Re: Hand tells
Here are some for starters. Additions and improvements welcome.
1. Right after a player looks at his cards, where do his hands go? Do they cover his cards? Drop back on his lap? Tap the table? Does he set up an angled hand tent in front of his cards? (I'll peg that for some vulnerable hand like K8s or middling suited connectors -- the body language says: I want to play this hand, but I'm vulnerable.)
2. How does the player put his chips in the pot? A rapid horizontal shove means strength for some players (but not all.) A noisy airlift often is a bluff.
3. Where are the player's hands when the flop comes? Resting still, out of sight? Resting on an earlobe, cheek, etc.? Still covering cards? The first two worry me more than the third, but no guarantees here.
4. if you're playing stud, does the player tidy up his face-up cards as the hand plays out? Mike Caro says that often means the draw hasn't hit yet. If a flush or a straight arrives, the player won't touch a thing, no matter how disheveled his hand looks. (This one has actually made/saved money for me.)
5. Does the player fiddle with his chips as the hand plays out? When and why? I'll start out thinking that's an attempt to mask weakness, but each player is his/her own story.
As you move up in levels, players usually tidy up their tells or create reverse tells. So there's no master list that will ever work for all games. All you can do is watch someone play a run of hands, and see what's different when they've got a great hand; a promising draw, a vulnerable made hand, an obvious fold, and a bluff.
If you can pick up only one useful tell, look for what they do with a monster hand. Too many people fixate on looking for bluff tells. Your own cards will dictate how you play against most bluffs. Unless it's a very tricky game, you don't need tell wisdom here. What you do need is the insight to lay down AK on a board of A33, because the small blind is doing something that tells you he really does have a 3.
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