Tells

[Turtle]

I read the poker tells article and I was very impressed. I think it can help me a lot in future play. But how much of it applies to all poker situations and how much applies only to online play? Some of it is online specific, but some I can't tell.

[The Professor]

More or less all of the tells on that page can be applied in a way to offline poker as well as online poker.

Obvioulsy in offline poker you have alot more info to process to try and work out tells such as the physical tells.

And it is a big part of the offline game.

I was playing in a live offline tournament last week and we were into the last 2 tables / 20 players, I spotted a great tell on this one player who had a pretty decent stack. Every time he had a strong hand he would make his play and put his chips in then immediately he would touch his glasses / push his glasses up his nose.

Once I had worked this out, I knew exactly when he had a good hand and when he was bluffing, which allowed me to make some really powerfull over-the-top re-reraises whenever he wasn't touching his glasses I ended up taking most of his stack from him and going on to win the tournament

[Sweetness]

Great story there Professor.... isn't it great when you see a tell that nobody else notices? Bet he was shaking his head wondering how you did that.

Probably told his buddies his hands just went dead and there was nothing he could do to save himself. LOL

[Turtle]

Neat. Did he do anything when he had a dud of a hand?

That's very perceptive to be able to notice a tell. How much do you think a person's vision level plays into how well he picks up on tells?

[rowena105]

There are sooooooo many tells and actually, most of them are for live games not online. The physical tells are the best, such as the Professor's example of touching/pushng his glasses. But there are other tells, such as when people reach for their chips as soon as they look at their cards, new players get so excited sometimes they bet out of turn, playing with their rings or their watches, all of a sudden leaning back in their chair and looking "casual", checking their cards when a "potential flush" hits on the flop or the turn, etc. etc. etc.

So each game you go to the best thing is to let your cards sit until it is your turn for "action" (that's the player who's turn it is). Watch everything they do and tie it into what hand they have. Do they muck (toss the cards to the dealer) after they have done one of the above or do they raise after they have done one of the above. Then keep watching for that same reaction each time. Once you pick up a tell on a person you have them beat, well most always have them beat if you have the cards to beat them with, or if they are bluffing you over-bluff them and you got them.

[MissCrissy]

I read somewhere that the way a player stacks his chips is a tell. I guess the more aggressive players have sloppy stacks and the more conservative players have neat stacks.

[Turtle]

I read on this site and elsewhere that strong is weak, but I didn't really know what that meant. I guess it all has to do with posture. If you're not confident in your hand you might slump over, but if you are you might sit up straight.

[ScootScoot]

Isn't another good tell if the player physically can't control himself? If he can't stop shaking or sweating or just being obvious in some physical way? And then there's the player with the same betting pattern.