Out of Turn Movements. Trying to read your opponents’ reaction does not imply only looking at a. Defensive Movements. Most experienced players know that when you reach for chips to bet. Small Stakes Poker Tournaments. This little gem is full of useful tips & tricks and grabs the first.

Figuring out reliable online poker tells can be tricky, but there are a few that are almost always accurate. One of the largest disadvantages to online poker is the lack of physical tells you can pick up on your opponents. At brick and mortar cardrooms, poker veterans can often gain insight into their opponent’s potential holdings by spotting subtle (or not so subtle) physical mannerisms.

If you are an online grinder then you may be more familiar with reading players online than reading players in a live poker setting. Picking up on live poker tells comes partly with experience, but there are a couple of soft rules that you can take with you into the casino to give you some idea of what to expect.

The cardinal rule is that strong means weak and weak means strong. This is just basic psychology. If a player has the best possible hand he will try to give off signs of weakness or possibly concern. If a player has a weak hand he will try to appear strong.

These are not hard and fast rules however. Once you know you are dealing with someone who has an understanding of poker psychology you might have to abandon these rules or else you risk being leveled.

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1. Strong Means Weak

Aggressively staring is frequently a sign of weakness. If someone is intent on ‘mentally’ forcing you to fold they will unconsciously try to appear intimidating. This may take the form of a glare, the player may adopt an aggressive posture, or forcefully put chips into the pot.

Different players may exhibit signs of weakness in different ways. Keep your eyes open and don’t rely too heavily on the “strong means weak” tip when you first encounter a player.

You will likely run into many more manifestations of the “strong means weak” during your poker career. Just be mindful of the rule and try to remember what type of player you are dealing with (as well as what type of personality you are dealing with).

2. Weak Means Strong

If your opponent is being very quiet or slumping in his seat slightly he may be unconsciously trying to appear small and weak. According to our rule “weak means strong” and there is a good chance that our opponent has a good hand. The opponent doesn’t want to do or say anything that might encourage you to fold. This may result in him being quiet, a reluctance to make eye contact, deliberate movements, and sometimes a reluctance to engage in conversation.

On the other hand, with different player and personality types you may encounter different manifestations of “weak means strong.”

For instance, talkative players know that they are frequently jovial and engaging when they have weak or medium-strength hands. For a player of this type to appear weak, he must continue to act nonchalant. He may even try harder to appear uninterested in what is going on.

3. Rely Less on Tells if your Opponent is Very Good

Early in your live poker career it may be difficult to tell the difference between a player who is exhibiting a genuine tell and a player sending a false tell. Let me make it easy for you. The players who are decently skilled poker players are usually pretty easy to spot. Strong players will likely have an idea of how to disguise their emotions or display false tells. Read our article on identifying players by type for more information.

Everyone else will pretty much have no clue that they are giving away information. And they will often be bad enough that you will have no trouble separating them from the more skilled players.

Most players who are very good at poker will simply try to disguise their emotions and essentially give away no information. It is usually pretty rare for someone to try to send a false tell.

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4. Get Them Talking

If you have a difficult decision to make, try to get your opponent talking.

You can frequently pick up signs of strength or weakness, comfort or discomfort, merely by engaging your opponent in idle chit chat. If he clams up and refuses to talk at all, that in itself can be a sign of either strength or weakness depending on what type of player and person he is.

People frequently talk too much and give away information at the table. The best way to develop your reading skill in this area is to listen and pay attention. Over time you will begin to develop a feel for reading between the lines.

5. Signs of Interest or Disinterest in your Decision Making Process

If someone appears worried that you are going to call then they are likely holding a hand that isn’t very strong.

If they appear interested yet unworried their hand may be strong.

If they appear disinterested, ask yourself if you think they are faking disinterest? If they are pretending to be disinterested then there is a good chance they are weak. If they are legitimately disinterested there is a good chance their hand is at least strong enough that it doesn’t mind going to a showdown.

Figuring out how to read your opponent’s level of interest is tricky and comes with practice.

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In this article, I will cover some of the most common tells in poker. I will tell you how you can notice subtle changes in your opponents’ behaviour, and use it to predict how strong their hands are.

By reading this page, you will be able to learn some of the following things about poker bluffs and tells:

Poker is a gambling game like no other. This game that originates from the 19th century United States is today one of the most popular forms of casino entertainment, being played all over the globe.

The reason why poker is so unique lies in the fact that it requires skill to be played. Sure, you will need some luck from time to time, but how you utilise your knowledge of the cards will decide if you win or lose.

This is why poker is so competitive and why you can see plenty of professional poker tournaments that take place every year.

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One of the essential skills in poker, apart from understanding card combinations and complex math, is reading other players’ reactions. It is not easy to notice whether a player is bluffing or not, especially if they are true poker pros.

However, when there’s a lot of money involved in a game of poker, players will feel plenty of pressure and give away some tells that you as their opponent can use to your advantage.

1. Out of Turn Movements

Trying to read your opponents’ reaction does not imply only looking at a player who’s about to play next. You need to pay attention to all the players that are still in play and see how they react to the situation on the table.

When a player is out of turn, but are about to go next, one big tell can be noticed when looking at how they are handling their chips.

If a player in turn is reaching for chips as they are about to bet, and the player whose turn is next immediately reaches for their chips, it is a tell that means that second player probably has a weak hand.

You might wonder why. Well, if a player does have a strong hand, they will usually play it cool, giving other players a reason to buy into the hand so the pot can rise. If a player is reaching for chips early, it probably suggests that they want to keep other players from betting as to give them a notion that their hand is strong, when in fact, it is not.

Now, of course, experienced players who know this and might use this tell as a reverse psychology tactic, but this move is usually subconscious, so you can’t even tell when you’re doing it.

2. Betting Hesitation

Each poker player can take all the time they want to make a move until they are called out by another player.

However, the decision-making time was reduced by introducing a 30-second shot clock at some pro-level tournaments, although each player does have an option to use several time-bank cards that resets the clock.

In any case, poker players can take a lot of time to make their decision, and if after long hesitation they make a significant bet, it is a strong indicator that they have a pretty good hand. Players who bluff usually take less time to make their moves.

The reason this is happening is that bluffing players don’t want their behaviour to be studied longer than necessary, and because of this they are quick to make a bet. They also feel that by making a quick decision, they are presenting confidence. Players with strong hands already feel confident that their cards are going to win them the pot, so they can afford to make their move more slowly, and maybe suggest other players that their decision was not easy to make and that their cards are not that good.

3. Double-Checking The Cards

Each player in a round of Texas Hold’em poker receives two hole cards that lie face-down on the table. Good players remember their hole cards and make their moves according to the community cards.

However, it can happen that sometimes a player double-checks their cards after the flop, turn, or river.

This usually indicates that a player has a weaker hand and are unsure whether that hand will work. It also shows that a player might have lost their focus and are tired.

If you were to have a strong hand and hit a good flop, you would likely not want to draw any attention to yourself. If you were bluffing, double-checking all cards would show a little uncertainty, and other players might smell you out.

Another reason a player might double-check their cards post-flop is that they possibly might look for a straight. It is easier to remember the value of your cards, but unfocused players might forget the suits of their cards, so be careful if there are any suited cards on the table when you’re playing against a double-checker.

4. Quick Calling

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Quick calling is probably one of the biggest and easiest poker tells to recognize. When a player makes a quick call (anything within a few seconds) after the bet was made, it indicates that their hand is relatively weak.

Taking virtually no time to make a decision means that the players who are quick calling haven’t really thought about the possibility of a raise.

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If they had a really strong hand, raising would be the first thing that pops into their heads, and they would at least consider it before making a decision.

Quick calling is not that big of a tell pre-flop, primarily because the pot is still small at that point and players are more loose with their chips. But once the flop is dealt and the bets get bigger, players would want to take a longer time to decide on their moves if they really have strong cards.

Note that players can make quick calls even with great hands if they had a long time to think about it. For example, if previous players in turn took a long time to make their decision, that means that our quick-caller maybe already decided what to do in every scenario.

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5. Glancing At the Chips

When a player before them makes a bet or a raise, some players might get a quick glance at their chip stack.

Looking at your chip stack is never good because it suggests to other players that you are considering a bet or a raise, and that you are likely to have a very strong hand.

Just like many other poker tells, glancing at the chips is subconscious and involuntary. This also happens after the flop, suggesting that the player who took a quick look at their chip stack hit something good and that their hand improved.

Because a lot of players don’t even have control over this tell, they usually wear dark sunglasses so others can’t see where they are looking.

Conclusion

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These are only some of the biggest tells in poker that can help you improve your game at the table. One of the crucial aspects of this game is to remain focused at all times and study the behaviour of your opponents. Sometimes that behaviour is obvious, other times it can be more subtle. Also, by knowing all of this, you can now understand how not to behave with your game and avoid getting exposed.

Nevertheless, understanding poker tells can only make you a slightly better player. It is more important what kind of strategy you come up with. These tells are common and relatively reliable, but remember that they are not rules of any kind and that there can always be exceptions.

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If you feel like you want to add something to this article, feel free to do so. Leave a comment below or contact me directly. I love hearing from my readers!