Thanksgiving weekend is one of the best weekends for poker in Las Vegas. The poker room is humming with action. I am sitting there trying to get my little share.

Very little has been written in the literature about playing against people who refuse to look at their hands. OK, it doesn’t happen often, but it does happen, at least playing live (I once heard of a player who taped his monitor so he could play blind on-line, but who knows?) Yes, sometimes people figure out how to look, see two aces, then loudly proclaim they are going to play the hand blind. Watch out for those jackals.

But in live poker, sometimes a guy looking for fun, action, or attention plays a hand, or a series of them, without looking until the turn, or river, or until raised, or whatever criteria he sets for himself.

So how should you play these guys? In general, if a guy is going to play blind at you, don’t play hands that can’t win a showdown. There is nothing sillier looking than a guy calling the flop and turn and mucking on the river to another player who has not looked. At a minimum, if you have gone that far, bluff raise the river in case he is playing a hand that simply can’t call. After all, he might have 8 high or some such.

Be aggressive; if you have something, go ahead and raise. If he looks and finds a better something, so be it. Clearly these guys want to gamble, and you pretty much ought to gamble with them. Hand from yesterday: Everyone folds to me in the SB. BB is a player who will not look at his cards. I call with 54o. He raises blind. I call. Flop is K85 rainbow. I check, he bets blind, I call. Turn is 3 putting 2 diamonds out there. I check, he bets blind, I check raise. He looks, calls, and says “Come on dealer!” River is offsuit 6. I check. He checks. My five is good (he had Q9d). He criticizes me for check-raising with just a small pair! (Isn’t poker a wonderful game?).