Find Your Poker Face
I've done a lot of work on poker tells. I've read the one book out there dedicated to tells, written several original articles at PokerTells.com and every time I play a tournament I look for new ones. One tell that I've been pretty interested in lately is blink frequency. You notice sometimes people seem to blink a lot, and then other times their eyes are just glazed. Still trying to figure out what it means, but it seems that blink frequency is one of those things that people can't really help... kind of like the vein sticking out or breathing patterns.
Anyway, enough with finding poker tells. What I want to talk about right now is hiding your poker tells. I think the best way to do this is to (1) be aware of the common poker tells that people are looking for and (2) establish a pattern for your play.
The first task can be accomplished by reading what is out there. Take a look at the PokerTells.com website as a good place to start. The second task can be accomplished by working a concrete pattern into your game. By a pattern I mean standardizing everything... from how many seconds you look at your holecards to what you do right after a flop. You need to make sure that everything stays the same whether you have a strong hand or a loser.
Here are some things that I try to do :
- I try to never look at my holecards until it is my turn to act.
- When it's my turn to act, I look down at my holecards for a three count... counting silently in my head one... two... three... then put a chip over them if I'm going to play or much them if I'm not.
- If I'm going to play, I pull out some chips the same way each time... and release them the same way into the pot.
- I try and make sure that I'm paying attention to the same players and the same things regardless of what I hold.
- When it's time for the flop, look at the opponents... when you finally look at the flop, just glance at it, then look at the opponents again.
- Concentrate on relaxing... relax your face muscles and your hands.
- Try and take the same amount of time to act whether you have a strong hand or a mediocre hand. It's best to come up with a count for each stage of the action. A three count for your pre-flop decision and post-flop decision, maybe a 5 count for your turn decision...
The point of all this is that any variance in your style can give away the strength of your hand. Try and make sure every hand you play will look the same.
Anyway, enough with finding poker tells. What I want to talk about right now is hiding your poker tells. I think the best way to do this is to (1) be aware of the common poker tells that people are looking for and (2) establish a pattern for your play.
The first task can be accomplished by reading what is out there. Take a look at the PokerTells.com website as a good place to start. The second task can be accomplished by working a concrete pattern into your game. By a pattern I mean standardizing everything... from how many seconds you look at your holecards to what you do right after a flop. You need to make sure that everything stays the same whether you have a strong hand or a loser.
Here are some things that I try to do :
- I try to never look at my holecards until it is my turn to act.
- When it's my turn to act, I look down at my holecards for a three count... counting silently in my head one... two... three... then put a chip over them if I'm going to play or much them if I'm not.
- If I'm going to play, I pull out some chips the same way each time... and release them the same way into the pot.
- I try and make sure that I'm paying attention to the same players and the same things regardless of what I hold.
- When it's time for the flop, look at the opponents... when you finally look at the flop, just glance at it, then look at the opponents again.
- Concentrate on relaxing... relax your face muscles and your hands.
- Try and take the same amount of time to act whether you have a strong hand or a mediocre hand. It's best to come up with a count for each stage of the action. A three count for your pre-flop decision and post-flop decision, maybe a 5 count for your turn decision...
The point of all this is that any variance in your style can give away the strength of your hand. Try and make sure every hand you play will look the same.
posted by Dutch Boyd at
01:15
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