TexasHoldemPoker-UK

[weirpougs]

since i have been playing home games for auite a while now i think it is probably a good idea to move up a gear in terms of "tells spoting". i have made labels on most of my oppoents now:

A - good player loses a lot mainly due to bad beats not very disiciplined
B - newbie but does understand most poker concepts quite hard to get a read on
C - knows how to play but bluffs alot often slow plays quality hands
D - quality player but v poor heads up play and often i lay down hands correctly
E - good player sometimes a calling station often bluffs aswell
F - complete newbie and will call with almost anything, very hard to bluff but i am normally first to take him down. often will check it down even if he has the nuts.
G- loves to gamble and plays way to many pots, will always hang on for the draw easy to bully about but sometimes inpossible to bluff as will call most bets.
H - solid as a rock, knows the pot odds but doesn't like to gamble at all, very strong at heads up play.

myself - aggressive but tight, my disicpline is still improving with expirence but i need to work on betting large hands e.g AA i always over bet as i feel if i don't get a call i can show the table making bluffs late on easy. what do you think about this?

so..my original question is how do you/did you first go about picking up on physical tells i feel i've sported most weaknesses in my oppoents betting patterns but still hardly ever get a read physicaly in their movements. any ideas?

[Andy]

Personally, I am player H there I would say. Probably a bit too calculated at times to detriment of having a gamble.

However, on to the answer:

Tells are great when you play the same guys time and again but when you are against all strangers, especially in a MTT, the number of tells you can get on them is severely limited by the number of hands you get to see them play.

MTT tables have a finite life so really, you are at best going to pick up a couple of betting patterns from each person and little else. I wouldn't be overly concerned with looking for physical tells as I find very few exist in reality, despite what some poker books will tell you.

At a ring game or home game where people can hang around for hours, tells play a much larger role but again, it is all in the betting patterns primarily. A weak player will certainly play similar hands in similar ways pre-flop and then depending on the flop, will fall into the same old pattern time and again. Stronger players will mix it up making tells harder to make in which case you had better hope that your timing is good and the card gods are smiling

[shaggy]

I agree, physical tells aren't always helpful, especially against good players as you reach a point when you start second guessing people and think they are double or triple bluffing.

However, i think there are one or two tells which are fairly reliable as they are subconscious. The shaky hands are the classic. Unless I am playing an alky, i'd always fold against someone with shaking hands. They usually have aces. This tell is hard to fake.

i also find that when i get dealt an excellent hand, i inadvertantly glance at my chips, as if to see how much i've got to bet with. i'm trying to cut this out, but it's very hard, its quite a natural reaction