OzExorcist
Broomcorn's uncle
Bronze Level
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.
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.