Pokerwiner.com → Within poker principles
Behavioral deductions of this sort are so routine in poker that they may not even be included in discussions of tells. I believe most players would see them simply as a given, a response to a little part of the vast background of information which a player processes almost unconsciously during the play of any hand.
(e.g., in the scenario above, involving the $10 – $20 player, I would have a attribute a larger portion of his profits to reading of tells if I were to include such routine observations. As I outlined it, the scenario refers to the less frequent, more pronounced behaviors most players think of as tells.)Yet my detection of the tell above was, in a certain way, sophisticated. Moreover, it points to an area of tell play which may have some untapped potential for profit. My observation was sophisticated in that it involved the detection and interpretation of relatively subtle behaviors.
My opponent did not exhibit any discreet, conspicuous behavior which constituted a tell. Instead she betrayed the strength of her hand through a bit of demeanor, perhaps in part a posture or facial expression which was different in only slight ways from how she might act with a stronger poker hand.
More precisely, she betrayed her own thoughts or knowledge through her external behavior.(“I don’t have much of a hand. I’ll just check and call.”) This raises an important question. Given that players sometimes betray their thoughts or feelings through subtle but observable behavior, how many more such tells might one learn to detect?
If one were to sit at a poker table and do nothing for several hours a day, for several weeks, but look for tells in the subtle actions of one or maybe two players,I would guess that two things would happen: First, one would identify some useful tells. Second, one would become better at finding tells.
There are other aspects of the game which require our attention. In addition, it gets boring watching someone intently, usually discovering nothing of interest over long stretches of time. Ultimately and usually pretty quickly we are lured back to participating in a conversation, thinking about some other point of play, or maybe just daydreaming. Indeed, if you spend all your time between hands looking for tells, your hourly rate will suffer, for you will have neglected everything else which requires your attention as a player.(e.g., assessing the strategic strategy poker approaches used by different players, thinking through the play of a recent hand, determining what adjustments to make in response to gaining or losing players, considering how your opponents are perceiving your play, and countless other factors ).
Thus, I do not suggest that you go out and do nothing but look for tells in your future poker sessions. Nevertheless, there are more tells out there than most players realize, requiring only disciplined observation to uncover. Furthermore, practice should improve one’s skill in this endeavor. Eventually one might become able to spot more tells, with more ease in many opponents. For instance, given that I was able to detect that my opponent was not planning a check-raise, might it not be possible to detect the same thing, perhaps through more subtle behaviors, in more sophisticated opponents? This seems at least plausible. If one could do it, one could certainly win or save more bets.
Playing Too Many Hands-I / Playing Too Many Hands-II
Bad Plays Good Players make / Self-Weighting Cold Calls
Do You Pass the Ace-Queen Test /
Conjecture on the Limits of Tell Detectability
Quick Indicators / Afterthought