Top 10 Poker Tells - Win a Set of Books!

[Vorem]

My favorite tells in online poker - timing tells. I read about it in an article by Nathan Williams. It differs from that in the article.The essence of it is this -
1) a quick bet is a medium hand,
2) a lot of time on the bet - a very strong hand or a bluff

 

[RhoadesHoyle]

Player disconnected after losing monster pot connection 100 percent all through tourney and does not log back in even though decent stack left is telling me their laptop maybe just met a wall or jumped out a window lol

me every time

 

[Helloween]

Yeah. How much I play live, I constantly pay attention to the Tells. But the low level of the game generates inexplicable actions. Oh, these poker tricks.

 

[acidburnfx]

I have seen many significant situations. Those aspects of the game need to come after a good base. There are many poker readings that are best for your game, especially the ones that focus on live play. The player tendencies and situations are different than you'll see in most only games. So while the same analysis process works, it's nice to have someone working out and showing examples that are relevant.

 

[ribbybruno]

I got some great advice from Ryan Laplante in a different thread a week or so ago. I asked him about fist pumping and yelling after winning hands. He said " Fistpumping and cheering/etc will make people think you are a weak player and new to wsop.

Letting emotions run high or low lets them control you and your game.

Control them and be stoic and you can be much more successful."
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[FONT=NotoSans, Lato, arial, sans-serif]I am planning to use this advice. Let my stack of chips do the talking!
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[JBGoode]

Very awesome Article! Some I have always kept an eye out for like #1. If I'm holding on to a low flush, on a low board, and I'm out of position. This is the first thing I look for.

As for #3 and #4 I've always heard this, but have never had someone break it down for me like this did. Very useful!

and I really like #10 I actually use this to my advatage alot. If they go to bet, I'll say something like "You hit your set didn't you? I Guess we will find out." and I'll shove with the Nut Flush. Works almost every time.

Overall I learned a lot from reading this. Next time I'm playing live I feel like I have more tools to use now. Thank you!

 

[Anjo]

Play poker brings a very particular emotion, an emotion that is ours alone and we could hardly pass for someone.We can classify poker into two types, calm I explain it's just a place mine.
There are poker online, who were lonely and quetos, preferably in a quiet place without anyone bothering us, this is quiet poker, where no one says anything, there is no screams, applause or anything that may interfere in our quiet and concentration .
In this case we can still make some notes and can even help us in our game.
There are even live poker, who sat at a table and see people, took the cards and vibrate strongly and we root for our victories.
I can say that I particularly prefer to play personally like this vibration, like to see people's faces and try to capture something in games on line can not.
I like to get letters with pure tension and find that there is something good.
I like to see the dealer exposing his cards on the table and thrilling me with the victory.


Surely I prefer live games!


Good luck friends!


^A^njo

 

[PHX]

Really good tips for live tells. I always found when players get chatty all of a sudden they have it. Appearance and demina is key in trying to figure out what kind of player you are up against. I have a hard time reading the quiet younger looking ones that keep to themselves.

Online we have not many tells, action timing can sometimes give a clue but mostly we must rely on betsizing, activity and any little thing we can pick up from seeing past hands.

 

[Maurits92]

Very interesting read. I'll be playing a small live tournament next week & I'll be sure to study these things. Although I have a feeling there will be mainly fish there, as it's a tournament for university students, these tips may come in handy. I believe that for online poker it's important to stick to a certain opening sizing with every hand you open with. For example some people open 3x with pairs, 2.2x with broadways and 2x with suited connectors. This can be a huge leak in their game which you could use to your advantage. For live tells I have a feeling it's a lot about reverse psychology, but I don't have any live experience so far.

 

[Polytarp]

This is what I noticed online:

In cash games, see if the player is multi-tabling and if so is going to bet big on solid hands.
Shake him/her up with whatever is in your bag of tricks and watch the bet size increase when you are in the pot. Winning two All-in's should be enough to make it a good night. Requires finessing but the correlated card range and bet size are a readable signature.

In tournaments, especially heads up, I bluff liberally. Reading the above correlation is crucial but being super aggressive and fast may spark the other player(s) into playing more speculative hands. If you notice the quality of winning hands and response time declining in certain players then you are doing a fine job. Once such players have declared themselves I try to catch a monster or an off beat suited connector to seal the deal. I have been caught with a lower set of trips, the losing end of a straight and the losing end of a full house so there are no guarantees. This window of opportunity is player specific and time sensitive so as long as you can do the math and not get greedy, then the bad beats can be survived if you get bushwhacked.

One thing I forgot to mention was to notice who is controlling the table. Either by action or chip size or a combination of both. Look at the players these people are targeting and assess why. A mouse will bite back when cornered so watch the dynamics unfold when the mouse wins. When the table turns against the table bully then I do more huffing and bluffing against the chip leader and can usually make a marginal hand pay off more often. Now, if I am the table chip lead I try to wipe out the smarter players and not push hard against the weaker ones until I need to wipe table.


On a final note in online tournament player, there are few things sweeter than going heads up after a long tournament and your opponent gets disconnected. If you track which players this has happened to then you may be able to connect a few threads together for some easy wins.

 

[DougPkrMonsta]

Thanks for the article!

I've been playing more live tournaments lately and I've noticed a lot of the time you can identify how experienced players are by how they handle their chips.

Some of the more experienced players will even shuffle their chips and generally bet and raise effortlessly.

If you haven't played much in a live setting it takes a while to get used to cutting out bets or even putting out your blinds/antes.

This doesn't mean these are necessarily bad players (since they could normally play online), but less experience means they may give off other information later.

You will also see a lot of weak = strong (and vice versa) tells in the live tournaments. Re-raising very quickly pre-flop with medium-strength hands to appear stronger than they are is fairly common. Looking away from the table and feigning interest after putting in a big raise is a pretty big red flag.

I agree that all tells are player-dependent. I would add they should rarely be the only deciding factor in how you play a hand.

If you think you've picked something up on someone, try to confirm it by seeing what they show down (or if they fold). Then this can factor into your decisions if you see it in future hands.

As for an online tell, weaker players often make bets that risk too much and accomplish very little. There are times when you should deviate from standard bet-sizes but generally they are the standard for a reason.

Good luck!

 

[RunoMont]

Some players fake their timing tells to still more chips from you. Beware of that too.

 

[Polytarp]

There are a lot of tells when playing live and having a better than average memory helps in exploiting them and being aware of your own cues.

Online as in live play, the cliche that you can't bluff a bad player is true. Second thing I've noticed is that a comfort zone usually exists and it takes some probing bets to find it. I am not afraid of losing all my chips on a good play and in the higher stakes that same level of fearlessness is common. One tell that I have noticed is noting the pot odds and reverse pot odds and which players work that angle consistently. By finding out where their betting threshold is and losing a few pots to (assessed) weaker players may cause the weaker players to draw in the larger players for a bigger than usual pot. This is a balance between ignorance and the comfort level of the table..which changes like the wind. You won't win every hand but to architect such a play or being aware of someone else doing the same makes one appreciate the games that can be played within the game.

 

[whiskers77]

Very interesting article, thank you CC.
After reading it, I also would like to play in a live game. I guess this psychological part of poker is even more interesting in live games.

I guess there are even more hints when you start observing the body language of someone.
Once I heard from a communication trainer, that you can read peoples thoughts also by observing how they hold their head or shoulders. If they look away for example, they might be lying. If they turn their head slightly down to the side, they are interested. If they start touching their nose or face, they are unsure or also try to hide something.
If they move up their shoulders, they feel uncomfortable. If they lay back to the chair, they are relaxed. Holding the hands or fingers together infront is showing concentration.

I guess a lot of this would be also useful to consider while playing live.

 

[mm maksik]

just sit! sit and play! my essential accessory is a cap! and when I play live poker, I'm a rock! I just sit in a cap with a stone face

 

[manolo salazar]

There are several authors who talk about tells. However, Zach has put a lot effort in both his videos and books. The top ten poker tells are an excellent guide for poker players who are playing live tournaments.If we put a lot of attention in people while we play we can realize that human body is a parallel universe in the poker tables.
I have picked one tell which is located in the player's throat. when you ask them about their hand and they gulp intermediately and there is a slight movement in their lips they are bluffing. However, when they have a good hand they can use this like a reverse tell doing it too slow and obvious is like they are acting too much.
Finally, I could not to comment about poker on-line tells because I haven't been playing for a while.

 

[Alexandr Svinarshyk]

excellent article and also tips. I play only online poker and try to learn all the opponents at the table their manner of playing. Also, on a strong hand, I try to check, raise or raise, check.

 

[Polytarp]

Looking at this literally, there are tells and there is `show and tell.` For live games think of professionals who must read people for their very survival...what skill set do they have? I went to a lecture by Joe Navarro and was not motivated. Read about micro-tells and how to use and abuse them. For online games, for a start, the U of A computer games group have a few good AI bots. Try playing a system where your approach to the game is used against you. Here, you need to reinvent yourself and your plays constantly but more often than not play mathematically correctly otherwise you will lose. I don't know if such terms exist but anti-tells and reverse-tells and reverse-anti tells do exist. Mis-information is packaged in many forms.

 

[gjwalk]

A great article showing some of the tells to look for and perhaps guard against projecting yourself. The live tells are interesting, but some of them require you to stare at your opponent to look for "insincere" smiles and other signs. The staring itself can be interpreted as a tell. The best advice is that these tells are player dependent as we all have our little quirks. I found the online section written by our cardchat members, more pertinent to myself as it's where I play most of my games. The timing of play is interesting but remember it could be just someone going for a beer.:beer:

 

[XYZ2123]

Great article. I don't play live but still a very interesting read. As an online player, the most relevant parts of the main article were the sections on immediate calls and immediate bets since these can also be tells online. I'm sure I've been guilty of timing tells many many times. For me the best advice to take away from this piece is to try to standardize the amount of time you take to make each decision. Of course, this is much easier when only playing one or two tables. Timing tells may not be tells at all if someone is multi-tabling. They might seem to be making quick or slow decisions at any particular table because they have so many tables to deal with at once.

 

[vovqa93]

Online experience

My thoughts about tells at poker tables based on my only online poker experience.

First of all, the most big thing about read player actions is not only a tells by themselves, but the playing history, that consist of actions, that we can statistically identify like a tell.
Playing history can be small or medium/big, so this is very important value, from what statistically we look at all player's actions and consider what that actions are. In big distance some actions are pure tell and in low it's very polarized.

And the most actions that i get like a tells are: bet sizings, bet timings.
People often do some automatic actions, and often in some situations they give a good read by act "standart, regular". So we can know what actions consider in themselves: the value, float, semi-bluff, etc.

 

[Rijckenborg]

Look like that I can be easy to read
At least, when I have a strong hand nobody can saw my "genuine smile" because I play only online

I think that it is more easy to read other players in live poker.
Studying all those Tells can be very useful to make better decisions.

About the Chat Tells : If a player use dirty words, it is pretty sure that he's on tilt.

 

[akmost]

Very informative!In live poker games you can say by the player's body language that's why they try to remain still when they participate in a hand or try to tell a story and bluff. Some others tend to touch their good starting hand in a very sensual way ha ha. But most importantly you can see the neck vain pumping from anxiety.

In online poker games I agree with the time tells. And the weak betting is a sign of weakness. In the stakes I play rarely does an opponents fire big especially in the river with air or a missed draw.

 

[zam220]

Thank you, very interesting information!But it is suitable for live games, and I always play online and there will be useful statistics on the player.And for those who are going to play live,I advise you to read

 

[pirateglenn]

Tells at the poker table

When i first started playing live poker, it fascinated me how players behaved at the table, the way they spoke, what they said, the bets and the size of those bets that were made. It was because of this reason that some time ago - way before i joined cardschat, i decided to look at this = so when this thread came out - i thought wow - lets contribute a post.
The most common tells live i have witnessed have been avoidance of eye contact or persistent eye contact, trembling hands, players who acted quickly, over betting and the biggest tell of all ( in my opinion) which is table talk.
I used other references to research my interest such as other pros input -

- daniel Negreanu who gives a real insight into poker tells and further reference by Paul Seaton with regards to 7 poker tells for cash games and tournaments. https://www.partypoker.com/blog/seven-online-poker-tells.html
Other notable tells can be direct from body language - rubbing the nose, a nervous twitch - anyone who watched EPT Monte Carlo 2018 will testify that many more players are wearing scarves now to hide visible tells from a pulse/nerve in the neck..many players wear dark glasses (im a big fan of this) as i think eyes give more away than anything ( the windows of the soul?).

Next time you are playing live..look for these

Next time you are playing online - look at your hud or monitor who plays hands in what position, how many hands do they play, what is their bet sizing like, there is a lot more to see then you realise...