Do You Have A Tell?

Do you have a tell or tells? Every good poker player has asked that question of themselves. It is pretty scary to think that you are giving away the contents of your hand(s). Can you imagine how much money it has cost you if you do have a consistent tell?

I'm fairly sure that most of us have one or more gestures or habits that give away some information to the astute observer. I have discovered a couple of tells that I had and have worked to remove. It is an advantage for low-limit poker players that most low-limit opponents are not terribly observant. Most of the competitors we will encounter have not developed their own style of play to the point where they can detect subtle clues about your play. However, that should not stop us from doing our best to discover and eliminate any tell we might have. If we lose even one big pot a month because of a tell, it will cost us quite a bit of money.

One of my tells happened when I had raised before the flop in Texas Hold 'Em with, say, the ace-king. If there was no help on the flop, I would quickly make a bet to try to intimidate the players into folding. The quick action was the tell. When I had a good hand, my actions were a fraction slower. When this was pointed out to me, I was able to modify that quick action. Now I make a conscious effort to have a consistent pattern to my betting. Some days I will bet quickly regardless of the strength of my hand, while betting extremely slows on other days, regardless of the strength of my hand. Sometimes I will carefully stack my bet in front of me; other times I will toss the chips. Sometimes I will say, "I will just bet this one time." This is obviously a ploy to get callers, and I will say it whether I plan to bet only once or all the way to the river. After the players have seen and heard that I will say, "I will just bet this one time" when I have a weak hand and I don't want callers. While the words are exactly the same, my tactic at this point is to get people to fold marginal hands.

HOW DO YOU DETECT A TELL IN YOURSELF?

I think the best insurance against a tell is to have a trusted friend watch you play, and you watch him and compare notes. This is how I discovered that "quick action" tells. This seems to me to be the most efficient way because a tell is difficult for you to recognize in yourself. When you do this, it also helps you focus on all your actions and you become more aware of how you are coming across to others.

Another way to try to detect a tell in yourself is to reflect on your actions after a big pot has been played out. Review each motion carefully and the force of each motion. As Mike Caro, The Mad Genius of Poker, writes in his Book of Tells, strong means weak and weak means strong. So if a person throws his chips out in an intimidating and forceful way, it could be that he is bluffing or doesn't want any callers. If he just carefully, almost apologetically, lays the chips on the felt, he usually will have a very good hand and he wants you to call or raise. Look for those kinds of actions in yourself. If you try to bully people off the pot with actions or words when you have a weak hand, you have a tell. The thing to do when you discover a tell is to do just the opposite for a while until the observant players realize your tell is being used against them.