Can you spot the liar?

The New York Times asked that question — recognizing right out the gate this is supposed to be a poker skill — and presented an interactive exercise featuring video clips of people answering seemingly innocuous questions, to see, essentially, if you can spot a simple bluff.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/03/21/science/can-you-spot-the-liar.html

(Apparently the body-language-reading techniques being taught at the TSA aren’t quite preparing their security agents for the WSOP.)

Booyah, I got 9/10 … so don’t even think about it. Phil Hellmuth can read souls, pshaw!

The one I missed was where the girl talks about boys playing a game in the library where they tried to scream the word “penis” as loud as they could. And I suppose my answer was biased as I had actually won that game several times in 9th grade.

Dragging Pots: The 4/8 limit Omaha at Boulder Station is a throwback to days when smoke-filled poker rooms were standard.

Open the locomotive-handled doors, weave through the slot machines between the bingo hall and Burger King, and step into the past.

The poker room at Boulder Station, an off-strip casino opened in 1994, is one of only two poker rooms in Las Vegas that allow smoking at the tables. (The 3-table Arizona Charlie’s on Decatur being the other.) With 11-tables and a reputation for action, the Boulder room remains popular among a certain, darker-lunged crowd.

And it’s one of the few places — smoking or non — that offers consistent small stakes limit Omaha it’s the all day solution for stress.

But what are places like this still doing around?

“It’s just tradition,” Steve Deuel, the poker room manager, told me. “It’s been that way for 18 years.”

Only about 5 miles from the Strip but seemingly in another era, the train-station-themed casino sits between a Motel 6 and an apartment complex facing the I-515. It’s on the east side of town and the  north end of a row of a widely spaced casinos along the diagonal Boulder Highway.

“Play the 4/8 Omaha high over there,” Andrew Neeme said in a text message. “I’ve never seen bigger pots, physically, than in that game.”

Giddyup.

I wondered what kind of splashy tourist might find this place, and I’m still wondering. As a local who rarely grinds off-strip casinos, I felt a little out of place in what is something like the Cheers of poker rooms. Couldn’t spot an out-of-towner in the place, let alone someone under 30.

By 5pm, they were starting a  third 4/8 Omaha table, and I hopped in the 6 seat. The action picked up quickly, especially for a Monday. Along with Omaha, there were 4/8 and 2/4 limit hold’em games and a quickly growing interest list for 1/2 no-limit.

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This one goes to 11: Rob Gusman and Danny Egelhoff knew there had to be a better way to watch poker — all they needed was a high-resolution camera with 11 lenses digitally stitched together.

When Danny Egelhoff was a “multimedia producer” for CardPlayer in 2007, he quickly realized, “we needed a way to make watching poker more interesting. Events were edited down to boring bare essentials, and viewers were force-fed what they had to watch.”

Fast-forward to the 2010 WSOP … Egelhoff, 31, and his partner, Rob Gusman, 34, are founders of All 360 Media, an upstart video company launching what some are saying could be the most significant technological advancement in poker since the hole-card cam.

For the past six weeks, these friends of 10+ years have camped out in a makeshift bunker across the hall from the Amazon room. In addition to powerful computers, video equipment and an all-in-one printer/copier/fax, there’s an air mattress, mini-fridge, and 4-cup coffee-maker — all of which have played a role in bringing their vision to fruition. This is Egelhoff’s fifth Series, Gusman’s first. Taped to the wall by one of their monitors is a letter from the Nevada Gaming Control Board, approving All 360 Media to record limited casino action with these strange cameras the GCB had never before seen.

The device looks something like a studio boom-mike outfitted with a Magic 8-ball at its end. It’s actually a special camera (they have two of them) with 11 different lenses all pointing in different directions, packed into a small black orb, and digitally stitched together to provide a seamless view of an entire poker area. The set-up is so new it doesn’t yet have a name. But it uses the same basic technology that Google Earth deployed to map out the planet … upgraded and customized for watching poker.

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Joe Cada is no longer a 21-year-old — he turned 22 last week … and spent the weekend on the sidelines of the Michigan-Ohio State game (Wolverines < Buckeyes) after this recent (to me) appearance on ESPN's First Take. He breaks down his backer deal (again) ... and also says, as might be expected from a young online pro, that he doesn't put much stock in physical tells. Gotta wonder though what Joe Navarro might say about his comfort level when discussing the age when he got his start.

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This hedline could refer to thousands of players, of course, but I’m talkin’ bout Pokerati’s own Donkey … who busted out on the near last hand. He re-raised with a broadway open-ender, got called with a flush draw, and a club on the turn did him in. Nice go, though Donk!

By the way, he apparently drove Beth Shak nuts — his K-J suckout against hre A-J really set her off. By the way, fyi Donkey, she gave me some of your tells. You apparently blink your eyes a lot when the flop hits you … and you stack your chips individually when you are about to make a move. Just sayin’ …

Bluffing hasn’t gone well for me lately … just curious if anyone would believe me if I told them I lost a big shirts vs. skins prop bet to Pauly:

THACKERVILLE, Okla.–Damnit, where’s my head? I guess I went on tilt when I folded away a $700 pot. I had K-J (with a jack as the top card on a no-straight, no-flush board) and folded to an all-in from Mr. iPod Hoodie Happy Feet. He showed me Q-J.

Tight is wrong! That or I shoulda thought longer to keep him on the hand I put him on on the flop.

Two questionable all-ins later (one of which fell victim to a three outer) I find myself down about $500 and some change. Have already put a call in to Goldfarb to talk me through this mini-meltdown.

One of the criticisms observations about young-punk online phenoms when they play live tourneys is that they don’t know how to compose themselves when not in front of a computer. Like they struggle when it comes to controlling their physical bodies. Of course plenty don’t really give a shit, either.

Check out this fun video of Hevad Khan gettin’ jiggy with, er, something:

Thanks, Shuttergypsy, for the link!

ALT HED: Automated Tell Machines?

THACKERVILLE, Okla.–North Texas player Abteen Vaziri just said now that I know his name I can delete it. He is out. He wins $2,500 for finishing in 55th place. Much of Abteen’s recent success has come from study of Joe Navarro’s book on tells. But he misread a pulsing neck vain for weakness when in reality it was pocket queens.

Sorry dude.

Looks like it’s up to Josh, Troy, and/or TJ to do the Dallas gamers (whose names Pokerati knows) proud.

UPDATE: Troy “Darling” Phillips is out. He got pocket jacks on the button and raised. The ever-aggressive big blind pushed all-in … Troy called … and would learn the sad news that he was up against aces. Ouch!

50th place. $3,000. Still, nice job by the Batfaces favorite sugar daddy curly haired representative. It’s only a matter of time before he runs out of money makes another final table.

UPDATE: Josh Evans also appears to be out. Turned away for a second and his table was gone … and he couldn’t be found elsewhere in the field.

Interestingly enough, while Kido Pham and Greg Raymer were brought out here (and presumably bought in) by WinStar … TJ Cloutier simply showed up on his own and plunked down $1,100. Definitely not a charity event for him. And to think, they don’t even have craps in Oklahoma. Can we say positive EV?

With 45 players left and blinds at 4k/8k+500, Cloutier has about 165,000 chips. Average stack is 111,000.

UPDATE: Just learned that Cloutier was bought into this event by a heretofore unnamed military-ish backer in Dallas … who has 50 percent of the poker hall-of-famer.

If you’re one of the few men that has difficulty reading women poker players then this video should help explain their verbal tells. As with any game…you need to figure out which ladies like to keep it real (ex. the word nothing means…nothing) and which ladies fall into the category below.

Warning to ladies…you may find this offensive. Watch at your own risk.

If this creates more confusion then feel free to ask questions.

LAS VEGAS–Kinda interesting … I don’t know where this video shot from the rails came from … either I pressed a wrong button on my iPhone (in theory) or an anonymous person emailed it into me/YouTube or it was magic. But still, couldn’t wait for ESPN to get and produce the same, er, footage — though they are absolutely welcome to it if they would like.

Anyhow, legal disclaimers aside … Watch a couple of small stacks well into the money but needing to make moves (including Josh Evans, right, shortly before he goes out) with about 80 players left. I wonder how Joe Navarro would interpret this intense, athletic under-the-table action.

Number 2,

Great minds truly do think alike.

Number 1

Do you ever have times when you are 100 percent sure of something that you shouldn’t possibly know? I had two instances like this in Reno.

For the first few hours of the tournament my radar was working extremely well. This particular hand I was not involved in; however, I made a ridiculous read that was right on the money. Player A made a 3x raise in 4th position. Player B and C, the small and big blinds both called. The flop was Q, 8, 3 rainbow. Check, check check. The turn was a Q. B-checked, C-checked, A-bet 1/3 of the pot, B-folded and C-called. The river was a blank. C-checked and player A bet 1/3rd of the pot, Player B called, and before A turned up his cards, I said, “Quads, no doubt”. Everyone else at the table looked stunned. Sure it was one of the possible hands that he had, but I was 100 percent sure. I wish I knew why.

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The WSOP Academy has announced its first all ladies camp, to be held June 8-9 at Caesars Palace. Instructing the camp will be Joe Navarro – FBI agent turned poker tell expert, Alex Outhred (four final tables last year) and Annie Duke (WSOP Jedi Knight). The ladies will finish with a tournament awarding the top ten winners a seat into the WSOP ladies event.

Look for the pink banners with Annie’s new sexy photos like the one here.