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by Al Sousa (site owner)
A large unknown truth in poker is that there is a lot of acting going on at live games. When players lie they are acting. You must figure out exactly what their performance means in determining the strength of their hand. I will put forth a fairly simple way to identify this and the general rules surrounding it. For details on acting tells please read Caro's Book of Poker Tells. This book primarily focuses on the acting side of tells and has all the specific tells relating to behavior.
When does a poker player lie, what do you mean by acting? After our limbic system processes the information it attained from cards or actions we start thinking about the situation and how best to proceed depending on what we want to represent. Since deception and misdirection are key elements in poker many players attempt to extend this to their reaction to cards.
Most weaker players feel they have to attempt to disguise their actions in another form so you will buy in to this act. Professional players will try and remain unmoved by the action or set up a fake tell to dupe you doing what they want.
The general principle to remember is that usually strong means weak, and weak means strong. Players will act strongly when bluffing and act weakly when strong. This action occurs at different times for different players. Some might react in 2 seconds, others 3 or more. But it always follows after the limbic reaction.
Strong hands: sighing, shrugging and checking, looking away, shaking head, betting quietly, holding their cards as if to muck them, are all signs of weak means strong.
Weak hands: Throwing bets in the middle instead of placing then, loud verbalization of betting, forward body motion, aggressive behavior, quick betting can sometimes be a sign, grabbing chips as if to bet when its not their turn to act "oh sorry, I thought it was on me" is a sign of "please don't bet", taking an extra long time to check like they are thinking of the right play to do.
Comfort Level: Daniel Negreanu always talks about a person's comfort level during a hand. This falls within both realms of the reactive or acting tells. Generally a player's comfort level increases or decreases during a hand based on a few main factors, how strong their hand is or improves, their ability to read their opponent's hand, and how the board comes relative to their hand.
When stress develops the brain reacts and starts basically overloading. Chemicals change and synapses can't communicate effectively and try harder and harder to compensate. During a hand this is what happens when a player's hand is weak or a scare card comes and they do not know what to do. They focus so much on not being bluffed, wondering if they have the best hand, trying to figure out what the opponent has that they forget what they are revealing in their behavior. Usually this is a reactive tell like in the previous article.
On the other hand a player with a strong hand such as the nuts or the 2nd nuts doesn't stress, doesn't worry about the opponent, he just wants to get paid. This narrow focus on only his holdings also shows in his behavior because his confidence grows as does his comfort level. He will try anything to get the opponent to pay including acting.
Good players think before the next card comes, plan their hands, see as many possibilities of what might come so they are prepared for the variations and they can adjust better. They try to make sure they are not surprised by improbable outcomes.
If you want to give off as little information as possible set up a pattern of play. How you raise, how you bet, how you fold, how you wait. Think before acting, think about the whole hand and plan it out. Take your time during every street to rethink the action. Finally look at your opponent, not the board, when the next card comes. The board will still be there but his reaction to it and his acting tells will not in a few seconds so get that information.
Next is samples of tells |
