Live Poker Tells Reddit
Poker is a game based on information availability. We don’t ever know for sure how good or bad another player’s hand is, often until it’s too late. But because poker is a game of human interaction, we sometimes receive clues from other players, based on changes in their betting patterns or their physical demeanour, which indicates the strength or weakness of their hand. These are called “poker tells”.
I’ve been playing a lot of live poker the last year. That involves playing during the day when about half the table are OMCs. During this time I feel I’ve built up a comprehensive list of tells against this particular player type. I’ve even gone as far as hiding a camera on me. When playing live club poker online, if you’re good enough, you can decipher the strength of a player’s hand, or their level of experience or skill by their Poker tells.However, in the online environment, it’s a lot harder to read players as you aren’t physically playing with.
- Reddit is home to thousands of communities, endless conversation, and authentic human connection. Whether you're into breaking news, sports, TV fan theories, or a never-ending stream of the internet's cutest animals, there's a community on Reddit for you.
- Hi r/poker, I am mostly an online MTT player on stars. However, since I live in Montreal, I decided to take the opportunity to visit Playground Poker club. Amazing place, great atmosphere and food, just awesome. Anyways, I was playing in a tourney there and notice that I know nothing about live tells in any sense.
A player gains an advantage if he observes and understands the meaning of another player’s tell, particularly if the poker tell is unconscious and reliable. Sometimes a player may even fake a tell, hoping to induce his opponents to make poor judgments in response to the false poker tell. After all, poker is a game of deception.
The Two Forms of Poker Tells
Poker tells come in two forms;
- Betting patterns
- Physical tells
Betting patterns are the most dependable poker tells. By studying the way a player bets both past and present, you will have more information and be better able to judge whether to check or bet. Betting patterns will remain your main tells.
Physical tells, many of which are dramatized in movies and television, are the most fun and will be the focus of this lesson.
Obviously these are only applicable to live poker, where they can help a player win some crucial pots over a lifetime. Unless you are a savant, learning and analyzing a cluster of tells does take some work.
Spotting Accurate Poker Tells is Hard
What makes tells hard to implement is the way they vary from player to player. For example, a player may throw his chips into the pot with force, and then leave his hands out near the action. For most players this means a big hand, for other players, it is a bluff. Some poker tells are false, many are contradictory, and some are just downright unreliable. There is no magic to it.
As you make observation a habit, you will learn to sift through these multiple tells and notice that the first tell is very often genuine, and the shortest tell is the most reliable. Most long, drawn out tells are false, set up to confuse. We have all seen a Hollywood tell as someone makes a screwed up face of displeasure and then bets! The general rule is that weakness usually means strength, and strength usually means weakness. But, you must decide how much weight to give a tell at any given moment. If you make learning tells fun, it will be an ever-changing, exciting part of your poker arsenal.
A List of Common Poker Tells
There are many types of poker tells. The lists that follow in this lesson should only be used as a general guide. The reliability of each varies, and guessing the reliability of each poker tell is an art form. Many tells mean strong with one player and weak with another, it is up to you to tell the difference by being observant.
Poker tells before the cards are in the air
- Watch how players buy in. Do they buy in for a full rack or a short one?
- If a player buys his chips in a loud, flamboyant, money waving act, he will likely play that way.
- A conservative approach to dressing often means a conservative style of poker.
- Sloppy chips stack, usually means sloppy play.
- Do they handle their chips like they know what they’re doing, or do they fumble around like a rank amateur?
Poker tells that may indicate a strong hand
- Fluid speech.
- Shaking hands.
- Full relaxed lips.
- A full, ear to ear, relaxed smile.
- Eyes open, not blinking.
- Stares at flop, and then glance out of corner of eye at players.
- Blood pressure is up. Red in the face or throbbing vain in neck or head.
- Drawing in a big breath, nose flaring, and rapid breathing usually mean ready for action.
- Glancing at chip stacks (their own or yours) to see how much to bet.
- Impatient, wants to bet.
- Suddenly sits back in chair, relaxed, calling or betting.
- Suddenly sits up in chair, becomes very attentive.
- A player’s hands or fingers going closer toward the action, toward the middle of the table.
- Anything held up in the air, shoulders, head, nose, fingers, thumbs, or eyebrows arching.
- Sliding chips delicately, quietly into the pot.
- Look at flop then glancing intensely at players.
- Cheek muscles start to flex.
- Some players try to act relaxed, looking off at a TV or a waitress, and then betting.
- Pupils of eyes get bigger.
- Protecting hole cards more than normal.
- Acting weak by making a noise, sighing or shrugging as they call or raise. (Why give away information when you do not have to? This one is a classic “weakness means strength”.)
Remember, some of these poker tells are more reliable than others. While most poker experts suggest you watch your opponent’s eyes, I suggest looking at his hands. That trembling hand syndrome is usually the sign of a good hand, and it’s the kind of tell that can’t easily be controlled either, so it’s generally reliable.
Poker tells that may indicate a weak hand
- Incoherent, forced, high pitched, slow, broken, or unnatural speech.
- Holding breath and not moving.
- Putting chips into the pot with great force.
- Staring right at you. (Strength means weakness.)
- Picking up a handful of chips like they will go into the pot if you bet.
- Play acting like they are going to turn their cards over prematurely.
- Checking hole cards after flop.
- Treating their hole cards carelessly.
- Inhales when misses and stares blankly into space.
- Breaths through mouth when worried.
- Licking or sticking out lips.
- Lips tense, and get smaller.
- Upper lip develop stiffens.
- Biting lip.
- Tongue in cheek.
- Covers mouth.
- Eyes squinting.
- Eyes blinking.
- Eyeballs rolling.
- Hand over eyes.
- A fake smile.
- Nail biting.
- Hugging oneself.
- Hands and arms go toward the body, toward safety.
- Rubbing of hands, arms, legs, neck, hair, nose, lips, and chin, to pacify oneself.
- Nervously pressing and wring ones hands till knuckles turn white.
- If they stop riffling chips, shaking leg, grinding teeth, tapping, chewing toothpick or gum.
That’s quite a list. Pick a few and see if you can spot any tells next time you play live poker. Now let’s look at some of the fundamentals to successfully spotting tells and other factors you need to consider.
Beginner Poker Tells
It’s important to recognize that beginners will not go to great lengths to confuse you with reverse tells. Don’t read too much into their bet timing or the body language they are giving off. If you are going to look for tells, just know that the most obvious ones are going to be the most accurate.
Online Poker Tells
Since you can’t physically see your opponents when playing online, the physical tells we’ve mentioned are clearly not going to apply. Remember though, that betting patterns are the most reliable of all poker tells. Look out for changes in a player’s betting pattern and observe their timing. A large amount of time before calling can sometimes mean a weak hand, and a fast call usually means a drawing hand. However, timing tells aren’t always reliable, since for all you know the online player is also reading a book, watching TV, or rushing back from the bathroom.
Practice is the Key
Looking for poker tells does not come naturally for most of us. But, after a while you will observe the flow and motion of the table, sifting through countless confusing bits of information, calculating whether to check or bet, all the while relaxing, having fun, talking, ordering drinks, and doing some cheap chip tricks. Once you learn to read the cards (mathematical odds and technical aspect) what is left? Reading people!
You can’t study everyone and everything at once. So focus attention on individual players during your poker session, and never fail to watch a showdown while replaying what you observed during the hand and correlate it with the hands the combatants turn up. The very best time to study your opponents is when they’re involved in a hand and you’re not.
Practice is the key to reading any tell. Whether you are a trained observer in poker or a trained criminal scene investigator (CSI), the key word is trained. Learning the poker tells listed above all at one time is difficult. It is more fun to learn a couple every time you play. For an example, one night at your casino, home or bar game pick a player and watch his energy levels. While he won’t go from nearly comatose to sitting bolt upright in his seat, most players do shuffle around in their chair and sit upright when they have a good hand – or at least a hand they intend to play. Watch everyone’s posture all night and it will become a habit and you will ‘train’ yourself to be observant at the table.
Another way to train yourself is to observe just one or two players for the first 10 minutes and then gradually add other players to the mix. Start with the player closest to you, because they are the ones that affect your play the most. For instance, can you tell if the players to your left are going to fold or raise? Can you tell if the opponents on your immediate right are calling with a big hand or just want to see a cheap flop? Here’s a tip – players with cards cocked in their hand who look like they’re ready to pitch them to the dealer when it’s their turn to act usually do just that. It’s not a universal poker tell, but it’s accurate more often than not.
Setting Up False Poker Tells
You do not want to give off tells, so watch yourself. Do you lean toward the action when you have a good hand? Try this – when you have a marginal hand (such as JT on the button) sit up in your chair, be obvious, squirm around a little, raise the pot, and look at the other players. Notice who looks at you. You just gave them a false tell. They think you have a big hand. Bet the flop and watch them fold. Note which players are not sophisticated enough to notice your Academy Award performance, and be aware of the players that do not ’seem’ to notice but are thinking, was that for real, and who is this hot dog.
Don’t Overestimate the Importance of Tells
Some poker players spend way too much time searching for unconscious poker tells and greatly overestimate there importance. Every poker player knows that they are supposed to hide their emotions and disguise their true intentions. Even people who don’t play poker know this. Sure, some players will exhibit obvious physical tells from time to time, but the conscious things that poker players do at the table are of far greater significance.
Focus on the bigger picture first and categorize your opponents. Are they tight-aggressive? Are they loose-passive? How tricky are they? Putting players into broad categories that define their playing style and tendencies will help you far more than concentrating on the small and unconscious things.
Conclusion
Physical poker tells are nowhere near as important as studying betting patterns and playing styles. Once you have mastered these then, and only then should you look for the classic poker tells that many players exhibit. But tells are fun, and very few players concentrate on this part of the game – so you will have an advantage. Granted, poker tells will not make you money on every hand or every hour, but over time, they will add to your profitability. In any business, if you could increase profits you’d be very happy.
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By David Sasseman
David lives in Atlanta, Georgia, and has played over a million hands online and many thousands of hands in Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, and Las Vegas casinos.
Related Lessons
Table Of Contents
Are you struggling to turn a decent profit at the poker tables on a consistent basis? Are your results best described as 'somewhere around break-even'?
First off, don't worry because you are not alone. This describes the results of the majority of poker players.
Often, however, it is just a few small poker strategy adjustments that can take your game from mediocre to amazing — from break-even to crushing it.
In this article, I am going to provide you with seven subtle but highly effective poker tips to take your game to the next level.
While I can't promise you'll win a lot of money with these beginner tips, you should add everything you find on this guide to your poker strategy if you really want to improve your poker games.
Continue reading to discover poker tips like:
I've also added something about pocket aces because you should be always careful when you get them. I have seen so many people play them the wrong way...
1. Think About Ranges, Not Hands
It doesn't matter what type of casino poker you play: one of the easiest ways to spot average and beginner poker players is to look at how they think about what their opponent has.
- Beginner poker players try and put somebody on a specific poker hand.
- Advanced poker players think in terms of ranges. This type of thinking that can be extremely important when calculating pot odds.
A range is the entire spectrum of poker hands somebody can have in a specific situation. For example, player X can have a flush, top pair, middle pair, bottom pair, a draw, ace-high or a complete air-ball bluff.
Good players who have already gone through a few poker strategy articles understand that player X will show up with this entire range of hands with various frequencies. They don't focus on identifying a single winning hand, but they try and figure out those frequencies and then make the best play.
Average players try to put an opponent on exactly (or some other specific hand) because that's 'what their gut tells them.'
If there's one thing you need to know when you learn the game, this is that poker strategy tips and 'gut feeling' don't go well together. Basing your tournament strategy or cash game play on what you 'feel' is never a good idea.
In the first video of this beginner's guide to poker tips for beginners, poker pro Jason Wheeler explains how uses every possible information available to understand his opponent's cards and choose his play.
Poker Tip Key Takeaway: Be Realistic
Don't put your opponent on a single hand but think about ranges. Nobody has a specific hand in poker — they only have a range.
If you are in still the process of learning the game and you need some help, have a look at the complete poker hands ranking.
2. Ditch Your Favorite Hand
A lot of people have a favourite hand. I know that every time I get dealt the old -suited my eyes light up and I want to play it so bad!
However, in reality, I know that -suited is a mediocre hand. Definitely not one of the best starting hands you can hey in a game of Texas hold em.
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It makes sense to play it in some spots — late position, for instance, in an unopened pot. But it should almost always be folded in early position.
If you currently have some favourite starting hands, that's fine — most people do. But don't give them preferential treatment and make bad plays with it.
Winning poker is about math and cold hard logic, not superstition.
Poker Tip Key Takeaway: Be Smart
Playing too many hands is a widespread mistake (see: Five Common Mistakes New Poker Players Make).
One of the best ways to avoid it is to introduce range-based thinking in your reads.
3. Adopt a Consistent Strategy
Another big key to becoming a great poker player (and perhaps one of the most important poker tips on this strategy guide) is to consistently apply a winning strategy.
It is not okay suddenly to change things up (e.g. to open with -suited from early position or turn yourself into a calling station) just because you are bored or tilted.
All of your learning, experience and study over the years has given you a body of knowledge telling you how to play Texas Hold 'Em.
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But your poker strategy only actually matters if you apply it at the poker tables all the time. Every hand counts and every session counts.
The best poker players, those ones who know how to win at poker, apply the same winning strategy over and over again, no matter how they feel or what their recent results have been.
Poker Tip Key Takeaway: Be Consistent
Poker is a long-term game. You need time to build your bankroll and find the right cash game or poker tournament strategy that works for you.
You should not change your strategy after a big win or a big loss (here's why).
If you really feel like your approach needs to change, make sure you read this article on Handling the Ups and Downs of Low Stakes Poker first.
4. Always Have a Reason
Big-time winning poker players will sometimes break from their standard, successful strategies, but always for obvious reasons.
An average player might start raising -suited in early position because he is bored or wants to make something happen.
An elite poker player will raise with this hand in this position on occasion because he notices the table is playing passively and there are a couple of recreational players in the blinds.
There is a clear reason then to believe that raising -suited in early position (typically a fold under normal circumstances) might be a profitable play in this situation.
If you can produce a well-reasoned argument why deviating from your regular strategy might be more profitable, then it is okay. It is the 'because I feel like it' or 'I am bored' reasoning that has to go.
Poker Tip Key Takeaway: Be Reasonable
Think. Use your experience to analyse the situations, and then understand 'why' you would take one road and not another.
If you don't have enough experience to evaluate different situations yet, you better go back to the free games and grind.
5. Know When to Fold Your Aces
Another clear difference between average poker players and great poker players is the ability to fold an overpair.
Do you know that little sick feeling you get when you have and a tight opponent raises all-in on the turn? You make the so-called 'crying call', and he turns over the set yet again.
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You need to start paying attention to that feeling a little bit more often.
Certain patterns are easily recognizable at the lower stakes — especially when you play online poker — where it is 100 per cent the correct play to fold your overpair.
Good players can let go of any emotional attachment to their pretty-looking hands. Average players get married to their aces or kings instead, and can't let them go even when they know they are beat.
Poker Tip Key Takeaway: Aces Lose Too
Starting with the best of all poker hands isn't enough to guarantee you a winning hand.
Ask anyone for good poker pro tip, and they will all tell you the same thing: sometimes, you'll need to fold those Aces.
For more info on this specific topic, have a look at this article on How to Play Pocket Aces.
6. Realize Tilt Only Hurts You
Tilt is a destroyer of bankrolls, dreams, and poker careers.
I can't tell you how often I receive emails or comments from people who describe to me how they've tilted vast amounts of their bankroll away when things went badly at the poker tables.
The reality of poker is that sometimes things will go badly for you, and there is absolutely nothing that you can do about it.
This is what you sign up for every time you sit down to play card games.
There's always the possibility you might run terribly. You might run lights out as well, though.
When you allow yourself to lose control of your emotions and throw your strategy out the window, the only person you are hurting is yourself.
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All those hours you've spent trying to learn and improve your game were basically wasted because you decided to choose your emotions over reason when it mattered.
Respect the work that you have done. You owe it to yourself to maintain more composure and stop throwing away money when the cards go south.
Poker Tip Key Takeaway: Relax
The psychological side of poker can be overwhelming, and you need to be ready to deal with it.
Swings happen and bad beats will come. If you don't know how do deal with this, have a look at the poker tips Italy's poker pro Rocco Palumbo shared with PokerNews at the PokerStars Championship in Prague.
If these poker tips work for Palumbo, they may as well work for you!
Live Poker Tells Reddit Games
7. Don't Play Bad Games
One more way beginner poker players can sabotage their poker results is by stubbornly playing in games that are full of decent-to-good regulars.
If you can't find somebody at the table who is playing very poorly, then you have to ask yourself why it is that you are even there.
If you only play poker for the mental challenge or recreation or pleasure, then this is fine. This poker tip doesn't necessarily apply to you.
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But if winning real money or chips is at all a priority for you, then you need to remember you don't turn a significant profit in poker by pushing tiny edges against good poker players.
You win big by playing against players who are making significant fundamental errors and giving away their money over the long term.
As the classic movie Rounders reminds us, 'If you can't spot the sucker in your first half-hour at the table, then you are the sucker.'
Poker Tip Key Takeaway: Choose the Right Games
Don't sit with the pros if you can't beat them. Selecting the right games is key to your successes in poker — one wrong move, and you are out.
Again, there's no shame in playing free poker games or in looking for the best freeroll poker tournaments to play online if that's what you need.
Final Thoughts
The divide between break-even beginner players and big-time winners is not as wide as many people think.
It is often just a few simple little adjustments you can learn over time that can carry you over to enable you to start winning at a higher clip.
A lot of it has to do with starting to view the game in a much more cold, detached, mathematical, and logical way than you presently do.
Emotional and/or superstitious poker players almost always lose or struggle to remain even.
Elite poker players, meanwhile, know they are in it for the long haul and don't get overly wrapped up in each hand or moment. They continue to make the most profitable play again and again, no matter what.
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Nathan 'BlackRain79' Williams is the author of the popular micro stakes strategy books Crushing the Microstakes and Modern Small Stakes. He also blogs regularly about all things related to the micros over at www.blackrain79.com.
This article was originally published on Feb. 13, 2017. Last update: Oct. 12, 2020.
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