Looking For Tells

[aucu 3]

How important are looking for tells and tendencies to your game?Learning to read players and their tells is a priority that I’ve set for myself as of late in live play.Last night it started to pay off, two of the players at my table that I managed to peg. Most of the other players I wasn’t able to get anything of any real value that I could pick up other than their betting patterns. One had a very specific and clear tell with his lips when he had a strong enough hand to call an all in bet, and used it once to double me up and stay away from him when I was beat. The other was a hand tell in the way he placed and counted out a large bets that gave away the strength of his hand.Are there any general things that you can do and how you conduct yourself to help getting reads in live games?

[fighter 4]

Are there any general things that you can do and how you conduct yourself to help getting reads in live games?

One thing i always have trouble with when looking for physical tells is where to look first. I often look at the face first but it always seems to be the arms and hands that give them aways. What is the best body part to look at first?

[NewBrunswickBruiser 0]

One thing i always have trouble with when looking for physical tells is where to look first. I often look at the face first but it always seems to be the arms and hands that give them aways. What is the best body part to look at first?

I'm not shooter... but here are some things i've noticedwatching hands and the way chips go into the pot. One person I know puts in many denominations when she's taking a stab at the pot. for a raise of 150 she puts in a small stack of 5s, some 10s, some 25s... all together. But when she has a solid or a made hand, she'd just put in 2 chips, 100 and 50... you get the idea. some players place their chips in the pot and cut them out into smaller stacks -- say 20 $25 chips, cut out into 5 stacks of 4. Other times they splash the put wrecklessly. I try to pay attention more to betting patterns rather than phsyical tells. Also... there have been numerous posts on here about this very subject.

[Royal_Tour 0]

Ok, true story here, saturday while playing live, I had a regular siting to my right.he's a good guy, late 20's, and is studying the game like most of us.He's currently reading Caro's book of tells and he said he really enjoys it. We had some side bet action goin as far as what other players at the table had. It was saturday and full of donks, so it was fun to test our skills.This guy was unreal. I think of myself as a good judge of character, and can easily pin point which type of player each person is. But i was about 70% correct on my reads. This guy was easily making 90% accurate calls on all players in everyhand.His only mistake the whole night was 1 bad call in a hand he was in. which was unfortunate cuz he miss read while he was in it, which makes it a leak in his game i guess. But we talked about a few tips throughout the day.Best one i can give is pay close attention to the type of hands the person plays, and how they played it. We arent all Mike Mcdermott, we cant tell the guy is bluffing because he scratched his nose.Its simply remembering. If you have a good memory, you will make solid calls all day long. And if you have played with smeone more than once, take note on how they play with small stacks, with large stacks, what time it is, what day it is, the type of "poker conversations" they have/ If anyone at your table ever mentions how they never win with aces.. you make note!these are all tells which will help you put people on hands later on.

[NocturnalRob 0]

What is the best body part to look at first?

Enormous heaving breasts

[NewBrunswickBruiser 0]

Enormous heaving breasts

subtle Jennifer Tilley reference?

[KONGOS 0]

I'm always surprised at how many people are virtually asleep at the table. I played a $5-$150 spread limit game (almost plays like $3-$5 nl) at the local casino for the first time last week and no one payed attention to anything! Two people rested their heads in between hands, very few people watched the play when they weren't in a hand, and they gave off so much information when in a hand by talking. I'm much more talkative with less skilled players. The way they answer questions or interact is extremely helpful. Against skilled players I shut up because they'll probably pick up more from me than I will from them. I instead try to focus on their betting patterns and chip handling.

[Men the Hellmuth 0]

Physical tells are always there with people who are just starting out playing this game, one of the biggest amt tells is when they hit their money card and instantly look at their chips like they may not still be there lol. In my opinion though, Betting tells are the biggest tell your ever going to get, i make more money and save more money just by picking up on someones betting tells then anything else i pick up on, so i would focus more on picking up betting tells then waiting to see if someone licks their lips before raising or slowly caressing their elbows when the river card hits. Betting tells are +EV. Good Luck

[RuntCake 0]

I LOATH to recommend anything backed by Phil Hellmuth, however, the book he "sponsors" with FBI agent Joe Navarro covers, pretty well, the physical reaction side of poker tells. His "limbic system" versus cognative system arguments have made me some $$ at the tables...much more than the cost of the book. Hell, I even picked up a "high confidence" tell on the Poker Brat himself during the Bay 101 Shooting star.

[flintsword 4]

How important are looking for tells and tendencies to your game?Learning to read players and their tells is a priority that I’ve set for myself as of late in live play.Last night it started to pay off, two of the players at my table that I managed to peg. Most of the other players I wasn’t able to get anything of any real value that I could pick up other than their betting patterns. One had a very specific and clear tell with his lips when he had a strong enough hand to call an all in bet, and used it once to double me up and stay away from him when I was beat. The other was a hand tell in the way he placed and counted out a large bets that gave away the strength of his hand.Are there any general things that you can do and how you conduct yourself to help getting reads in live games?

General impressions are great, but there is nothing like fine tuning your observation with a little advice. Kenna's book is a great addition to Caro's, and a good start. The glance at the chips tell is pretty much the number one tell.I use general impressions much more, and find that the level of interest a person has in his hand is a strong indication that something is on. If someone gets real interested in his hand before they look at their cards, it is a pretty good guess that a play is being weaved.Really the strongest training tool is being active and alert all the time, and trying to put all of the players active in a hand on a range of hands. This can be tiring at first but well worth the effort. After 30 minutes, you should have a pretty good idea of what they play..Cutting out their chips: It is odd but true that few people cut their chips out the same way every time. Watch the way everyone cuts their chips out, and when they bet with a good hand next time, people being the creatures of habit that they are, they should cut it the same way.I like to talk at the poker table, being a social animal. There are negatives doing this but I am unwilling to play like a robot. I often ask my friends to tell me mannerisms that are tells, and then work on evening them out. Friends IMHO are the only people that can draw your attention to your tells so you can eliminate them or use them to your advantage. learning and killing off your own tells is good training to spot them in others.So cut out your chips for bets the same way and notice when others do not.

[Stallion714 0]

I was in a tourney a while ago, and in this particular hand there was two way action. I was out of the hand, but really interested in the the action. On the turn it went check press. The press guy's arterie in his neck was throbbing. Otherwise he was mustard. The check guy went into the tank, and then folded. I said, "I could feel your heartbeat across the table."Press guy nodded and said "yeah" and flipped over a pair of duces. He was definitely sweating a call. During the break the cat seated next to me told me, "You won't feel my heartbeat. I play the same way all the time."It didn't benifit me in that hand, but it probably changed the way people played me at that table. So it's important. Pay attention. Be aware of the information others are giving out, and be selective of the information you give out.

[Jam-Fly 8]

Ok, true story here, saturday while playing live, I had a regular siting to my right.he's a good guy, late 20's, and is studying the game like most of us.He's currently reading Caro's book of tells and he said he really enjoys it. We had some side bet action goin as far as what other players at the table had. It was saturday and full of donks, so it was fun to test our skills.This guy was unreal. I think of myself as a good judge of character, and can easily pin point which type of player each person is. But i was about 70% correct on my reads. This guy was easily making 90% accurate calls on all players in everyhand.His only mistake the whole night was 1 bad call in a hand he was in. which was unfortunate cuz he miss read while he was in it, which makes it a leak in his game i guess. But we talked about a few tips throughout the day.Best one i can give is pay close attention to the type of hands the person plays, and how they played it. We arent all Mike Mcdermott, we cant tell the guy is bluffing because he scratched his nose.Its simply remembering. If you have a good memory, you will make solid calls all day long. And if you have played with smeone more than once, take note on how they play with small stacks, with large stacks, what time it is, what day it is, the type of "poker conversations" they have/ If anyone at your table ever mentions how they never win with aces.. you make note!these are all tells which will help you put people on hands later on.

Yeah, thats really true. Rarely will you be able to make a big call or a big bluff solely based on ONE physical tell or tick. Alot of the time, reading players is alot more having a "feel" for where you are in a hand. It sounds crazy, but alot of the time you will (I do anyway) get a kind of energy which tells you whether or not your hand is good. I don't know how to explain it, but, it's no specific tell, but you just know that the guy has you beat/is weak

[Standup 0]

I LOATH to recommend anything backed by Phil Hellmuth, however, the book he "sponsors" with FBI agent Joe Navarro covers, pretty well, the physical reaction side of poker tells. His "limbic system" versus cognative system arguments have made me some $$ at the tables...much more than the cost of the book. Hell, I even picked up a "high confidence" tell on the Poker Brat himself during the Bay 101 Shooting star.

Navarro's book is great. To answer one of the earlier posts, Navarro says the feet are the most revealing body part. When I read that I thought he was nuts, primarily because you can't see the feet at the table. Since then I've discovered that with a little practice you can see the feet of the players on either side of you (which is useful as they are harder to observe for any facial tells) and, depending on where you are sitting, some of the other players as well. What have I discovered? Well, like all tells, reading them takes practice but the feet seldom lie......