Two Common Physical Tells of Inexperienced Players
Having a good idea of what another player has when the action comes to you opens the door for huge wins in Texas Hold’Em. The more advantages you can have on your side, the better chance you have of winning a hand and consequently, your session. So, if a player is giving you free information about their hand before or immediately after they play it, you have to learn how to receive that information and how to benefit from it. Below are two things more inexperienced players might do to clue you in on what they might be thinking, what kind of hand they might have, or if they are trying to pull a fast one on you.
1. Quivering Hands – It is a fact that adrenaline in a persons body excites the senses. When someone is excited, their adrenaline levels go up and if they have no way to release the adrenaline, like when they are sitting at a poker table, the body starts to shake. This will be most noticeable in the hands. A good majority of the time when a player’s adrenaline goes up and you see some shaking in the hand, it’s because they have a winning hand. They are excited because they are about to win a big pot and they are thinking very quickly in their head, making sure they read the board right, their cards right and that they do have as good of a hand as they think. Unless you have noticed a player’s hand trembling since the beginning, it’s usually a good idea to get out of the pot when you see this happening.
2. Watch Their Eyes – This is a really tough one to learn and is very advanced, but can help you in a tough situation. Nuero Linguistic Programming (NLP) studies have shown that eye movement when a person thinks gives you a clue as to what they might be thinking. When a “normally organized” right handed person lies they tend to move their eyes to their right (your left as you look at them). This happens because they are construction what they are saying as they say it and accessing a portion of the brain that does this. When someone is telling the truth or recalling something that is fact based, they look to the left (your right as you look at them). They are now accessing remembered items in their brain, which are generally truthful. So if you were to ask a player something about their hand, or the player is discussing their hand, slight eye movements during the conversation might give you a clue into the real truth.
Both of these techniques take a lot of practice to master. You have to be aware of people’s actions and tendencies before the time comes for you to make an important decision. If you have spent the whole day drinking beer and chatting with a friend at the table, you can not expect to have the necessary knowledge to make a correct read on a player’s tell. On the other hand, if you have been concentrating and learning from the player’s at the table while you have been playing, reading an important tell at the right time could end up earning you some extra chips and even some praise from the table.
