The Poker Player’s Manifesto: Tells

Continuing along in our discussion about knowing our enemy, today we will focus on tells. Two issues ago, we first talked about knowing our opponents’ tendencies and using that information to guide us through hands. Then, we talked about how conditional variables skew general probabilities, like players playing looser or tighter near the bubble. Tells are the greatest of the conditional probabilities and the most useful at the poker table. If our ranging tells us that we’re 20 percent against this opponent, but we pick up a tell that our opponent is bluffing, then suddenly we have much better equity in this hand. All winning poker players know how to range well, but only the best can use tells reliably.

Gathering information about tells requires diligent research. First, it is essential to develop a baseline for each and every opponent. Baseline indicators include: Overall body posture; where are their feet, legs, hands, torso, and head located in general? Dialogue trends are important. What is their resting heart rate? Respiratory rate? Learn your opponents, and learn what is normal for them. When we are looking for tells, we are looking for deviations from the norm.

Detecting tells on a poker player is a challenging endeavor. We all strive for a perfect poker face to give up as little information as possible. Once we know what to look for though, detecting tells is a lot easier than you might think. Reliable tells revolve around responses from the limbic system in our brains. The limbic system controls things like emotion and memory, and it is where our primal instincts are stored. Being the mammalian animals we are, we are still governed by the fight or flight response, and poker, often compared to war, invokes natural responses from the limbic system. These natural reactions are what we are looking for and form the core of our use of tells.
Basically, everything I look for revolves around how comfortable my opponent is. If that person is confident in their hand, then their body language will often differ drastically from when they are unhappy with their hand. An opponent with a strong hand will exhibit tells indicating comfort and excitement.

The more space a person takes up, the more comfortable they are. Proximity also indicates confidence. The closer a poker player is to the pot, the more likely they are to think that they are winning the pot. Hands are a great indicator of this. Draw a mental line on the table where an opponent’s hands usually rest. If their hands are beyond that line toward the pot, then they’re probably strong, and if their hands are on the rail, then they’re probably weak. Breathing and heart rate are huge indicators of hand strength. If either is elevated, then the opponent is excited. Heart rate is the most reliable, because I don’t know anybody who knows how to control their heart rate yet. Everything else can be faked, but nobody can fake a carotid artery ready to jump out of a throat.

Indicators of weakness are often the opposite of indicators of strength. A player
holding their breath with a baseline heart rate is more likely to be bluffing than a player at normal baseline indicators. A player hunched over their chips with their legs wrapped around their chair legs is in freeze mode, and probably not strong.

My focus on tells is always active. When I am in a hand, I am staring my opponents down, not as an intimidation factor, but simply as an information gathering tool. If I see every reaction they have to everything, then I will have a clearer picture of what is going on. Furthermore, if my baseline is consistent with eyes peering into your soul, you probably won’t be looking at me for tells much. Somebody once told me that I looked like I was angry and ready to blow up a children’s hospital when staring down an opponent. I am not angry, just extremely focused on figuring out what you have this hand. Since the most accurate tells are reactions, they only last a moment. I am focused on my opponents when they look at their cards, the flop, and bets. When I put chips into the pot as a bet or a raise, I am watching my opponents react to the bet. When somebody else puts chips into the pot, I am looking at other opponents’ reaction to that bet. Everybody knows to have a good poker face, but those split second reactions exist. If you catch one, then you are in a good spot, now look at the flop. It’s still there.

After heart rate, the feet are the most reliable host of tells on a poker player. Mama taught us all to understand how to control our face. Most people have a general idea about body language, even if just intrinsically. Nobody ever considers the language that our feet speak. Feet are like horses’ ears, they indicate intention. If you’re talking to a pretty girl and she’s facing you but her feet are facing the door, she doesn’t want to talk to you. Stretched out legs are strong. Happy feet mean happy hands. Feet wrapped around themselves or chair legs indicate fear and a weak hand. And don’t forget about the baseline; some people always have happy feet, but never have a hand.

The key to picking up tells is identifying subtle differences from an opponent’s baseline and interpreting them to the given hand. Often opponents quickly cover up a tell, aware of its existence. When I see that, I know I have something, and I give much value to the first limbic reaction I saw. If I can figure out what two cards my opponent is holding, then it will be really easy to play poker against them. Tells are the only way to narrow a range down beyond mathematical probabilities.

Every time I have made a river bet against Phil Ivey, he has folded or called correctly. Sample size of about eight hands. Never once did he call and lose, and every time I tried to bluff him (twice), he called. I don’t think I am a tellbox, but I don’t think this is a coincidence. I put more work into tells now than any other aspect of my poker game, and getting good at detecting tells is a lot of fun. ♠

Bryan Devonshire has been a professional poker player for nearly a decade and has more than $2 million in tournament earnings. Follow him on Twitter @devopoker.