How
to Spot a Poker Tell
by Dutch Boyd
I've gotten a lot of
emails about poker tells... what are some common ones, how to spot
them, etc. Here are some ideas to get you started.
There are some very
common poker tells that most new players will exhibit (e.g. shaking
hand when they bet means a monster, looking down at their chips
immediately after a flop means they connected, etc.). Most of these can
be found in a book by Mike Caro called Book of Tells. He basically
breaks down tells into two categories : acting tells, where a player
acts weak when they are strong (e.g. a sigh when they make a big hand,
a "poker-clack" when they bet, a shrug) or strong when they are weak
(e.g. staring you down when they're bluffing), and non-acting tells
(e.g. the shaking hand, the looking down at chips). The acting ones are
tells where people act in a certain way to get you to act the way they
want. New players fall victim to these types of tells all the time. The
non-acting ones are tells that players are not conscious of.
Basically, Mike Caro's
book is a good start, but it's definitely not the end. With tells, what
you have to do is get a line on each player. Each player will exhibit
different tells. Look for a difference in the way they play two
hands... ANY difference. If you spot a difference that is consistent,
it's a tell. Player A might sniff a little when he has a big hand, and
not sniff when he doesn't. Player B might sniff when he's bluffing, and
not sniff when he's strong. Player C might have a vein on his neck that
goes CRAZY when he's bluffing. Player D might have a vein that goes
crazy when he's NOT bluffing. It's going to be different for each
player, but once you spot a difference in the way they play, you've got
them. Then you just look to see him turn over a hand. You correlate the
strength of what they show to the behavior variance and you've got
yourself a tell.
Examples :
Sammy is a player at your
table. You notice that in some of the hands he's in, he makes his bet
with the biggest denomination chips possible. With others, you notice
that it's with the smallest denomination chips. He bets $10k one hand
and throws two $5k chips in. He bets $10k another hand throws in 10 $1k
chips. He does this a lot, varying the chips he bets. You see him bet
10 $1k chips and fold to a re-raise... then you finally see him turn
over a hand... he flopped Aces full and bet the $5k chips the whole
way. Now you know it correlates to strength... it figures that when he
bets smaller denominations, it correlates to weakness. He's yours.
Joe is peaking at his
hole cards before it's his turn to act. You're clocking him... every
time he peeks down, you start counting. Most of the times, he peeks
down for six or so seconds, then starts looking at the action. One
time, though, he peeks down for 2 seconds, looks straight at the
dealer, raises when it's his turn, and turns over aces. He's yours.
Those are just some
examples of what to look for. The key is you spot a difference, you
correlate it to strength or weakness, then you exploit it. If you spot
a tell that means strength, you lay down your Jacks pre-flop. If you
spot a tell that means weakness, you raise with your 82o. Sounds
simple, right? It's not... but hopefully this will get you started.
Read more about life as a
professional
poker player at Dutch Boyd's
website at www.dutchboyd.com.
