One of the first things I tell my new poker students is to not use card protectors,
which comes as 🎉 a shock to some of them. They vividly recall a time when the dealer
mistakenly mucked their hand, costing them 🎉 a ton of money, and a card protector would
have saved them. While it is obviously a disaster to get 🎉 your hand mucked, a card
protector is not the only solution to protecting your hand.
I have never had my cards
🎉 mucked when using the following method. Simply put your arms on both sides of your
cards (with your chips and 🎉 cards in between of your arms). It is essentially impossible
for the dealer to accidentally muck your hand without reaching 🎉 well into your space
that is clearly designated with your arms. Of course, this requires you to stay in your
🎉 seat while you have cards in front of you.
The reason I am adamantly against using card
protectors is because they 🎉 introduce one more physical element that can give off
information about the strength of your hand. I have spotted countless 🎉 tells due to
people using their card protectors in different manners based on their hand’s
strength.
The most extreme example of 🎉 this that I have ever seen took place at a final
table I was commentating on. One of the players 🎉 would put one chip on top of his hand
if it was bad, a few chips if it was decent, 🎉 and a stack of 20 chips if it was premium.
I couldn’t believe it. Eventually, one of his opponents figured 🎉 out what was going on
and picked him apart. Poker is an easy game when your opponent announces the rough
🎉 value of his hand.
A much more common example that I see on a regular basis is when the
player puts 🎉 the card protector on top of his cards with different motions based on
their hand’s strength. They may slam it 🎉 on strong hands while placing it softly on
junk, or the other way around. They may only use the card 🎉 protector for premium hands,
or only for marginal hands. They may place it on different parts of the cards. It 🎉 is
amazing how many different ways there are to put a card protector on top of cards.
As
you can see, 🎉 there are lots of ways to give off tells due to the subconscious way the
card protector is used. I 🎉 am sure many of you reading this who use card protectors are
thinking “no way I give off tells like 🎉 that”. While you may be the exception that just
so happens to use the card protector exactly the same way 🎉 every time, you almost
certainly are not. In general, you should strive to be as methodical as you can when
🎉 you are in a pot, keeping an especially close watch on any motions you make, such as
how you place 🎉 your chips in the pot (which is an unavoidable part of the game). Using a
card protector gives you one 🎉 more way to mess up. If you minimize the number of things
you can mess up, you will mess up 🎉 less often.
Thank you for taking the time to read
this blog post. If you enjoyed it, please share it with 🎉 your friends. If you want to
continue working on your poker skills, be sure to sign up for your free 🎉 7-day trial to
my interactive training site, PokerCoaching.
Be sure to check back next week for
another educational blog post. Thanks 🎉 for reading!
