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View Full Version : Tells - Voice or lack of when acting.


10-10-2001, 06:32 AM
I have recently made more of an effort in my game to pay attention to tells and try to get rid of a few of my own. I would like some people to follow up this message with a few of the easy tells to look for and ones that they use. To kick things off, this is one I have been listening for recently and I have had some VERY good results. I almost hate to give it away here, because I have been able to get better reads on some very tricky players with it. It was once a major flaw in my game. It is not one that many people think about. I am not sure if it is in Caro's book or not, because I have never gotten around to getting a copy of the thing.


This tell works with people who *almost* always call out their intentions when checking, betting, or raising. I would first of all caution you against this, because it is hard not to emit tells this way to people who are listening for them. I would recomend staying silent or always using the same voice when checking/calling/betting and/or always using the exact same hand signals. Unless you have already thought about this, you will emit signals this way. Just watch your game for a while and you will see what I mean.


There is one very easy type of player to read...I have found one or two of these in almost every game I play in. This player almost always signals his intention to call, raise, or check with a verbal signal. The only time he does not do this and just places his chips without saying anything is when he is very strong. He gets 'quiet and sneaky' when he has a big hand. If you have a couple of these in your regular games (I do), it is just fantastic.


The others, you will just have to listen for a pattern and keep watching showdowns until you get them pegged. Listen to the different ways they say 'Check' especially and to a lesser extent the way they say 'Raise' and 'Call' The weak when strong thing pretty much applies here. I have seen this discussed in the poker magazines, but I have never seen the quiet, verbose tell mentioned.


Anyways, I was hoping to start a discussion on this. I have found tells to be a great way to swing things one way or the other for me on tough decisions. It is not something to spend all of your time watching..but there are some VERY obvious ones that will help you make better decisions. Until someone who I regularly play with brought one of mine to my attention, I hadn't really payed that much attention to them. I am now finding out that was a big mistake. For those who were watching for the tell above, I was practically announcing the strength of my hand in every pot I played. So how about it? What are some of the tells you look for..or do you think it is mostly a waste of time? Is Caro's book on this any good or will it just make you paranoid?


Regards,


Joe 'playing like a paranoid robot' Cheezer


PS, please no oreo jokes.