I'm quite familiar with Elwood's material. In fact his chapter "Post Bet Tells: Strength" addresses this exact tell as strength. Page 149.

Then, on page 151, he goes on to say how it could be the exact opposite.

You are talking to one of the few regulars on this forum who gives live action tells any merit at all, and you are talking right past me after recieving good advice from Venice that the betting pattern is all that is holy.

If someone takes a c/c, c/c, lead line when the front door flush comes in, they have a flush. I don't need villain to listen to the cracking of an Oreo to realize this.

The advice you have been given is to get better at line reading and also to know how/when to bluffcatch. If you want to continue on trying to learn what it means when I burp mid hand you are focusing on the wrong topic.

I don't put hardly any stock at all in tells. I would just play the hand based on how you've observed the opponent play his hands.

Although I will say that this spot is not incredibly straightforward. On the one hand, we have a very passive player who quietly limps and check/folds every flop getting very aggro (which leans towards a made hand better than one pair). On the other hand, he's extremely short and shortstackers can get the last of their chips in extremely lightly (especially if he's tilting a bit from not winning lately). Plus would a strong hand (such as a set) attempt to blow us out of the pot on a non-drawy board.

Anyways, bottom line for me is that a normally passive player has shown strength and committed all his chips, so it's rare that 2nd pair is going to be good here. Plus we're not even getting 2:1 odds, so we don't have good odds to catch up (if we're drawing live). So I would fold.

ETA: Maybe "not believing" in tells is a little too strict. But most of the time, I'm thinking they should really be the last thing considered and only be the tipping point one way or another in a close decision. Most cases aren't very close.

Gdoesn'tbelieveintellsG

I would have folded preflop here. Your hand doesn't play well OOP, and the pot is small with not too many limpers.

Lol. So u fold the bb instead of checking?

I'm wondering if I should have just posted a different hand (and made it up), or maybe I should have avoided posting a hand at all because I think it distracts from what I really wanted to talk about.

And I think we agree more than you realize. This isn't my first thread on twoplustwo. I'm well aware that the value of tells can be vastly overrated by beginners.

My favorite books btw aren't written by people like Elwood or Caro or Navarro. My favorite/most helpful books that I've read are written by Ed Miller, who says very little about tells, even in his hand reading book which I think has done much more for my game than any book on tells.

For the average player at these stakes, I would put an overpair at the bottom of his "staredown" range. I was expecting a set tbh.

I've called this 3 times. The first time it was a rivered full house. The second time, it was a turned nut gutshot. The third time, it was AK on an A high board in a 3-bet pot. I leveled myself into calls on all of these hands and lost them.

Since then I've been folding to the "death stare." I've folded twice to it. One guy showed quads for a high hand bonus. The other did not show, but he was a nit who bet big so I'm pretty sure he had a great hand anyway.

I've seen other players do it to others a few times, but I don't remember those hands as well because I wasn't in them and I'm a self-centered donk.

If we see a player who does this every third hand or so, chances are he's not just doing this with monsters. But, if I'm against an unknown, who is giving me the stare, for the first time in the session, after putting in a big bet, I'm folding all but the very top of my range.

This is just my experience. My sample size is small. Only 5 hands, 4 of which were monsters and likely the 5th. I suppose I can add your results to my sample as well. So my personal sample is at 5+/6 for monster hands.

I'm curious what more experienced live pros think of this tell, and if their experiences match up with mine.

Think about the the hand for a minute. It was limped pf. He know he has a good hand, but not the nuts. Of course it would be stupid to fold a set here, but he desperately wants to have the winning hand. So he knows he's weak relatively so he's going to project super strength more in hope that he has the winning hand.

Most bad (including many 2+2 posters) want to win on the flop. They don't want to take the risk of being beat on the turn, so they do whatever it takes to win the pot immediately. They never think that a better hand is not folding.