Hi there,

I am new to this forum and asking for advice on a specific tell I encountered lately playing live 2.-NL at the casino.


I pick up QQ UTG +1 and raise it up to 8.- (4x blind). MP 1 calls me (haven't seen him playing before) Pot is 20.-

Flop comes: 9 6 4 rainbow and I bet 10.- he fairly quickly calls.
Turn: A, I check and now the TELL:

As soon as the ace hit, he moved his hand towards his chips, stopped for a sec and checked behind.

River comes a blank and I make a small block bet and he raises to double the amount I bet, which was pretty small looking at the pot. I go into the tank and open fold QQ. After asking him, whether he hit, he said: I knew the Ace was gonna scare you.

Did he hit the ace?

thanks for your help

Folding Royal Flush

No.

Instantaneous involuntary reactions to new information are usually honest. Slower reactions that go on longer are more frequently acted and will usually mean the opposite of what they say on the surface.

Specifically reaching for chips while in position facing the preflop raiser: this is a commonly used false tell to deter a bet. It isn't 100% but I've certainly seen it used quite a bit in weak games. It usually indicates a draw or weak hand looking to see a cheap or free street.

Here I would suspect villain of holding 87 or 75. If I saw the reaching for chips tell on a scare card I would definitely bet any hand that beats the obvious draws. I wouldn't bluff as I expect most villain's to call anyway.

Having checked turn, seen villain check behind and a blank fall on the river I would check/call expecting to induce a bluff a lot of the time. By checking the A turn and blocking betting the river you cap your range at weak AX and will face a bluff very frequently from players capable of bluffing.

The only thing that makes me doubt the villain was bluffing here is that his river raise was so small. I expect bluffs to be larger to ensure a fold from pairs lower than AX. The legit hands villain could play this way are sets. In that case the reaching for chips was failure of poker-face and an honest reaction. Villain was pleased to see the Ace and hoped to now get paid by your AK/AQ and grabbed for chips in his excitement. When you checked he realised your range was more like Weak AX and KK- so he checks back to avoid scaring you. Then you bet river and he min raises to try to eek out a little more value for his set. This fits with his speech at end "I knew ace scared you" combined with not showing any bluff. What he's saying is honest and he doesn't show because he's not proud of getting so little value from a set.

Having said that; a smart player will realise that your calling range is elastic here. You will call a moderate raise with weak AX but fold KK- to a min raise. Therefore villain could reason that a min raise gets enough folds to be profitable while a bigger raise doesn't get enough extra folds to be worth the risk of a call by AX.

Basically pick a line and stick to it. Either check both turn and river and call to pick off bluffs or bet/fold turn and evaluate river.

Something that will help you decide whether a physical tell is honest or acted is watching a player's reactions over multiple hands. If they normally don't react at all then there is a good chance a reaction is an acted false tell. If they constantly react to their cards and the board then it is more likely they are just bad at containing their feelings and what you see is what you get.

Great response above .. There is a Tells/Behavior section for threads under the 'General Poker' tab as well.

The 'gold' above is here .. "Basically pick a line and stick to it. Either check both turn and river and call to pick off bluffs or bet/fold turn and evaluate river."

When you bet the River you are rarely going to be called by hands you beat, so it's much better to just check or call their bet. Unfortunately bet sizing can vary since some players will be 'pissed' that you didn't bet the Turn and get greedy on the River, but that's also a sign of a bluff so use some of the chips you saved by not betting the Turn to call the River with.

The silver above is getting some 'data' on an opponent to feel more comfortable with how you are reading their physical tells.

The bronze above is the bet size tell, however I've seen plenty of bluffers who use the min-raise type of bets as bluffs .. plus they are willing to give up chips that they didn't have to use on the Turn in a fleeting effort to take down the pot. When they do this it's more a testiment of how they view you since they don't think you are willing to call more than a small raise when they 'know' you have an under-pair and perhpas see you as passive as well. GL

If villain was really strong he would be more likely to stay still because movement would draw more attention to him and someone who is really strong wouldn't want that.

But this thread is emphasizing the importance of tells too much IMO. I think tells are useful but even more useful would be the bet sizes on the river.

I don't know if he had an ace. Nobody here would know.

A problem here is even if villain feels unsure about his hand and gave off a weak tell he could still easily have you beat with a weak ace. So even if you picked up on a tell that says he is weak it wouldn't do you any good and could cost you in this situation.

Never rely only on a tell. Use tells to help you decide in spots where your normal analysis of villain's range gives no conclusive answer. I.e. a tell that helps you take an action that range analysis suggests anyway is fine, a tell suggesting you do something wildly different to what range analysis suggests is going to be too risky to use.

This is better suited for the tells forum. Just know that you will never get an answer that is 100%. You'll get a more than likey it is x or more than likely it is y answer.