Tells - How do you spot them and how do you make sure you dont have any

Ive been playing for a while and i still find it hard to spot tells, you get the obvious ones every now and then when someone gets all excited when a card comes over. But has anyone got any ideas on what to look for. One thing i do try to follow is to watch the players rather than the cards as the flop, turn and river come out.

Also how do you know if you have any recurring tells - and does anyone make up tells to try and through the other players off?

Also you see lots of people playing with sun glassess any preference, do you really think your eyes give that much away?

One of the best things I ever did with regard to spotting tells was buy Joe Navarro's Read 'em and Reap. Pretty much every page is solid gold. Mike Caro's Book of Tells is good too, but I found Navarro much easier to apply and more to the point. The photos are a thousand times better too.

With respect to concealing tells, we had a discussion on this not too long back that brought up some interesting points, you might wanna take a look: Hardest players to read - and WHY

Long story short, one of the easiest strategies to adopt is a "conceal not reveal" pose like Chris Ferguson uses.

Not sure if I can answer all of your questions here (there's a lot!) since if I do, it'll be very long. So I'll briefly write out my thoughts right now.

Spotting tells aren't easy, so try not to get frustrated just because you're not picking up on anything. In fact, sometimes tells that you think you have on someone is actually a false positive - that is, it's not a tell but you may have picked up on a certain behavior given the circumstances and thought it was a tell.

Reading behavior comes with patience and being careful in your observations (trust me, as a psychology grad student, there's a lot of behavioral observation that goes on but that still doesn't make us experts!). There's no one specific thing you should look for because basing your decision on a single behavior can get you in big trouble. Humans are complex beings and we can't simply infer on a player's strength or weakness of hands based on one or two behaviors. Certain types of recurring behaviors may be an indication of something though. Keep in mind that we're "creatures of habit" (ugh, I hate that phrase) and those who aren't very self-aware at the poker table may show habitual responses (e.g., how you throw your chips in when you bet).

Watching the players is a good start but you might want to develop a more structured method. You can't watch everyone all at once, so pick certain people and then expand the people you observe gradually. For instance, players who would have the most immediate impact on your game (those to your left and right) might be a place to start.

You'll notice that I haven't mentioned what to look for because in all honesty I don't want to lead you down the wrong path. But here's what I do - I tend to look at the player's hands and below (if I can see) to see if there are any consistent behaviors. I avoid basing tells just on facial expressions because the face can be deceptive - after all, haven't we all learned to mask our emotions at one point or another - not just in poker but in real life?

About recurring tells - I'd say this is a self-awareness issue. Chances are you won't notice your tells immediately so practicing playing poker in front of a mirror, videotaping your game, or having a friend observe you is a good way to see if you might be giving off tells. Also, yes, people do try to give off false tells - I don't think I can answer this question right here without writing a couple of paragraphs so I would suggest picking up a book or two about poker tells (e.g., Caro's Book of Poker Tells, Navarro's Read'em and Reap).

As for sunglasses, there are some benefits. One of the most commonly cited reasons is that wearing sunglasses prevents others from knowing that you're looking at them. But there's also another reason - a less commonly cited reason that has to do with giving away tells - I'll hold off on writing about that for now. Lets see what others have to say about your question before I keep on rambling on and on and boring the heck out of you all!

One last caution: Tells are not absolute, so be careful of how much stock you place on certain types of behaviors.

i've read a few navarro articles in bluff magazine and i have to say they are quite informative and well written. i havent read his book but i would think it is better than caro's book (which i have read) which has terrible pictures and a confusing format. something i do have to say about tells though is that never use them in isolation. tells are never something which deliver an answer to what you should do next, they always need to be used in conjunction with the board, betting patterns, position etc.

I've got both, and I prefer Navarro for a bunch of reasons.

I'll agree that Caro's format is kinda confusing, and he seems to ramble a lot. The pictures are very small and unclear too, whereas Navarro's are big, clear and easy to follow.

Navarro points out that Caro (obviously what he's referring to when he says "other texts") isn't exactly scientific in his methods either.

Biggest thing for me though is that Navarro sticks solely to what you need to know to play NLHE in a casino. Caro has all sorts of stuff that's specific to either draw or stud poker, or only to home games. Flop games like NLHE only actually make up about a third of the book.

Realised I forgot to address the sunglasses point from the OP before too.

The eyes can give away a little information for those looking for it carefully, but so can your eyebrows, your nose, your mouth... that's just on your face, which is one of the least reliable places to look for tells, and sunglasses don't cover any of those things.

Personally, I don't wear sunglasses. Something's just ingrained in me that makes me feel like a tool if I wear them inside. Feelings of tooliness aside though, I can't really think of any disadvantages to wearing them. Eye tells are minimal and hard to pick up, but you certainly don't lose much by hiding them anyway. The added bonus of being able to observe people without looking at them obviously can't be ignored either.

what about on line playing, i suppose the only tells you can try and get out of that is how quickly they bet?

Yeah, online play is pretty much tell-free. Even the amount of time someone takes to bet isn't all that reliable, because there could be a technical reason for the delay in someone's action. There's not much else to corroborate it with either, which makes the information less reliable.

The only reliable online tell I have found is when you are heads up with someone and they select the call any button, it is 90% of the time an over pair usually AA or KK but again this is not very common.

Thanks they are all great tips.

I have to disagree. You can get very good reads on people by watching what and how they bet. I couldn't begin to tell yo how many times I've used the timer to make it appear I am uncertain/on a draw etc. when holding a hand I know is the winning hand to induce betting by the villian so I can check raise him on the river for more money.

If there were no online tells then programs like HEM and PT wouldn't exist. Think about it....

i prefer to play live..more tell's that you can pick up on..on-line is alot harder i try to keep note's on the most good player's and the donk's i play agininst on-line ..but in 3 hr's u end up playing like 50-200 difrent pepole on-line..just try noteing the verry best and the worst

I think people really overate "tells". I mean sure sometimes there is something you can pick up from someone's behaviour but really tells are very rarely reliable especially against any decent competition. Really you should spend less time looking for tells and more time observing betting patterns etc. These are much more reliable.

I agree in that in some ways the notion of tells is overrated but in my opinion, reading behaviors is an acquired skill and a lot of people (including myself) have difficulty correctly and frequently identifying them.

Also, I would consider betting patterns to be a type of tell. It's just not a "typical" tell that people think about when reading behaviors like facial expressions, position of hands, verbalizations, etc.

Why would you not want tells? The trick is to tell them what you want them to cleverly garner from your tell...

If they knew what you were doing, all they could say is "I got you right where you want me, huh?"

Load em up... They work like buttah in the lower limit tables. Like buttah I tell ya.


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I think tells is the only "natural" talent that you need in poker. You ant really learn to become good at reading ppls tells. You just have to be able to do it as weird as that sounds. I mean you can recognize the OBVIOUS tells like scratching the head, takin off the baseball cap, tapping the table, acting strong, acting weak. But only the greats have the natural ability like negreanu, and ivey, and players of that nature that just know.

I absolutely agree that reads are valid online - I think we're just getting our terminology confused. When I say online play is pretty much tell-free, I'm talking about the traditional "He's sitting forward and carefully protecting his cards it must be a good hand, he played with his chips when the ace came off on fourth street" tells. Obviously there's reads to be had online based on betting patterns etc.

And betting time can be a useful indicator online, sure. All I'm saying is be aware that it's far from infallible. If someone's multitabling, or they've just got a crap connection, a long think time won't necessarily mean anything.