Some years ago at the Bicycle Club Casino in Los Angeles, there was a regular named Spencer Ouren (he was very well liked). Spencer was about my age and was on his way to becoming a poker legend before his untimely death in 1992. Spencer would sit down at the $80-$160-limit Hold'em table and raise every hand in the dark to the maximum before the flop (he wouldn't even look at his hole cards!) for one round. He did this every single time he sat down in a high-limit game.
Players began to expect this seemingly suicidal move, and some of them would decide to reraise Spencer with a weaker hand than they would usually play. Others, realizing what was happening, would then call three bets with weaker hands than they would normally play. Before long, all those in the game were caught up in playing hands that they didn't normally play. Spencer would thereby open up the game every time he sat down to play in it! Imagine what would happen. Often, the game might not have even been worth playing in before Spencer sat down, because everyone was playing tight (like a mouse). Then out of nowhere, Spencer sits down and all this craziness begins!
The players at the table would be playing hands that they didn't normally play for large amounts of money preflop. Invariably, some players would lose big pots with big pocket pairs like Q-Q, K-K, or A-A. Some of these players would then "go on tilt" and begin to play outside their normal, more successful style of play. Spencer was very good at shaking up a game by giving everyone a lot of action in the first round of play.
Usually, playing this way is a losing proposition, but because everyone knew what was coming (and then began to play out of character), if Spencer could win just one pot, he stood a good chance of losing only a little bit for the whole round. After all, these were pretty huge pots for the first round of deals he sat in! If he won just two pots, then he'd win (or break even) for the round. In any case, Spencer would then settle down after his "cap it in the dark" round and play supertight for a couple of hours afterward.
Invariably, the other players would continue to give Spencer too much action, and he was very successful because of this. His unique brand of firing up the table—thus messing with the other players' heads—by giving them a ton of action for one round is something worth looking into for even the greatest players in the world today. Sometimes, it would be a pretty expensive round for Spencer, but he would calmly sit back and take his $3,500 "start-up cost" loss, knowing that everyone was now perfectly set up to be crushed for a couple of hours.
Spencer was thus a real master at "advertising" that he played weak hands. Usually, advertising costs money, but every marketing department in the world will tell you that well-placed advertising eventually pays big dividends!
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Tags: casino, high limit, pocket pairs, poker