About 1 year ago I started a project to name and study different poker tells, some of which are already documented and written about and some are not. Today I decided to create this thread, dedicated to the weight shift I decided to call the Contra Shift. This was named after the great Contra cheat code: Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a and start.
Kazuhisa Hashimoto has passed away. He was the video game producer that created the Contra cheat code so today I decided to reveal some of my notes on this tell.
I would define this as... someone sitting up and shifting their weight forward greatly as a reaction to the board. If you are wondering about the name.. yes there is sometimes some up, down, left or right movement, but it is mainly a forward shift with some natural upward movement built in there..
The most important takeaway is that this indicates that someone may be uncomfortable, but interested.
Straight out of my notes...
- The up and forward shift - Uncomfortable but interested, maybe very strong but not the nuts. Had a big hand but bad runout?
- ex seen... on turn, 4 straight board, means they dont have it... but they want to call, they have a set
- Seen quite a few second and third pair contra shifts lately... they hit the flop but contra shift and dont bet it... middle pair. Lets prepare to fire double and triple barrels here with semi-bluffs.
Some arguable points that I am considering...
- Contrashift + HUGE river bet is a bluff - seen in the wild. Why would someone make such a large bet if they are visibly uncomfortable? More likely a fake tell or rivered mid pair turned into bluff,?
- The better a player is at $1/$2 levels... the weaker this tell indicates their hand is? It has to do with them willingly giving off a significant tell, they dont do that with the nuts.
