight draw, and a busted flush draw, and a busted pair draw to boot. Our Rock mucked the bullets.

See, you really are never too old to count on your fingers.