While I don't usually sit at a table and try to uncover any specific "Caro tells" that I have read, I do remember two interesting spots only because these tells were SUPER obvious:

1. One time a guy pushed all in on the river. Now, normally this cat was quiet and calm all night, all of a sudden he became very fidgety and talkative, took off his sweat jacket...talking in short bits and phrases...jerky movement..weird facial gestures. The guy across the table went into the tank and I'm sitting there mentally screaming, "call, call, call! Your pair of aces is good!" Eventually the guy folded, ace queen up (ace on the board) and the all-in guy showed his bluff before mucking.

2. Recently I was with my friend, who doesn't get out much to the casinos. I took him to a 1-2 table when this hand came up. Flop is A Q J, (preflop raise) and the initial raiser throws out a C-bet. The guy two to my right just smooth calls. I lean over to my buddy and whisper to him that the guy to my right has a MONSTER hand! My friend asks, "How can you tell?" I tell him to simply watch him, tell me what you see.
After a few seconds my friend can barely contain his laughter telling me, "You're right...I have a lot to learn." I gave him the advice of looking at your opponent more than your cards in a hand. The tell:
This guy would NOT stop peeking at his cards the entire hand. He had the Oh snap, I just flopped a monster and I can't believe it! It's Christmas time!! look on his face. The dealer would burn a card, dude peeked at his hand. Dealer put out the turn card, dude peeked at his hand, guy bets, dude peeked.....well you get the point. And of course, the typical call, call, well NOW I'll raise the river bet!! It was WAY to obvious.

^^ I'd imagine 1. could also apply to someone holding a monster hand and 2. to someone on a big str8 fl draw.

The thing is most tells like these aren't always the same result and the meaning can vary from person to person. Don't rely on these tells as gold if you don't know the player or have history of what the tell means. Don't get me wrong - it is a tell, but you need to work out what it means. It's microexpressions and body language that are more generic.

So would you guys recommend looking at my hole cards as little as possible throughout the entire hand ?

With one exception...

If you know you've flopped a flush, look anyway. Whenever there is a suited flop everyone checks their cards again to see if they have one of that suit. Not checking your cards and playing it aggressively tells me you've hit it. Checking your cards and aggressively playing it tells me you have the A or K of that suit and are still drawing.

Of course I'm sure others will come up with other exceptions as well, but this one jumped out at me.

Noted, thank you very much.

Option 1: look at your cards before the start of the hand, and remember them. Jeebus, do you have a hard time remembering cards? You'd get killed in a seven-card stud game, what with all those folded upcards.

Option 2: Make looking at your cards part of your routine on every street of every hand you play. Since you always look at them, no information leak.

I don't have a hard time remembering at all.

I generally do option 2. I always look at my hand every street.

This just about says it all, but I might add don't frown when they (hole cards) are weak and smile or sigh when they are strong (you would be shocked how often new/weak players actully do this

There's a ton, but one of the most reliable ones at 1/2 or 2/5 is when somebody either counts some chips out or cuts into their stacks before immediately checking. If they do that they 100% don't have a strong hand and want to prevent being put in an uncomfortable spot by being bet into, so I pretty much snap-barrel everytime someone does this.

I like your advice pfap. Especially about the doing other things with people your own age. Although I'm sure you agree poker can fit in along with these other thing. Or do you believe poker is just a negative for most people? Personally I'm using poker as my sole source of income while the job market still sucks. I could definitely use more non poker activities in my life though.

yesterday I had the "slammed a fist full of chips" on the table when weak, "fired/sprayed chips" when strong at my table yesterday.

Also had the classic sit back in the chair and fold arms when comfortable/strong

When someone looks at there cards and asks how much is it to me? ALWAYS a big hand

lol,this is a great tell to notice.

Others have already mentioned this, but I'll chime in again anyway. I am a near brain-dead when it comes to remembering my cards. There have been times I was thinking about what I had and actually remembered what I had a hand or two ago lol. I also have a hard time remembering what suits I have with an unsuited hand.

So to protect myself from my own lack of retention, I check my cards multiple times during every hand. I absolutely continue to check even when I am 100% certain of what I'm holding.

Consistency is what's most important. If you always do something whether your holding is strong or weak, it's not a tell.

'Course, some people won't be that aware and will only notice you looking the one time they're in a hand with you and will take your action as a tell. I see this often with the hand-shaking tell that almost everybody seems to be aware of. Someone has been asleep at the switch for an hour and hasn't noticed that a player at the table has shaky hands. When this player finally gets in a hand with Shaky, he takes the trembles as a sign of strength and mucks a winner.

There is another level that you can go to. When I see someone in position paying close attention without really looking down at the flop I can call or raise light on the flop and most likely take the pot away from them. Then again the last 2 hands i've played i've check raised the flop like an idiot and lost big pots both times so...

Don't worry so much about tells. Theirs or yours. Most of the time, the game plays out in a straightforward manner.

The only routine I do is wait until it's my turn to act to look at my cards. I only do this so I can make my initial decision without hesitation (I mean, seriously...how often do you tank pre-flop?).

That said, I can only recall using a tell as the clear determinant of my action a few times in about 10 years of playing poker fairly regularly. Even then, I can't be sure I just got lucky. So don't worry so much about it. Watch the bet sizes, the chip stacks, the relative position of your hand, and have fun.

And definitely leave the shades at home.

this may be fine w/ mirrored sun-glasses, as they act as a cloaking device,
but the correct play is to never look at your cards ever. just pretend that you are looking.
it makes it way easier to jam w/ the 63o when you don't know that you have it.
sun-glasses are kid stuff.
let them try to read you when you don't even know what you have!

.

ya, its like when two bucks lock horns, or two rams collide in a competition for the prize, if you are playing with players on, or above your skill level, this is the case.

against the players you should be playing against (rec plyrs),
competing is like being
a buck crashing into a brick wall,
and the prize you get is a busted rack.
(no pun intended)

People have said this before, but just learn to look at yourself every hand. You can pick up tells on yourself pretty good, of course, and learn to work off them. Like, I notice something I do whenever I try to value bet, and try to imitate that when I'm bluffing, or vice versa. Might just be me, but looking back, I see a lot of tells that I have personally, and yeah, after a while, when other people start noticing your tell, too (you'll notice them folding to your good hands and calling/raising your bluffs) that's when you start to change it up. Overall, it would be optimal to do exactly the same thing every hand, but that never works now, does it. For example, like someone mentioned before,
This is a pretty common tell so I tend to snap call whenever I'm trying to slowplay a really good hand, at which point it throws off the other person.

Meh, most of this works for the weekly home poker game more than anything, but at casinos, when you do sit there for a few hours+ with the same group of people, everyone does pick up tells on each other and it's good to change things up as much as possible.

The tell that I find most reliable is the guy who acts distraught that the flop/turn/river missed him. Lots of sighing and agonizing. Then he raises big on that same street. Always the virtual nuts.

Also I was watching Antonio Esfandiari brain dump on WSOP live streaming coverage. Guy gets up out of his seat after going all-in. Antonio says "that always means he has a big hand or the nuts. He has so much nervous energy he just can't sit still". So its half a year later and I am in a tourney and I have a huge hand but not the nuts and the other guy goes all-in and gets up out of his chair. And I remember seeing Antonio Esfandiari talk about this but for the life of me I can't remember whether it means he is super strong or super weak. Which I say out loud to the guy next to me and it reminds me that the guy is super strong, so I fold, and villain turns over the absolute nuts.

Remind me to speech / walk with air.

lol @ standing up = the nuts

One guy went all in on the river, then proceeded to stand up out of his chair.

I tanked for a bit.

Then he put his jacket on.

I snap called.

He had garbage and I scooped a huge pot. Sometimes disinterest = disinterest.

According to Bill Chen, the Four Laws of Tells are:

1. Strong means weak.

2. Weak means strong.

3. Weak means weak.

4. Strong means strong.

If you have a good handle on which of the four laws to apply when, your reading ability will grow by leaps and bounds.