Reading a player's tells.

[Felipe]

hello. I want to know about tells. My questions are

1. on the flop, player is first or second to act, and checks with good-to-verygood cards, will they look down? Will they look at other players' betting habits/patterns? will they look at other players' faces/bodies/tells?

2. When they check with poor-medium hands, what do they do? Look at other peoples' betting styles/habits/patterns? Or do they look at other people and their tells (etc.)

Essentially, what I want to know is whether or not a player is attempting to trap or check raise, or will they fold if I bet or raise. Obviously it is a personal thing, e.body reacts differently, but most people react similarly (in my opinion)


Thank you
-Felipe

ps. please don't recommend me to read this book or that book. I'm posting in the forum cause I don't have 'said' books.

[Bez]

1. Players with good cards will often try to look uninterested. However, this could also just mean they missed the flop. If a player looks to his left he's often looking to see if the players behind him are getting ready to raise - he may well be lining up a check-raise.

2. Some players put their cards in a certain position if they're going to muck. This is normally only pre-flop but impatient players will do this on any round.

BTW, staring people down to see if they're bluffing often works - they won't maintain eye contact or alternatively will stare at you in an unnaturally pronounced manner if they are in fact bluffing.

Beware the false tells given off by quality players. There really is no substitute for studying individual opponents when you are not involved in a hand. Some players act strong when they are strong, or strong when they are weak. Studying between hands is quite boring and takes concentration but will earn you much coin.

[Felipe]

Thank you very much!

[Stork]

If a player sneezes, they always have a flush or better.

[jordanx]

Seriously though, the problem with your question is that it is very complex. The entire question is addressed in Caro's Book of Tells, and it would take just about the whole book to address it.

It talks about:

Different types of players and tells to look for.
Effectiveness of a tell.
Proper strategies to apply to a certain tell.
Effectiveness of various tells.

You'll never find a tell that will acurately tell you if a random person will have a strong hand or not, look down or otherwise. A given person will react differently in many similar situations.

[CrisBrown]

Hi Felipe,

In my opinion, tells are the most overrated aspect of poker. Player- and hand-reading have less to do with facial twitches than with pattern recognition. Does Able play a lot of pots (loose), or very few (tight)? Does he tend to check/call (passive), or bet/raise (aggressive)?

And it gets more detailed. Let's say Able is a player who almost always semi-bluffs a drawing hand if he is first to act, but takes a free card if he has position and it's checked to him. If you check to him and he bets, then you should put him on a made hand.

Then it goes to hand-reading. Based on this opponent's actions thus far in this pot, what range of hands is he likely to be playing? The deeper you go in the pot, the more you can narrow that range of hands.

Learning these skills will be a lot more profitable than general knowledge about facial tics and sighs, which tend to be very personal regardless.

Cris

[Felipe]

=

[Percula]

There have been some very good replies...

Let me add some more... Tells are less reliable with good players. Of more value with new and/or bad players. But getting someone who is watching you for tells to misread you, that is also worth some good coin.

When it is your turn to act, look at your cards (72o) and mouth "WOW!" then sheepishly look around to "make sure no one saw that" and raise 5xBB and get real excited, giddy like, catch yourself and calm down only to get excited and giddy in a few seconds. Nine times out of ten everyone is going to fold.

Another "tell" is to aggressively bet, not size, but in manner, slamming the chips down can be a good sign of a weak hand. So add this with... Look at you hand, smerk in dismay, "catch yourself" and try to act like "good no one saw me" and wait for a while then slam that 5xBB raise out there with your AA, lots of callers if they were paying attention to you at all.

My point being... tells are only good when you really know the other players. You are much better off going with patterns, odds and gamesmanship. A good sneaker player will play you with tells and not the other way around. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[RydenStoompala]

You should read "said" books.

Seriously.

Buy them.

[Cazz]

Mike C. has some of this online w/ video.

Link