I see a lot of live players wearing Headphones jamming out to music.

Thoughts on this?

Does it help or hurt your decisions in the game?

Depends on whether it helps or hurts your decisions in the game. Kind of dependent on the person. Some people swear by them, say they help them keep focused. Others say it distracts them from paying attention to the other players, missing valuable information.

Its all self dependent, some people can concentrate while listening to music, some cant.

Sometimes I wear them with no music playing to stop players from talking to me (if they are chatty and bothersome as opposed to interesting and pleasant)

Would it be too much of a tell if I wore them to jam out while folding for an hour and then remove them when I get a hand I want to play? Would opponents take that as a tell of a big hand?

Not necessarily. If you're super tight, taking headphones out aren't going to trigger any more alarm bells then normal. As long as you take them off for every hand you're involved in, not just the monsters, you should be fine. If you really can't concentrate on a hand while they're in, you probably shouldn't have them in though. It actually sounds a bit like you're using them to escape the poker table which really shouldn't be the case.

I just want to find a way to stay alert and not bored during a 1 hour folding session. It also tilts me to have to listen to horrible middle aged men talk about how bad they think another player is or like last week when they guy looked at me and said 'are you waiting for Aces?' After he said that another one of the noob players started laughing like he agreed that I was too tight. So what did I do? I loosened up my range and started losing small pots that added up quickly enough that I suddenly found myself in shove mode and then busted.

Should I have called the floor on that guy for his comment? It's not fair for him to verbally share his tell he had on me with other players or new players at the table who might not have noticed how tight I was.

I actually put them in with no music 90% of the time.

If you hate money when playing live, wear headphones. If you're bored, you're missing too much information.

Calling the floor for table talk that happens 24/7? Are you serious? People say this stuff all the time. If you can't handle it then you need to work on tilt issues before you play again. Why would you change your play to match what BAD PLAYERS WANT YOU TO DO? Talk about a leak.

Maybe work on your ego and temper, then go back to the poker room.

I used to wear headphones all the time when I would go play, but you do miss out on a lot of valuable information. You should talk to the people around you and learn something about how they approach the game. You can also determine a benchmark for their voices in their responses to questions, and then when they're in a big hand against you ask them a question and
a) they'll be more likely to answer you because you spoke to them before, and
b) you can better determine from their voice how strong/weak they are.
If you don't want to talk to people, just keep the headphones in with no music.

As for tells against yourself, I also realized that everytime I was in a big hand and I was raised I would automatically pull out my headphones and basically flash a sign saying "I'm in trouble."

You really do think that wearing headphones makes you lose or miss out on a lot of money?

If you are going to put on headphones, please pay close attention to the action and don't slow the game down by people having to bump you or wave their hands at you when it it your turn to act.

Nothing irritates me more than having to do that every time some "too cool" wannabe is jamming out with his Ed Hardy hoody, aviators and Bose headphones on. I do however find my stack growing from their inattention.

I have no problem calling them out if I have to tell them to act more than once and it almost always puts them on some serious FPS tilt.

You playing at Winstar or Choctaw?

I go one in one out usually

I use the little ear buds. One in, one out. I always have the ear facing the majority of the table with out an ear bud in. Usually keep volume low. This way I can still pay attention, but not get overly bored as I did 9/10 hands :/

I usually go with one headphone in so I can still hear the banter at the table and see if there is a conversation that I want to get involved with while Im getting the led out.. Then again I don't have any issues paying attention to the action and staying focused when listening to music but I see how people say your missing out on valuable information when your jammin out. If I am paying attention to everything thats going on a little background music shouldnt hurt my decisions as long as Im staying on top of my ****

dont like headphones they are disruptive

Winstar.

Eh headphones can be nice. I try to make sure I'm not playing music so loud that I can't focus on other things going on at the table. If I find myself a bigger hand I don't usually take the time to take the headphones out (which could be some kind of tell). I just pause my ipod. That way it looks like I'm just dinking around with it rather than obviously shifting my focus.

Always good to have them there for when you're at a really obnoxious table

Don't like them. Used to wear them one in and one out but it was a distraction. Once I stopped and started really paying attention to the gameflow and the dynamics of the table my winrate really started to soar and I became much more creative with my game and was able to much more easily focus on hand ranges and my perceived image and so on. Headphones cost me money...

i listen to podcasts/audiobooks/howard stern show all the time at the tables, it's the only stuff that's interesting enough to me to keep me sat at a live game for hours.

i don't have a problem missing conversations around me, i keep the volume at the lowest level i can while just masking the unwanted noise.

The earphones are totally irrelevent in your case. You have a major leak at the most fundamental level. Listen to Jared Kay. You can implement his advice by doing what this book says:

http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Poker...0829006&sr=1-1

I used to criticize everyone who does this. Hell my online screenname on FTP is xxiPodsxxTiltxxmexx (remove the x's). It's really annoying when some idiot is listening to music and never know the action.

Lately, I listen to music when I'm tilting yet don't want to leave a juicy table. The therapeutic effect of music helps me de-tilt. When I'm folding, I leave the earbuds on. When I see a hand I want to play, I take it off and loop it around my ear. That way I'm always paying attention.

I'll never listen to it just because I'm bored. That's so stupid. You'll lose a lot of reads from player's table talk. I only listen to music when I'm tilting.

I think this strategy is what I was aiming for. Thanks for the advice.