All these Poker Tells are true. But know however that other poker players actually use these to fool others.

Yep, which is why "iocaine powder" is one of the tags.

Some of this stuff was pretty obvious (player who doesn't bet unless they have a good hand), but some of the other stuff was interesting.

maud: http://ofb.net/~egnor/iocaine.html

That's brilliant, Krupo. I'd love to see that strategy in action.

Mike Caro's "Book of Tells" covers these and many more. It's old so lots of funny pictures in it. There is a video that I have also... maybe I should post part of it to youtube. Many of his points are considerably more subtle than what's given in this short video.

One funny thing about studying tells is that, once you know what a certain physical tell looks like, what should *you* personally do? Well... tells exist because they WORK against weak players. So against weak players you can generally act as they do. Acting weak means you have a strong hand in general, so, if you have a strong hand you should act weak. This seems kind of counter intuitive, but it makes good sense. If your opponent is NOT skilled in reading tells, then you should not be reversing tells.

A good example of this is when you have a very good hand and you wish for your opponent to call on the end. The right thing to do is to appear nervous and agitated, but subtly so. I tap my fingers on the cards, maybe jiggle my knees up and down, etc. This is because you, as a reader of tells, KNOW that when someone is agitated they have a big hand. However, to the amateur, such nervousness is almost universally attributed to someone who is bluffing, when the opposite is usually true (bluffers tend to try to remain still and calm, people with big hands actually get nervous).

I really, really, miss having good venues to play live since I moved to Austin.

Oh, and the reason you see a lot of people wearing subglasses is two-fold: a lot of good tells involve what a person looks at, and when. A good poker player is not looking at the cards when they come out, they're looking at other players, where they look and when. So, a) you want to conceal the fact that you're examining people and b) you don't want what you're looking at to be scrutinized.

I saw a silly TV show the other day, can't think of what it was called, which was video footage of a live, relatively low stakes, poker tournament. Prize pool in the range of 10-20K or something. You could really get an education in tells from these people.

Just randomly insert subtle tells, and the other strategy is to play two hands, ie. look at your cards at put them deep in the back of your mind, and then play them as if they were something different. Like, 7S 8C.. convince yourself they are 7S 8S or AH 10H play as AH QC. Unless the bets are big and you have to exit the pot, you'll trap a lot more money this way.

or you can just be a girl poker player and pretend you have no clue!?!?! *bats eyelashes*

fools 'em every time, boys!

rusty, sounds like classic mind games - or double-guessing.

Makes the game fun, eh?

Thanks for the extra detail, rusty. One question: I read somewhere that the classic reason poker players wore sunglasses was to mask the way their pupils dilated when they saw something unusual/interesting/pleasant. Do real players actually look for pupil dilation as a tell? I would think that the low light in a classic poker game would keep everyone's pupils dilated anyway most of the time, and that this trick would work only if the room was reasonably well lit.

The legendary reason for sunglasses and hats and what not is that people want to see emotions in eyes. I just don't think this is true. You simply don't want someone looking. All the biggest tells in poker is the pattern of eye movement that someone goes through. With most people it's entirely instinctual.

If you play poker I highly recommend trying this: when the flop comes out, look at the eyes of at least one player, preferably any player who raised preflop or who called a big bet preflop. When they look at the flop, see where they look next.
* a look away, *especially* a look away from the oncoming action, generally means they either hit big, or have a big draw.
* a look towards the oncoming action usually means they will fold.
* staring at the flop usually means they don't have anything, particularly if they raised preflop
* looking at their chips means they are probably going to bet
* looking at your chips, or their opponent's chips, means they are *probably* going to bet but are thinking of pulling a bluff. They're trying to reckon how much they'd have to bet to make you fold. Alternatively this sometimes means they are considering taking a gamble and trying to decide whether you have enough money in front of you to make it worthwhile. For clarification, if there is $100 in the pot and my opponent only has $100 in front of him, I am not going to take a long shot gamble. If there is $100 in the pot and my opponent has $1000 then I might, if I think I can get his whole stack if I hit.

Anyway, I gather it's sort of against the rules to self-link, but if I upload all or part of the Caro video to youtube, can I link to it?

Oh, and to be clear, ANY general tell can often go either way. With some people, trembling hands means they have a big hand (80% of all people perhaps), with others it means they have a poor hand (18%) and the rest of the time they're old men who tremble all the time (2%)

I also highly recommend The Psychology of Poker. It's helped my online game a lot. The book is about why various types of players play poker, which helps unravel the motivations behind the actions they take.

i can't play online anymore ... *weeps* thanks a lot, bush!

I still play online. It's getting harder though, for sure.

rusty, I think any of the people who are watching this thread will be more than happy to post your vid to the sift if you give us the link (which is totally allowed).

The video I have is an ASF and *just* over the limit of 100 megs for posting to youtube. Seeing if I can convert it and/or reduce the size a bit.

which is the best poker hand?

royal flush of spades, diamonds, clubs or hearts??

LB: most people play Texas Hold-em and this will never happen, since you only have 2 cards, plus 5 common cards.

Now in other forms of poker, it is *possible* that two people have a royal flush, but it is a split pot, just like if I had two aces and you had two aces.

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