1st Rule Of Poker

I figured I would start off with how to spot tells. The best way and most reliable way that I have found, is to figure out your own tells. Pay attention to what you do with a big hand and on a bluff. Where do you look, what do your hands do, how is your breathing, and what are you saying? Pay particular attention to the differences between good and bad hands. Now not everything you do will be the same in other people but you will find that some people are exactly like you.

An off the topic place I have learned to find tells is from nature. If you have ever seen a good special on apes in the wild you will get a lot of good information about the natural instincts of people. Posture and eye movement has a lot to do with peoples inner emotions.

Its very important to remember is that spotting a tell on someone may save you money in only one or two hands. That’s usually about it when playing in a full game. Unless you are going to play against this person all the time. So keep this in mind, you don’t want to pay people off just to see if you have a good read on them, or their tell. That’s why its so important to pay attention to other players when you are not in the hand. I will often just stare at a player when I am not involved. Usually they don’t look at you so you can watch everything that they do with out feeling awkward. You then need to see the tell when someone else pays them off. That way you get your information for free. Its pointless work if it costs you several big bets to verify the tell and it only saves you a few big bets using the tell.

There are some books out there, the ultimate guide to poker tells and caros book of poker tells are two. I have not read either book mostly because I was already good at picking up tells when the book came out. But to be honest I have heard so many good things about Caros book of poker tells that I really should read it. The other reason is that

Usually the first step I like to take is to spot a pattern in another player. Sometimes people change their seat position, talk a lot, or take a drink. These are all things I like to look for. Now alone they usually mean nothing, but when someone always talks and then suddenly they have a hand where they are very quiet….That’s a tell. What kind of a tell will be different for everyone, but usually its an extreme, really good or really bad.

So what you are really looking for is differences in “normal” actions. You cant notice a difference if you don’t have a good idea on what their normal betting patterns are.

Now some tells are inherently confident and some are the result of no confidence or lack of concentration. An example of a confident tell would be when someone looks at you waiting for you to call and when you make eye contact with them they don’t look away. In nature that is a threat, and in poker you should be afraid. You also want to remember that some players are so confident in their game that they could have nothing but know you are going to fold. So that could also be the confidence that you see in their eyes.

An example of an unconfident tell is from playing with chips. Many players like to shuffle chips all day long. I am one of them. What you want to look for is when they mess up their shuffle when a scare card comes out. The second tell is when a person goes to grab chips out from their stack and they drop or knock over a bunch of chips. Both of these can be the result of lack of confidence and lack of concentration. They are not thinking about making the bet, but thinking about are you going to call the bet. Now it does not always mean that they are going to fold their hand to a raise, but they will think they are losing and make a crying call. Now one obvious disclaimer to this tell is for very new players. If they don’t know how to play with chips they may drop them all day. So you have to see how good they are at playing with chips when they are not in a hand to get a relative point for comparison.

Now here is a tell that could go either way. That is deep breathing or fast heart rate. Now its really tough to spot someone’s heart rate from across the table but it can be done. If you look at a person’s neck you can usually see if their jugular vein is pulsing. The breathing is much easier to spot and the information is the same. The only thing this means is that they are very nervous about something. But without past information you cant tell what. Some people get very nervous if they are on a bluff. Obviously they don’t want you to call or they will lose their money. Some people get nervous when they have a really good hand. That’s because they know they are going to put in a lot of money and could get out drawn and lose a lot of money. So as a general statement when someone is nervous preflop, on the flop or on the turn, they usually have a good hand. When someone is nervous on the river, they may be on a bluff.

Posture is very important in poker. Players should try to sit straight up in their chair for both health reasons and for poker reasons. When a player leans back in their chair its very easy to see how deep a person is breathing. Also when your shoulders are pulled in and your back is hunched over that can be a sign of weakness. You want to make sure that you look comfortable and not too stiff. Some people can give off a read by betting on each street and looking around the room after each bet. Then on the river they make their last bet and then freeze like a statue. Lots of times this is because they don’t want to do anything to make you call. Some good players do it to make you call.

Using the tell to your advantage is important. There are two uses to a poker tell. Calling someone when they are bluffing is the most common use. The other is out playing someone when they are bluffing. You may have nothing but they have a better nothing. Or they may just look so weak that you know they will fold their hand. You want to have enough confidence in your game and information that you can do either.

Forcing a tell out of someone. A method I like to do to acquire information from a player is to simply ask. I’ll say “what do you have” Make sure its not a yes or no question, you want them to have to say as many words as possible. Now I only like to do this on the river when I have to make a call. The reason for that is that it also gives him a lot of information about your hand. Now I only use it once, maybe twice a day. Its really the shock factor that gives you the best information. Once they have heard the question they can prepare an answer for the next time you ask.

Its also very important not to tell people at the table what tells you know or even that you are looking for tells. Once you do you can no longer rely on the information because other players could be giving you misinformation. In the reverse it can be very profitable if you can accomplish the art of making a tell with out looking like you are trying to make a tell. You have to be very careful with this one, because sometimes trying to make a tell can be a tell.

Its important to remember that poker is a game of acquiring information and controlling the information that others acquire. After a hand is over don’t tell people what you really had. If they ask you its usually to acquire information about you. I don’t like to say that I wont tell them. Instead I control the information by lying about what I had. In the games I play it becomes funny how extreme everyone lies about their cards, especially when they get caught. I tend to lose respect for players who are honest about what they had all the time. Mostly because they don’t understand the consequences of doing so.

If anyone has read caros book of poker tells and this post would you please let me know how the two relate. Does he seem to agree with most of what I say or not. Also if you go out and use this information I would be very happy to hear how it helps you out. So come back and post a comment.

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