Tells
 

What are some of your most reliable and profitable tells? I am really bad at spotting them, but mostly that is because I don't know what to look for.

Thanks!

Re: Tells
 

The first thing you have to remember is that a "tell" is not always the same from person to person and you have to understand what that tells means in the situation.

For example playing with someone who feels their nut flush on a paired board is a monster is going to give off "strong" tells, which is a good signal to pound them with the boat or fold the lessor hand.

Also remember that a good player will use tells against you. It is just a part of swiching up your game. If you pickup that someone has a tell on you, figure out what it is and use it against them.

Read mad Mikes book of tells, it is a good place to start. Beyond that you need to apply it to each player and situation you encounter at the felt.

Re: Tells
 

Unless you play against the same people on a regular basis, tells aren't as valuable as some people think. I was in St Louis this weekend, played 6-12 at Harrah's in St Charles. I picked up a tell, if this guy said "Let's Gamble" He had the NUTS. I may never play against him again so the value of that tell is only one or two bets that I saved by laying down a weak hand after He said, "Let's Gamble". I didn't lay down big hands because of that tell because tells are often unreliable.

If you play against the same players on a regular basis, then tells become more valuable because you get to save or earn a few extra bets each session over an extended period of time.

Re: Tells
 

If a player looks nervous when he's betting, it means he has a really strong hand.

If a player looks relaxed when he's betting, he's probably weak.

"The head-shake".

One of the oldest in the book and fish around the world still use it to this day at both low and high limits.

Borgata $1-2 NL game a couple years ago, there was an aggressive player who was buying alot of pots all night. About middle of the session, after about 4 hours playing with this guy, he enters a pot preflop and the flop comes down 2-3-5. This guy stares at the board blankely and shakes his head slowly, as if he's disgusted with his luck and checks.

I wasn't involved in the hand, but he ended up taking down a $150 pot when K-Q catches a pair on the turn and he rolls over his A-4.

Back to the nervous factor.

When a player is carefully counting his chips, putting some back, fumbling around.. Beware.. A strong hand is lurking and our chump dropping his chips is figuring out how much he can milk you for.

When a player confidently grabs a few chips of his stack, checks them out, then fires them across the table in your direction.. It's a good bet he's making a play at you.

If a player passively flips his chips into call, as if he's not interested, I would put him on a big hand. Classic smooth call, "eh, I'll call" flip of the wrist.

Note: I see very few "counter-tells" where people are trying to fake other people into seeing something else. Especially at the low/mid limits and 1-2 no limit games.

That's usually the last thing they are thinking about when they are involved in a big hand, and most automatically assume that you cannot pick up tells anyway.

In No-Limit games, if a guy makes an All-In move into a relatively small pot, if he leaves his hands on his cards (as if he's going to flip them over).. It's a bluff the majority of the time. Especially if he tries to be a statue with his hands on his cards. Big time bluff.

Most of this stuff is covered by Caro. You should check it out if you haven't already. But these are some of the most common ones that I've noticed.

Re: Tells
 

I agree with the other two replies...read Caro, but don't get too wrapped up in looking for tells. The best tell is how someone bets: they'll either be weak when strong, strong when weak; strong when strong, weak when weak(less likely); or a combination of the above(big trouble if they know what they're doing).

Re: Tells
 

My recommendation is to spend the majority of your time trying to figure out how your opponent's THINK and not so much how that manifests itself in small physical variations.

95% or more of the information you will be gaining about your opponent's hands will be coming from how they play those hands. Particularly playing limit poker, where you will be calling bets that are a relatively small percentage of the pot, relying too heavily on visual tells can be dangerous, as it may lead you to make instinctual and/or reflexive decisions ("I just knew he had it...") that are not prudent giving the mathematical realities of the situation.

Use what you know about your opponents playing and thinking styles to put opponents on reasonable ranges of possible hands and proceed from there.

Re: Tells
 

Honestly, I have yet to spot many reliable tells in games with players i'm seeing for the first time. One tell that I find pretty easy to read is this: when there's paint on the board and a player checks his hole cards, it usually means that he thinks he might have a flush draw, but doesn't remember what suit his cards actually were. For example, if 3 diamonds come out on the board and he is playing A [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]10 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], he's checking to see if it was his Ace that was a diamond because he didn't memorize his cards. It gives you a little more information as to what he might be drawing towards.

Re: Tells
 

At the tail end of my 4 hour session it got down to 3 way where I was clearly the worst player at the table. There was an old guy there who was waiting for a spot at 20/40 and was the best and a kid there who I couldn't see across the dealer, but he was good as well. One hand I called a raise from the old guy in the SB with 79s as did the other kid. The flop was 6s8sTx and I check, and it checks around. I end up getting like 12xbb from the other kid, and after the hand I look to the old guy and say "was hoping you'd follow up" and he goes "saw you look at your chips." I hadn't even noticed I had but now I know a potential tell I have (and can now exploit).

Re: Tells
 

My most reliable tell is to watch the dealer closely. If he pushes the pot in my direction, then I know I have the better hand.

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Re: Tells
 

The tell I tend to look for the most is the glancing at the chips tell. I have found this to be pretty reliable among weaker/average players. Of course you need to watch out for the players who try to fool you with tells, but you can usually pick out those players rather quickly.
I also like to try to fool other players with this tell who are weak and who i think have read caro's book.

-Falker