Hardest players to read - and WHY

Thought this one could be interesting, for those of us who play live.

I've been working a lot on picking up tells lately, mostly practicing with poker videos. The first thing any of us should actually be working on is concealing our own tells though. So I thought it might be interesting to look at a few of the players that are particularly good at concealing their tells, and analyse how they do it so we can apply the strategies to our own play.

I'll kick off with an obvious one - Chris Ferguson.

In Read 'em and Reap, Joe Navarro claims to have found a tell on Chris Ferguson from watching him on TV. Of course, he doesn't say what it is, and after watching hours of him on different shows I'll be damned if I can work out what it is.

Ferguson employs the pretty much textbook "conceal not reveal" strategy from Navarro's book: elbows on the rail, hands clasped in front of his mouth (blocking the mouth and throat from view), not moving. Takes about the same amount of time for every decision, and bets with pretty much the same motion every single time.

The big hat and sunglasses help too I guess, but I think it's the pose and the mechanical betting actions that really make the difference - everything he does looks the same.

I suspect it's probably the easiest concealment strategy to copy too - just adopt "the pose" every time you're in a hand and adopt the same mechanical betting motions every hand.

There's gotta be more than one way to skin a cat though, so what are some of the other players you've watched on TV that you think are hard to read, and why?

I'll come back with a couple of other examples I've thought of later.

good thread,
awesome, thanks for that.
i play live twice a week in our local poker league....Aussie masters... If yo have heard of it,, i notice that your a fellow aussie.
Thanks for the great read,,, keep it up
OH and gl on the felt

I think Hoyt Corkins is pretty solid at hiding his hand. but he is also one of the best at reading his opponents hands. Many of the pro's call him nightmare. He doesn't have a bunch of wins, but he is very consistent.
HOME

In a recent wpt show I noticed that Gus Hansen does the "neck bend/tilt = tension release" when he is weak/bluffing (show when David Chiu beat him hu w a massive chip deficit).

The tell on Ferguson is a very slight lip withdrawal and a difference in his sitting position (he sits with his legs under him on the chair [like a girl] usually).

I've noticed that about Gus as well. My gawd, SO obv, you'd think he would review his videos and see what leaks he has

I notice Daniel blinks a lot when he has a hand and can get very silent. He talks more when he is semi bluffing, but i agree that ferguson is like a damn robot lol he has maybe a few tells but i havent really looked either.

Interesting points - I actually find Gus changes his table behaviour a lot, so the tells on him are only reliable for a short period of time. There was one game where he kept exhibiting the "happy feet" tell every time he had a good hand, others it was absent. Other games, the head tilting is replaced by rapid blinking when he's weak.

Hoyt is certainly harder to read than some, and I suspect he'd be much harder to read in person where you're seeing a lot less of his cards.

I actually found a major tell on him in one of the WPT Season 2 episodes (the one where it got to three-handed between him, Gus and Negreanu, funnily enough). Knowing what he was holding definitely helped, because you could say "On those six hands he's bluffing, and he did XYZ in all of them". If you were actually at the table though, only one or two of those hands got shown down, so it's harder to establish the pattern.

I think inconsistency is his problem - he changes where he holds his hands, his position in his chair, etc. That's probably OK if they're random, or designed to throw your opponents off, but in Hoyt's case it seemed those changes are often related to the strength of his hand. I haven't seen a lot of him in televised games since to judge whether the tells are still accurate or not, I'd be surprised if he hasn't picked up on them and adjusted though.

Anywho, who else do you think are the hardest players to read, and why? What can we learn from them to start concealing our own tells?

Chris Ferguson's tell?

Right after I read Navarro's book, I saw a WPT event with Barry Greenstein at the final table. He had a bad tell in that event, but I haven't spotted it since. In that game, every time he had a good hand, he kept his hands covering his cards, as if protecting them, during play. But, Chris Ferguson has to be the hardest to read.

As a poker dealer i noticed many different types of tells not only physical and concious but unconciuos ones as well.A lot of times we all work on the physical end of this game, like body english, posture,eye contact, etc....But we seem to forget about our mind always working against us.. here is what i mean by that alll to often we fall into a betting pattern and we dont even know we do it i am guilty of it myself.. i really feel that is why we get called when we want em to go away... ant this net poker thing is making todays player even more difficult to read.. so if you are at a table (on the net mostly) watch the pattern of the tighter players and you should be able to pick em apart after a few ... remeber this is only one mans opinion develop your own ability to read if mine doesnt seem to help everyone is a little different

The easy tells are found in watching the hans of the other players but you must watch them when they are not in a hand. thiscwill give you a base to judge their in hand tells.

Gold - nice link

Barry Greenstein is an interesting one, and is one of the players I was planning on discussing. May as well do it now.

Barry is an interesting one because he doesn't really seem to practice any tell-concealing behaviours - he doesn't adopt a specific concealing pose like Ferguson does, he doesn't wear glasses or concealing clothing like Hellmuth does. He's just got one of the ultimate poker faces, and he manages to look totally passive whether he's got the nuts or is on a monumental bluff.

The downside for us mere mortals is that I suspect this stems from one simple fact: Barry is Barry. Most of the televised games we see him playing are for relatively low stakes in Barry terms (the famous HSP hand where his aces get cracked by Farha's kings, for example - he doesn't bat an eyelid, and that's probably the highest we'll see him play. The WSOP $50K HORSE is less than ten big bets in his regular game). Also, he's been playing for so long that nothing much is likely to surprise him any more.

That's difficult to replicate without his specific experience, although if we were to try playing in a game much smaller than we're rolled for (a 5-10c home game when we're rolled for $5-$10 casino games, for example) we might be able to apply some of it. Question is, would it improve our win rate in that lower game to the point where it'd make up for not playing in the higher game? I doubt it.

FWIW I don't think Greenstein is totally without tells either - I dunno if I've seen the specific event Range is referring to above, but it wouldn't surprise me. I think he gives a bit away when he talks during a hand too, suddenly going quiet or changing the subject when he's got a hand / is interested in his hand (HSP has some examples of this, from memory), but often he's quiet the whole way through so it doesn't really apply.

He's definitely one of the harder players to read, I'm just not sure how much of it we could apply to our own games.

Doyle?

Not as well known as some of the other pros in this thread, Jake Minter has a style that is very tough to read.

For the most part he just sits there like he's made out of wood. He takes the same amount of time to act and uses the same betting motions.

I was watching a WPT Final Table the other night and whenever it was his turn he'd react like he was completely confused by his opponents. It was like a robot being turned on for the first time.

Whenever it was raised pre-flop he acted like he was laying down a monster.

One hand, I think Kenna James raises from the cut-off with AQ or something. Button calls with ATish and Minter does his stunned robot thing before moving in with utter shite, like 95o.

Kenna and the other guy just laughed like, "How the hell you gonna call that?".

Utterly stoic.

I d say gus hansen is the toughest pro to read because he can have anything lol.i wouldnt wanna face him @ the table

Erm... we were discussing Gus above. He actually has loads of tells, they just change from time to time.

Doyle's another one that I think falls into the Barry Greenstein category - he's got so much money and has seen it all so many times before that not much phases him.

I've actually watched a fair bit of him on HSP the past few weeks, and while he didn't make me think "Wow he's hard to read" at any point, no tells really jumped out at me either. If that's the case when we can see the hole cards, it probably stands to reason that he'd be hard to read across the table.

Thats why gus and phil ivey do so well, all the players know that they have the balls to bet big with no hand

Yeah... that. We're talking about concealing tells here though, and that's something Gus is pretty lousy at.

How about the DN approach?

I guess you get alot of practice at this while dealing Oz. Must have to work on your own poker face too...I don't think I could keep a straight face watching the bad plays and meltdowns you must see.

Occasionally I get a chance to observe this stuff, but a lot of the games I deal (especially the corporate functions) there's barely any point trying. When the people playing have little if any idea what they're doing, trying to read the strength of their hand through nonverbal tells is almost pointless:

"OK - she's bet every street, she's leaning into the table, her hand hasn't left her cards, she's smiling genuinely... gotta be a decent hand... oh. She seems to have shown down nine high."

On the Negreanu approach that Zach's brought up... definitely something to think about. I've never really thought about tell concealment per se as a big part of his game. Where I suspect he's effective though is directing the attention of his opponents elsewhere - when they're in a hand with Daniel and he's chatting away the whole time, he's giving them a dozen different things to think about. "Why did he say that, what cards could he have, does he really know what I'm holding?" Give them something else to think about, and they might not notice that you've been blinking furiously for the past minute.

Probably a risky strategy unless you're really good at it though. You could make it all go horribly wrong by giving up too much information in what you're saying and giving off nonverbal cues.

One of the other ones I thought might be easier to apply is Scott Fischman.

He probably hasn't had as much TV time as someone like Ferguson or the others we've discussed so far, but at the same time his style is pretty easy to pick up. He doesn't adopt any particular tell-concealing pose, but he does everything with pretty much the same robotic motions - checks his cards the same way, folds them same way, puts his chips in the pot the same way, doesn't talk and keeps a blank expression the entire time.

It's not failsafe, and I've seen the routine start to falter a little when he's on, say, the third barrell of a really big bluff. But for the most part he seems successful in doing everything the same way and giving up fairly little information.

Interesting to note to that definitely a conscious thing on his part too - there's a hand early in the Event 2 final table at the 2005 WSOP where David Ulliott shoves over the top of him preflop and everyone else folds. The only thing that can change in the hand is what Fischman decides to do, and the silent blank routine disappears: he starts talking, making faces and moving about, because he knows it can't affect the action.

It probably won't make you the most popular player at the table, but I think it's probably an easy style from which to borrow a few ideas.

Guess I generally do a mix of DN and Fischman (probably not as well).

I try to check my cards, put chips in the pot, say the phrase the same way, etc. all the same. I'll generally talk during most pots that don't matter and then get quiet in a big pot regardless of whether I'm bluffing or value betting (and just out of respect if I'm not in the hand). Regardless of how fast I make the decision (usually I decide relatively quickly what I'm going to do), I always take some time, pretend to think just to allow myself to think when I do need to, then do my action (I'm not talking a minute, but like 5-10 seconds). Then when someone shoves I think aloud. Had some people say it looks strange because I'll be deliberate in all my actions, quiet and controlled, and then as soon as they shove I'll be like "wtf do you have?".

Anyway, a really good live player could probably spot some tells, but luckily I don't play with good live players, or actually good players in general .

Definitely interesting thoughts about Daniel. I hadn't thought too much about deflecting attention away by talking aloud, but it makes sense. I notice from time to time that he slips and gives away information. Still, that's one tough skill to master and impressive that he's able to do this a lot of times.

Hats off to you zachvac for incorporating the Negreanu-esque style of play - I doubt I'd be able to pull off something like that!

lol like I said I do it nowhere near as good as he does, but I like to think what I have doesn't impact what I'm saying.

Also we're all friends so in general we talk and stuff while we play.

i have to go with phil laak. he has that way of just bein still as hell at times and then other times he wont shut up. but i can hardly ever get a read on him tough customer.

Nice work Zach

Good point about dropping the routine when all that's left to do is decide whether to call someone's shove too - there's really no point keeping it up, they've made their decision and no matter how much information we give away it won't change it. That's when we need to go to trying to extract information instead.

I think there's some good discussion to be had around Phil Laak's style / image management too, Ythelongface.

I'll open it with a question: exactly how effective do people think his hiding-in-the-hood routine (the one where he closes the hood all the way up and does the ties behind his head) really is?

Yeah, that's when I like to show my hand as well usually. Like honestly you don't show to see if they like it or not, since they usually either have a monster or a bluff (because you don't think with trash or monsters, usually it's with bluff-catchers trying to see if you think they're on a bluff), but you want to judge how they react to it. Usually they're surprised to see you thinking of calling with such a marginal hand. Are they thinking "oh crap he's thinking of calling with that? Crap crap crap"? Or are they thinking "wow he's thinking of calling with that, hopefully he does". Probably wouldn't even work with competent players anyway, but on top of the initial reaction you see them trying to induce a call/fold. Just remember strong means weak and weak means strong. If they stare you down they're probably on a bluff, and if they get really quiet and look down at the table they've usually got the goods.
100% effective. He's trying to make sure his face doesn't give off any tells. As long as he puts the hood up equally for bluffs and monsters, it accomplishes this goal.

Laak's a clown, the hardest tells are from players who don't care if they win or lose, ala Greenstein. I've never seen a player pushed off a pot with the winning hand as often as Ferguson,( and I really like the guy ) ala last years Aussie millions. Jennifer tittie plays the same way. The ONLY player I have no read on is Doyle, bugger pushes with the nuts or the shitz, and you can't tell which it is.

Still, not a bad skill to pick up. And if you polish it up, it could be quite the useful tool.

Interesting question. As far as giving off tells, once he zips up, it can be effective in concealing tells. But it could force Laak's opponents to think back to everything he did before going all in and methodically scrutinize the situation. So conceivably, this could force his opponents to analyze his play even more.

Instead of trying to pick up tells and figure out what hand he has, in some ways this simplifies the process of making the decision. His opponents could rather safely disregard Laak's behavior (especially since he won't be able to tell whether or not he's being observed) - this allows others to focus on figuring out his hand. This was the main drawback that I could come up with.

I found this hilarious.

I don't play live because my hands shake when I have a great hand!

I've got a few more thoughts on Phil Laak:

First, is our face the only source of tells? Zach's alluded to this in his response, and the answer is no. In fact the likes of Joe Navarro suggest the face is actually the least honest part of the body.

Second, does Phil Laak actually have any significant facial tells anyway? I haven't spent hours and hours looking for them, but again, I feel the answer is no.

Look at this week's episodes of the WSOP, for example. Laak plays the whole time without wearing his hoodie, let alone doing the hiding inside it routine. All the way through Season 2 of HSP, in which he was a big winner, the most he did was put the unzipped hood over his head - you could still see his face, and he didn't do the hiding routine.

Personally, I think he does it for two reasons. The first is that he just seems to like having a laugh at the table (and playing up for the cameras, when they're there). The second, though, is image management I think.

The hoodie shennanigans, among other things, have done a lot to build the image of "Phil Laak - wild and crazy guy". Thing is, he doesn't really play wild and crazy poker (at least, he doesn't seem to on TV) and he's a very smart guy. Referring back to the examples above, this week's WSOP episodes were full of him making tight laydowns and the in the HSP games where he won big he was one of the tightest players at the table.

I think as much as anything it's a ploy to make him seem a bit crazy and get him more action on his good hands - something which he might not get if he were just an everyday boring TAG.

Just a theory, but thoughts?

I just checked out the youtube about fergusens tell that philthy linked to, and the main thing I picked up was his aces play his arm extended slightly when he bet (looked more natural) his flush draw he extended it almost completely and his bluff, his elbow never left the table. Anyone else pick up on that or see anything else??

This topic is a joke if you guys really think you can rely on something you saw on TV three times to be a tell for a top pro. Most of the people you are talking about make a lot of money playing this game, do you really think they would have made it this long to have their weakness spotted by an amateur watching on TV?

I mean, lets try to think about this in the real world. The idea of people having "a tell" like the stuff made famous in Rounders will do nothing but leave you broke. There are general tells, ie. strong or weak, but no good player does certain things with their body language when they have pocket Aces that they don't do when they has pocket queens.

Tells are overrated. They are a piece of the puzzle, but this topic just kinda makes me laugh. How many of you have ever sat down and played with one of these guys? I don't think your sample size is really large enough to make a profitable judgment.