 Reading
Poker Tells – Your Tool in Becoming a Poker Psychic
Let’s face it, playing poker is becoming harder
and harder, with all the strategy guides proliferating the web
space. And now, there are online poker games wherein you can not see
your opponents’ actual reactions because they are physically located
in a state, or even country, miles away from you. This has made
reading poker tells doubly hard and hiding your own virtual poker
tells also difficult.
So how does one read poker tells without seeing
the person?
1. First off, you have
to acknowledge two things. Poker is a game of odds and it is also a
game of the mind. You can calculate the odds but you can’t really do
much if the odds always end up going against you. What you can
control is your mind. So make sure you release all distractions when
you play. Sure you are playing poker to enjoy but the most enjoyable
part of poker playing, aside from the thrill of the bet, is getting
a player’s reaction right on the spot by analyzing him or her. So
make sure your brain cells are fired up and conditioned first so you
can determine a player’s tells.
2. Reading tells in
not a very easy skill to acquire, let alone hone. You need to have
patience in your poker tells observations. If a player exhibits an
averse reaction and seems to be conservative in one round, do not
set in stone that this person is conservative, ergo, he or she will
not match you in a betting challenge. Stay patient and observe
players in multiple rounds. Do not think that one reaction will
automatically define a player – that this particular tell means he
or she has an awful hand. Be tolerant of the time and absorb
everything before judging.
3. Most importantly,
to take note of tells, you have to literally take down notes. This
is one advantage of online poker gaming. You can have a pen and a
paper handy to write down player tells or you can use a “note pad”
of some online poker rooms. If you are a super genius and you can
retain all tells in your brain at super computer speed, then skip
this trick but for most of us, we need to write things down so we
can use them for future references.
4. In writing down
notes, you have to make sure that they are easily understandable at
first glance. Also, you do not have to get the spelling of your
notes correctly, write in text (SMS) form even so you get to read
and write faster.
5. The reactions and
the decisions of the players after a bet has been made are the very
crucial points that you have to observe to determine a poker tell.
The amount of the raise, the time it took for him to make a bet are
just two points where you can derive your tell from.
Keep in mind that while you are reading your opponents’ tells, they are
also most likely doing the same to you. So make sure you cover your
tells by changing your playing style every now. In doing this, you
can get ahead of the game and surprise the other players at every
attack. |
