I met Will Kassouf at the WPT Nottingham and had a chance to get his thoughts on a hand that troubled me whilst watching the WSOP coverage. He faced an all in and a call and with King  Five and no pair or draw and tanked. When challenged he told the table he had a decision to make as he had top pair, before eventually folding. I told Will that I had defended him to my German poker friends but found that hand was impossible to defend  him on. He still maintained that timing tells were important even when folding, but I was left unconvinced. He did say something interesting that he seriously considered folding the Kings as he liked Shaun Deeb’s mantra that you have to make one big fold per tournament. I like Doug Polk’s analysis as always,

I played with an annoyingly slow player on day one and was pleased to find that the turbo event in the morning of day 2, gave you 20 seconds to act  or your hand was dead. If you needed more time you had one time bank chip which afforded you an extra minute.

This chip led to two interesting hands, the first was on the table next to me where on the river a player with a pair of deuces hit a deuce for a full house and shoved all in over a river bet. “I think I’m going to call…” his opponent said before throwing his time bank chip on to the felt . This was mistaken as a call and the full house player exposed his hand, only to find that he had thrown the time bank chip in. The time bank player realising he was beat folded amidst much commotion.

We discussed it on our table only for an hour later the same event to happen. The player on my left when checked to on the river bet half pot for 17K and once again the time bank chip went in only for him to show his turned flush before realising his error. His opponent folded having got the maximum value from this time-bank chip.

I believe getting your opponent to talk can get you information, I remember Antonio Esfandiari  getting Daniel Negreanu to betray his hand in a table talk master class.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlxAQVTnwE0

I do believe Will’s speech play may betray him, this is an interesting article reviewing his speech play at the WSOP.