Marcus Bateman / Marcus Bateman / 30 July 2008 / Leave a comment

One of the big problems facing technically sound players is getting their opponents to call or fold in situations that they would not normally. One of the ways to do this is with a well timed action or comment.

This video is a great example of this type of action, from one of the worlds best poker talkers - Scotty Nguyen. By making a carefully placed comment to his opponent, he goads him into a call that, by Kevin McBride's own admission afterwards, he would not normally have made.

Before you start making comments like this to everyone in your regular game think carefully. These sorts of comments can often backfire, revealing far more about the strength of your hand, than gaining any extra bets. Compare the first video of Scotty Nguyen with this one:

Here Scotty Nguyen uses what appear to be very similar comments to encourage Humberto Brenes to fold instead of call. Here Scotty Nguyen shows his true skill as a live poker player, able to judge from the specific situation what his comments will achieve. Notice in both situations he uses a similar style of comment - talking about how they should back down and fold. Here we can see one of the key points in tyring to encourage or discourage actions through comments: consistency.

By always having one set of comments (in this case about how the player should just back down and fold), Scotty Nguyen is not actually revealing much about the strength of his hand, as players know he is capable of these comments with both a hand and a bluff. What Scotty Nguyen is really doing here is judging a player to be weak, then using comments to accentuate the edge that his initial judgement about the strength of his opponents hand gave him.
Try and work on techniques like this next time you play live. By having a certain set of comments or actions (after all, this point is just as valid to shuffling about in your chair, or hiding in your jacket like Phil 'The Unabomber' Laak) that you do when your opponents are in uncomfortable situations, you greatly add to your poker arsenal. Find what works for you, then manipulate your opponent into making a mistake...