I'm not sure if this is the right place, if not feel free to move it. Also, I searched for this topic and got nothing specific on it thus this thread.

Hey guys, I am a recreational $1/$2 at my local casino. I used to play a decent amount but haven't had the time because of school and work. I will surely be going more often as this coming semester my schedule is going to be a lot more free.

Despite this, I play a good amount of home games with friends so I'm not that new to poker. I try my best to avoid showing any affection towards my hands in regards to strength or weakness.

On to the topic:

I want to avoid giving tells to other players and was wondering what I can do personally to make sure I am as ambiguous as possible regarding my hand strength. Currently I am very quiet whenever I play. I never really talk to anyone unless spoken to. I am thinking about buying mirrored glasses because I like the idea of people not being able to see my eyes.

What are some things I should avoid doing?

What are some things I should look for in other players that tell me how big their hand is?

Avoid wearing mirrored glasses this is a huge tell !

when you get ready to bet and they snap grab chips to call whatever they never intend to call and are really weak and want a super cheap showdown

I made an all in call the other day based on a physical tell. The guy moved all in ahead of me and I had only 1 pair. I tanked for a few secs and he proceeded to practically down his entire beer while leaning back trying to look disinterested. I called and he was bluffing with a smaller pair.

Don't worry about tells. If you wear mirrored sunglasses that is a huge tell - it tells me you are a douchebag and definitely terrible. Trust me. Avoid the glasses.

Most of the tells I pick up are timing tells and are basically the same as timing tells online. From there u can also get a sense of how comfortable someone actually is sometimes too but timing tells are mostly what I pick up on cause most ppl have no idea they are taking different amounts of time in different situations.

Go to Amazon and buy Mike Caro's Book Of Poker Tells. It's an old book, but it's still relevant.

Read Mike Caro's Book of Tells first, then work on trying to avoid being "tricky" by giving off false tells. In the end, experience will allow you to react the same way no matter what happens.

The above two posts nail it. We don't need to list tells for you. It's already been done by Mike Caro and more recently Joe Navarro. Read their books, but don't spend too much time worrying about it. I've always believed these books were better at telling players what to be aware of about themselves than as a means of detecting tells in others.

Definitely don't suddenly try to turn into a tell detector and start making 200BB decisions based on whether you thought you noticed somebody's eyebrow furrow every so slightly for a tenth of a second as the river hit.

Caro's book has always kinda annoyed me because he has two sections, where one lists tells that means what they mean, and then in the next section he lists all the same tells where they mean the opposite. It's left as an exercise for the reader to determine which section of the book to apply to a particular tell. That makes it somewhat difficult to apply when detecting tells in others. But it remains perfectly useful as a way to educate players about what others may be looking for.

For what it's worth, I find that simply having a wife children makes me much, much more aware of when people are lying to me.

Most obvious and most useful tell from bad players to my left is the folding tell. If you're in the CO and notice the player on the button is going to fold, guess what: you have the button!

Thank you everyone for the replies.

I definitely look to see how interested players "appear" to be in a hand before making a decision.

Yes, the most useful tell is when you see players behind you ready to fold. Another tip -- don't watch the flop when the dealer spreads it out. Watch the other players. The cards aren't going to change. You can look at the flop later. There are two advantages: 1: you can't give away any reaction to the flop because you haven't seen it. 2: you can watch other players react to the flop. Most of the time you won't get much of a read, but some players react visibly and don't even realize it.

I love it when I'm in position and some villain is staring at me after the flop trying to get a read before he acts first. Most of the time I haven't even looked at the felt.

I've heard this a lot, but if you don't look at the flop when they look at it, i.e. watching them...won't they have the chance to look at you look at the flop because now they aren't looking at the flop and you must?