Tells & Reading opponents

[ddss6_99]

Hey, sorry if this is a stupid question, but I'm new to HE, been playing with a group of people in my dorm for about 6months, but just now am I starting to take it seriously, playing in online tournaments and such. Being new, one of my problems is trying to figure out what cards my opponent might have. What kind of tells so experienced players look for when attempting to read their opponents? What certain things jump out at them, and what can I do to improve on reading my opponents? Thanks

[illunious]

This link (http://www.poker1.com/mcu/mculib_video.asp) takes you to some clips from Caros book/video of poker tells.

Edit: getting a server error now... maybe it will work later.

[John Biggs]

Tells are far less important than you might think, especially if you are playing limit rather than no-limit.

Much more important for reading hands is figuring out what starting cards your opponents play, how they tend to play them, how they tend to play draws, how they play top pair, etc. From this you can then abstract whether they are loose, passive, aggressive, etc., which will help further.

Note that your technical understanding of the game must be at least as good as an opponent's before you can start reading him in this manner. Note also that you must be able to pinpoint how good/bad *his* technical understanding of the game is, so you can put yourself inside his head.

Worry about learning tells only after your use of the above approach has improved to where you're routinely putting weaker players on a range of possible hands based on their betting patterns alone.

[MRBAA]

Agreed. But Biggs, you must learn to watch that compulsive twitch in your knee cap whenever you have aces.