Poker Advice: How To Spot A Poker Player’s Tell Through Betting.
How do you really spot a poker tell? Is there a specific tic or gesture that should be noticed? Is he tapping his finger again? Is he keeping a poker face? Is he talking too much? What does it mean when he stands up from the table? (Well, apart from wanting to go to the bathroom).
Figuring out the tell of a poker player comes from moment to moment, but an overall good assessment of finding a tell comes from patiently observing how poker players play the game of poker. If you’re on the table to play cards versus other cards, then you’ll deservingly win when you hit the best of it, and hopefully that will be enough to give you a good profit. But more than playing the good cards, you have to realize that you are playing people, and the objective of poker is not to get lucky in cards, the real objective of the game is: TO GET THE OTHER OPPONENT’S POKER CHIPS INTO YOUR STACK THROUGH BETTING.
For me, more than figuring out the tell, try to figure the strength of a player’s hand. If you’ve seen the poker TV series TILT, there’s a scene in the last hand of the supposed World Series Of Poker where the hero (I forget his name right now) tells the Matador, “You’ve got Big Slick, I call all-in.” In yet another poker movie called Rounders, Matt Damon lays down his set because he knows Teddy KGB hit the full house because of Oreo cookies (Not that the Oreo cookie was a tell).
I’ve had a moment of such poker brilliance during a 20/40 ring game of No Limit Texas Hold’em. I raised three times the BB pre-flop with A-10 suited in mid-position, and was called by a woman in the dealer button who I know to have a very very tight game. The flop landed A-4-7 rainbow, and I hit the Ace on the flop. Acting first, I opted to check to see if she would bet out on the Ace. She hesitated a bit, and then bet $200 to a $250 pot. I figured that she was making it cheap for me to call, so I knew that she had indeed hit top pair. Now, since it seemed that we had both hit the Ace, I had to make her rethink her kicker, and so I check-raised another $200. She thought about if for a while, but her thoughts weren’t because she was slow-playing. She was indeed frightened of her kicker. Obvioulsy, she didn’t have A-K, so maybe at best she had A-Q. She just called my raise, which led me to believe two things: (1) She wasn’t very sure about her kicker, or (2)she already had at least two pair and was slow-playing me.
The turn threw a 9. I observed her first, and saw that she was just staring at the flop. Usually, staring at the flop means that you’re still looking for a match. So, I knew she had the Ace, and she was looking for a pair for her kicker to make two pair. I thought about what would be a good bet for her to fold, and I decided to just bet $400 to a pot more than $600 dollars. She thought about it, then looked back into her hole cards. I told her. “If you have A-Q, you should call.” She darted a look back at me, and I knew then that she indeed was holding on to A-Q. “But I think you have big slick, or even two pair,” she tells me. I keep quiet, and maintain the poker face. She eventually folds and flashes the A-Q.
Anyway, so I KNEW HER CARDS! And if anyone figures out your hole cards and bets into you, then how can you possibly make a call? If she felt strongly about her cards, and wanted to know if I was holding the A-K, then all she had to do was make a simple move — RERAISE.
Among the many poker players I’ve encountered on the felt, I haven’t really met that many with a lot of sophistication in the betting… The only re-raises that I know of are the ones that go on pre-flop. After the flop, there’s just bet and call, or bet and raise and then fold. Hardly, do I witness any re-raise moves, and for me - the re-raise move is one of the best ways in figuring out what your opponent has in their hole cards. At the least, it gives you an idea on what kind of strength their hand has, whether they’re drawing or hitting something on the board.
The only way to figure out the strength of anyone’s hand is to put some chips into the pot. And if you feel your opponent didn’t hit it, then bet into the pot. If you were being slow-played or check-raised, then do some re-raising. Watch them either squirm in their seats, and use that information on the turn to be more aggressive. Or if they feel sure of their cards, then be careful on the turn and river.
Let’s say you hit the top pair, and bet on the flop, then someone raises into you. Now, you have to presume they hit
two pair, and you’re sharing the same top pair. If you want to find out for sure, then RE-RAISE. Not necessarily all-in, but just enough of a re-raise to make them think that you’re way ahead of them. Bet in proportion to your stack. Have them rethink their cards and their situation.
You have a flush draw, you’d want to see an inexpensive turn in the hopes of catching the flush. But, of course, the top pair will bet hard on it. At least you know they hit top pair or some pair, but if you call, theyll figure that you’re drawing to something and they’ll be tempted to be aggressive if a RED card hits the turn while you’re waiting for BLACK… Instead
of calling, RAISE or RE-RAISE. Let your opponent think that you also hit the top pair, but have two pair, or else let them think that you hit trips with your pocket pair. Why just call? Your chance of winning the pot is either (1) YOU HAVE THE BEST CARDS; or (2) EVERYONE FOLDS.
This aggression and kind of betting will eventually show you what kind of cards your opponents are holding, or it’ll show you a pattern, a move, a something which you can use for another hand later on, or might recognize later on. Of course, I’m not saying that you be a calling station and play every hand. Play mathematically favorable cards, and the rest is just a matter of betting and hopefully collecting. If there’s anything that pushing chips teaches me, it’s that I can set the kind of table tempo I want, and have the other players adjust to the way I want the game to be played. And if I can set the ambiance, then it’s easy to have the players dance to my music.
Even when I’m not involved in a hand, I’m there guessing what the players are holding. I’m watching their bets. I’m watching their betting styles. I’m looking at moments of weakness, and I’m looking at how well they can milk it when they’ve got the best of it. I’m forever observing their poker strategies because one can never stop learning about poker, and more importantly, proper observation will help you in recognizing tells much better.
Eventually, from that information, I can find one moment in which I’ll know the right buttons to press in order to get the most from my opponent’s stack. One mistake from my opponent is all it takes. One shining moment of a proper
diagnosis, one correct read and my opponents will pay dearly. I may have bluffed it, or I might have won it with the right cards, but I know I won because I made the most of the information available. And in the end, I reached my objective - to get my opponent’s poker chips into my stack through betting.
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