On Day 2B of last years WSOPE Daniel Negreanu was sat at the feature table that included well known bracelet winner Howard Lederer. However, it was not Howard that was causing Daniel problems, instead the young Scandinavian contingent at the table. Daniel made some excellent reads at the table, here is the fist example.

Negreanu raised to 900 in early position with pocket 5's and received a call from the big blind, Magnus Persson holding 10s 8d. The flop came Ad 6s 9s and Negreanu made a continuation after Persson checked and received a call. Persson again checked the 6c on the turn and Negreanu checked behind. On a river of Qd Persson made a bet of 4000 into a pot of 8,975. Daniel, while always studying his opponent, states the hand is ‘weird, something doesn't feel right.' While announcing he is very suspicious he takes one more look at his opponent and makes the call.

Negreanu said afterwards he made the call because he had a huge physical tell on his opponent. From watching the hand there are no obvious moves, so let's compare the hand to one where he had the nuts. Against Patrick Antonius, Persson turned the nut straight against Patrik's top pair. His stance at the table when bluffing was holding his cards with both hands, yet when he had the nuts he did not touch the cards and had one hand to his cheek. Could this of been a subconscious effort to seem more interested in his hand when bluffing and less interested when not? Mike Caro would say yes as he always warns against a player who does not seem interested in the hand.

Yet this would be too insignificant even for the best in the business to base a decision on. While Persson was waiting for Antonius to make this decision he sat back in his chair with his arms crossed. When he was bluffing he did not move and stayed up right. Relaxed with the nuts and uptight with a bluff? When he bluffed on the river, he picked up few large denomination chips and threw them into the pot. When he raised the turn and bet the river with the nuts, he slowly placed and pushed his chips into the pot. Could this have been a tell?

This still might not be enough. The last difference that can be seen is in the eyes. When bluffing, Persson stared towards the flop. He also stared towards the flop before he turned the nuts against Antonius. When he did make the nuts however, his attention moved straight to his chips and spent most his time studying and counting his remaining chip stack. When bluffing Negreanu he spent all his time looking at the flop and quickly glanced at his chips before betting.

So was it a combination of all these things that made Negreanu call? It might be easy for us to now see after studying another hand, but was Negreanu seeing all this for the first time? Either way, it becomes very obvious to see why Negreanu is regarded as one of the best hand readers in the world.