"Tell me a story" - The Sky Poker guide to 'tells'.

Sky_Dave · April 2010

Tied in with another post on the Poker Clinic about the difference between live and online poker, this thread is going to try and put together a list of tells that work for you at the tables. Of course this would apply more to live poker, but there are also some good online tells, which I will demonstrate in just a moment...

Add your own tells here and hopefully we'll get a handy little list that help the Sky Poker Community win a few extra pots.

Sky_Dave · April 2010

Dave's Online Tell #1: Opponent insta-shoves on the river.

You know those hands when you've got a semi-strong hand and your opponent has just snap-shoved on a river that makes no sense? I am far more likely to call when an opponent insta-shoves the river. Why? Because a monster hand here looks to extract value, while medium strength hands will tend to 'get to showdown' cheaply more often than not. If the bet represents a massive overbet, I'd be far more weighted towards a call because of the timing tell.

Agree or disagree?

Eagle26 · April 2010

good thread this mate! the basic online tells most people know.
time between actions - generally a long pause followed by a bet is usually sign of strength, where as a long pause followed by a check tends to be a sign of weakness .
chatbox - the more a person chats the worse they are at poker, also players who abuse other players in the chatbox tend to be poor players, why would a good player abuse a fish?
posting out of position - players who post out position are normally loose/poor players. similarly those who delay posting until its their big blind are usually good patient players.

as for Live play most people tend to look facial expressions, body posture and generally most players like to be actors so those acting weak are normally strong and those acting strong are normally weak.
a very good tell in live poker and very unobvious one is the FEET as its the most honest part of our body! why? as we have never been taught to lie with them! most poker players will look at a persons face when playin live to get reads however it is the most difficult to gain info from because its the easiest part of our body to hide, conceal and decieve with. if we couldnt control our facial expressions where would the term 'poker face' come from? .. so dont look at faces at the table look for ' happy feet' - feet that wiggle /bounce with joy at the table! when players have happy feet its because they have great hands, its a high confidence tell a signal that a player is strong! ok you cant see the the feet of most the players directly at your table, but you can see them of the players either side of you and for the rest of the table there is an easy way to determine if an opponent has happy feet- you need to look at his shirt and shoulders, if his feet are wiggling or bouncing his shirt and shoulders will be vibrating or moving up and down!
i read about this happy feet thing in a book a while ago and its the best piece of info ive gained for playin live/against my mates! its something ive never even considered lookin at before but believe me you will be surprised how much info you can gain from the feet!!
lookin at standard body language is good tell too, a person who is leaning forward is normally strong, someone who is leaning back is usually weak. the position of a persons hands is another good tell, same again the more forward at the table there arms/hands are the stronger there cards normally and vice versa. .
hope this helps some of u anyway because it has helped me alot - Andy

jubbley · April 2010

I think the biggest tell is when your asked to go all in with 8 2 play it if you have premiums fold. works for me.

silentbob · April 2010

In Response to Re: "Tell me a story" - The Sky Poker guide to 'tells'.:

good thread this mate! the basic online tells most people know. time between actions - generally a long pause followed by a bet is usually sign of strength, where as a long pause followed by a check tends to be a sign of weakness . chatbox - the more a person chats the worse they are at poker, also players who abuse other players in the chatbox tend to be poor players, why would a good player abuse a fish? posting out of position - players who post out position are normally loose/poor players. similarly those who delay posting until its their big blind are usually good patient players. as for Live play most people tend to look facial expressions, body posture and generally most players like to be actors so those acting weak are normally strong and those acting strong are normally weak. a very good tell in live poker and very unobvious one is the FEET as its the most honest part of our body! why? as we have never been taught to lie with them! most poker players will look at a persons face when playin live to get reads however it is the most difficult to gain info from because its the easiest part of our body to hide, conceal and decieve with. if we couldnt control our facial expressions where would the term 'poker face' come from? .. so dont look at faces at the table look for ' happy feet' - feet that wiggle /bounce with joy at the table! when players have happy feet its because they have great hands, its a high confidence tell a signal that a player is strong! ok you cant see the the feet of most the players directly at your table, but you can see them of the players either side of you and for the rest of the table there is an easy way to determine if an opponent has happy feet- you need to look at his shirt and shoulders, if his feet are wiggling or bouncing his shirt and shoulders will be vibrating or moving up and down! i read about this happy feet thing in a book a while ago and its the best piece of info ive gained for playin live/against my mates! its something ive never even considered lookin at before but believe me you will be surprised how much info you can gain from the feet!! lookin at standard body language is good tell too, a person who is leaning forward is normally strong, someone who is leaning back is usually weak. the position of a persons hands is another good tell, same again the more forward at the table there arms/hands are the stronger there cards normally and vice versa. . hope this helps some of u anyway because it has helped me alot - Andy
Posted by Eagle26

I don't entirely agree with that. Quite often I can take longer than normal making a decision & there can be various reasons for that. It could be down to lagging, multi tabling, kids playing up or many other things. Definitely worth noting but personally not something I rely on too much

DeuceAK_47 · April 2010

In Response to Re: "Tell me a story" - The Sky Poker guide to 'tells'.:

good thread this mate! the basic online tells most people know. time between actions - generally a long pause followed by a bet is usually sign of strength, where as a long pause followed by a check tends to be a sign of weakness . chatbox - the more a person chats the worse they are at poker, also players who abuse other players in the chatbox tend to be poor players, why would a good player abuse a fish? posting out of position - players who post out position are normally loose/poor players. similarly those who delay posting until its their big blind are usually good patient players. as for Live play most people tend to look facial expressions, body posture and generally most players like to be actors so those acting weak are normally strong and those acting strong are normally weak. a very good tell in live poker and very unobvious one is the FEET as its the most honest part of our body! why? as we have never been taught to lie with them! most poker players will look at a persons face when playin live to get reads however it is the most difficult to gain info from because its the easiest part of our body to hide, conceal and decieve with. if we couldnt control our facial expressions where would the term 'poker face' come from? .. so dont look at faces at the table look for ' happy feet' - feet that wiggle /bounce with joy at the table! when players have happy feet its because they have great hands, its a high confidence tell a signal that a player is strong! ok you cant see the the feet of most the players directly at your table, but you can see them of the players either side of you and for the rest of the table there is an easy way to determine if an opponent has happy feet- you need to look at his shirt and shoulders, if his feet are wiggling or bouncing his shirt and shoulders will be vibrating or moving up and down! i read about this happy feet thing in a book a while ago and its the best piece of info ive gained for playin live/against my mates! its something ive never even considered lookin at before but believe me you will be surprised how much info you can gain from the feet!! lookin at standard body language is good tell too, a person who is leaning forward is normally strong, someone who is leaning back is usually weak. the position of a persons hands is another good tell, same again the more forward at the table there arms/hands are the stronger there cards normally and vice versa. . hope this helps some of u anyway because it has helped me alot - Andy
Posted by Eagle26

I think this tell especially works on the river, another tell i use is when they check-call quickly they usually either have a medium strength hand or a draw.

Eagle26 · April 2010

In Response to Re: "Tell me a story" - The Sky Poker guide to 'tells'.:

In Response to Re: "Tell me a story" - The Sky Poker guide to 'tells'. : I don't entirely agree with that. Quite often I can take longer than normal making a decision & there can be various reasons for that. It could be down to lagging, multi tabling, kids playing up or many other things. Definitely worth noting but personally not something I rely on too much
Posted by silentbob

you can assume that players who always take a long time to act are doing other things (multi-tablin, surfin the net) either way they are not giving their full attention to the game! so u can often raise these players out of pots particularly if they are tight...
obviously better opponents will use these tells against u, but here at skypoker its not exactly a tough field and most of the good players we know who they are! these tips are mainly against players who we have no idea who they are! like the chatbox thing - dohhhhhhh (hope he dont mind me usin him as an example) is always chattin but we KNOW he is a good player (maybe he is usin this as an advantage?) so this tell goes out the window, but do u ever see him abusin bad players?? but as a rule when i sit down at a table against a table of unknowns and they are chattin, discussin hands - tellin each other what they had, laughin at other peoples play then i will always put them in the poor player category!
all these tells i have read in various books (which are available to everyone) there are many more tells which obviously people wont add in this thread as they wont want to give away there advantage! make sure you watch each opponent carefully to get an accurate read on them. but like i said in my previous post these are basic online tells

-Typhoon- · April 2010

In Response to Re: "Tell me a story" - The Sky Poker guide to 'tells'.:

posting out of position - players who post out position are normally loose/poor players. similarly those who delay posting until its their big blind are usually good patient players.

Excellent thread and sorry for sounding so thick, but what is posting?

Cheers

Paul

Spike2120 · April 2010

For me bet timings are always the most obvious online tell for me. It can sometimes be so obvious what they are holding just by their betting pattern, but one thing I have noticed is to distinguish between the different players. For example I remember hearing once that when playing online one tell is that if someone is bluffing they bet big and fast, but not always the case some people have a naturally fast game where 9 cases out of 10 they know 5 people down the line what they are going to do depending on situations that could happen along the way.

So when using betting patterns you have to look at the player, if they are a fast player who suddenly takes ages over your call they could be calling marginal hands or they have relative strength and not sure where they are in respect to you in the hand.

Slow players however can speed up for 2 reasons, first one is to bluff cause they are trying to show massive strength not realising they have gone out of their pattern and limited to someone the hands they can be holding, the second is obviously when someone flops a monster or get a premium hand and gets over excited and just goes fast at it in excitement. Way I would try and read this is to look at the bet sizing a small bet screams monster when put with their speed of bet increasing. A bet that is around medium sized say 2/3 pot is a little tricky, its not quite giving them the odds sometimes but its borderline, it can be either or, as it will be enough to take the pot against sub-standard hands but at same time can build the pot against draws with looser players. The big bet makes me think they are bluffing most of the time or they are just way over excited this is because they are not giving any hands the odds to call unless they have a monster draw or flopped better than you so it just looks like they are trying to take the pot down right their.

Basically then for me betting timings tell a lot but at same time it does depend on table image and bet sizing as well to make one big tell. This is because a lot of players can slip up when the adrenaline is pumping and size or timings can go astray you just have to look for them.

Spike2120

Spike2120 · April 2010

In Response to Re: "Tell me a story" - The Sky Poker guide to 'tells'.:

good thread this mate! the basic online tells most people know. time between actions - generally a long pause followed by a bet is usually sign of strength, where as a long pause followed by a check tends to be a sign of weakness . chatbox - the more a person chats the worse they are at poker, also players who abuse other players in the chatbox tend to be poor players, why would a good player abuse a fish? posting out of position - players who post out position are normally loose/poor players. similarly those who delay posting until its their big blind are usually good patient players.

Eagle good post a couple of things I dont agree with and they are players chatting in the box being weak players, their are people who are good players who talk a lot in the chat box. Talking a lot in the chat box is nowhere near a sign of weakness, if anything its something to be worried about, if they have time to talk in the chat box it has to be that they are not doing much else, like surfing net or playing on many more tables. This means their focus is on that table on their poker play. Also thinking about the conversations in the chat box, so much information can be gained from it, admittedly sometimes it has to be done by way of you give some to receive more, but you can find out so much about peoples frame of mind just by chatting to them. Another thing is that if they are chatting they are either relaxed and in a good frame of mind or they are stressed and blowing off steam, the good thing is knowing the difference.

Now bet timings I do agree with in the most sense but you have not considered the players speed preference a long pause followed by a check could just be that they are slow players and are thinking about their game and going through all the possible options before deciding, or they are disguising their hands by being consistent with timings letting it go a while and making a decision at precisely that same time as every other. With bet timings its not to generalize but to spot the anomalies someone changing their speed suddenly.

Now about posting, this is perhaps a way of thinking but at same time it could be a day to day thing, it doesnt mean they are weak but that they are eager to play thats a difference, also loose players can be very good cause they know how to use their image. Also someone could post straight away wanting action then 5 hands later nit up, if you get stuck on the thought that he posted early you can not give him credit for his hand call him off light and he gets paid.

I am not in total disagree with this post I am just extending what you put cause you have gone down a stereotypical route so to speak and not considered image or players style in general, also you did tend to link loose with poor players and tight with good players but at same time its how you use your image that makes you either a good or poor player.

Spike2120

&quot;Tell me a story&quot; - The Sky Poker guide to 'tells'.

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"Tell me a story" - The Sky Poker guide to 'tells'.