Joined: Aug '09
Location: Spain
Age: 44 (M)
Posts: 574
Posted by Beezlbub: I get really agitated when everyone knows its my turn, and 2 or more ppl are all in my face saying"what r u gunna do!!!!!!" and i know im not far behind. Pressure is all..........i mean i think i'm winning. Am i wrong to think im being pressured or do i enjoy the control?
Joined: Sep '10
Location: United States
Age: 61 (F)
Posts: 62
Some good tells posted. You can pick up on live players tell habits if you pay attention. Playing in big MTT tourneys makes this much more difficult. About the time you start figuring someone out, you get moved to another table of they get moved or others come to your table faster than you keep up with them. Cash tables are the best tell tables for sure because you may be playing with the same players for the most part of the night---or day. I was playing one guy that when he had a weak hand, he would push his eye glasses up to make them tight on his nose. The firm pressed glasses made him feel more secure about his weak hand. When he had a strong hand, his glasses could almost be falling off his face and he would not move his hands from his cards for nothing. I use to have tells and I knew it. I could see myself telling on myself. It's a learning process that can indeed help your live play. I could go on and on about this subject. LOL. Good thread.
Joined: Sep '10
Location: Finland
Age: 59 (M)
Posts: 29
It would be really useful skill to be able to generate "right" tells in right moments to decieve the opponents. Maybe this could be achieved with years practice, but one should first know his own tells very well and also be able control them at will. Any theatre actors out there?
Joined: Sep '10
Location: Finland
Age: 59 (M)
Posts: 29
Actually somebody could start a business by offering tell courses to new poker players. First how to read and interpret tells given by other players. Then excercizing not giving any tells. And finally how to generate misleading tells. Human mind works basically according to some simple rules, for example, if you gain profit by using the tell of other player, you generalize this rule and start to trust it in all situations. So in a game you could even afford to lose few cheap hands by giving this tell and the start using it in a decieving way, to trap your tell-believing opponent to a high stakes game with a nuts hand.
Joined: Feb '11
Location: Poland
Age: 41 (M)
Posts: 45
Other player-psychology things (to be found in Super System 2):
- encaourage bad players to play against the ods. Especially when they win you should make them feel good with bad decisions. Don't criticize them for beting with 4,5 offsuited.
- Don't prise players for a good play. Let them feel that game is fun, so they wan't take it seriously
- Do not discuss a hand and the way it was played in front of recreational players. They will notice that you take the game for a profit
- When player compains on "bad luck" and wanna to show you his hand he is looking for symphaty. So when he is betting he has probably a strong hand.
- Keep your bad luck for you. When you complain about bad beats you inspire other players to play better against you as they thing "there's somebody I can beat. He's more unlucky then I am".
- Give the opponent reason to call. Wait a moment before you bet, sip your caffe, think and let him think. He might think you are bluffing and might call. It's called Calling Reflex
-Player that pretends to be unintrested with pot is usually more interested then a player looking at you
- if opponent is chewing gum or sucking candy observe him. If he stops that while betting he has probably weak hand.
- When player tries to bet stack of chips and some chips spills of the top you should observe him closly. If he's trying to erease his mistake he is probably bluffing
- In Omaha observe the players when dealer deals the flop. Those who stare on chips has better hand then those that gaze at flop.
So much I want to say I don't know where to begin.
first of all, a lot of the rules say when novice players do such and such. But how do you know if they are novice and does the rule become the opposite for experienced players. Plus a lot of players I know pretend that they are new and don't know what they are doing so that players underestimate them.
When I play live poker I sometimes find myself shaking when I don't have a hand. It's annoying as other players comment on it, when I don't want to give them an impression either way. It's sometimes after I've just won a huge hand or pulled off a huge bluff but sometimes just randomly.
I also find myself looking at my hole cards again mid-hand all the time. Even though I know exactly what cards i've got, I find myself checking them. What this tells my opponents I don't know but I see pros on TV do this too. I once watched a game where a guy had aces and even though there were no flush draw possibilities, he still looked again causing the commentators to joke 'yes they are still there'.
I think that everyone is an individual and just as everyone plays a hand differently, people have different tells. Betting quickly could be a sign for strength in one person and weakness in another. I like points number 8 and 9. They are perfect examples of what you should be looking out for.
I've also heard that people who like their cards sit closer to them and that people who don't sit back in their chair. I'm very interested in psychology and body language. I've never been a very good reader of other peoples emotions or body language so I've always paid attention to this sort of stuff on TV but I've always thought that it's easy to mask or fake especially in situations like poker.
Joined: Oct '08
Location: Hungary
Age: 34 (M)
Posts: 26
It is a very useful topic for everyone who wants to improve his game i think. Very good idea. Tells are really important in poker. I am reading your stories, quite interesting. A lot of novice players has the problem with the tells. Shows too much of their style and play. Easy to catch them.
Joined: Jul '14
Location: Finland
Age: 32 (M)
Posts: 191
Nice, i deff enjoy the offline game alot & there is lots of useful suggesstions here that i will make sure to look out for. However you got to bear in mind that looking for tells is give & take, sometimes they can help you greatly & sometimes they can really hurt you so its always more important to observe patterns & what sort of hands your oppennent is playing/showing down & in what positions etc. One tell that i always like to look out for is how villain responds to when the cards come out. Its not difficult to tell if he didnt like that 3rd Spade coming out or if it really helped him as the limits i play at most oppenents are rather weak tbh.
Joined: Mar '13
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 31 (M)
Posts: 60
Weekly pub game with business owners. considered high stakes s&g by myself and my friend who go along but considered mid stake by the business owners and the like... £20.00 a game 10 games a night hyper They always seem happier to call nice round numbers.
considering we taught most of them poker it is like taking candy from a baby.
