So why can't this be AKo or AQo etc.

Suppose someone 3 bets TT+ AQ+ and we spot this behavior. Well that removes 8 AKs and AQs but leaves 30 TT+ and 24 AQ+. Doesn't really tell us much as far as whether they have a pocket pair. Guess it makes it slightly more likely if we assume the hypothesis is correct.

Personally it takes me longer to remember suits for unpaired hands because we have to associate each suit with a rank. If I get JJ I just think "JJcd" where if I have AK it is more like "Ac Kd". I'm skeptical looking back and forth at the cards indicates a pocket pair. If we assume this behavior occurs for all nonsuited cards it would increase likelihood of a pocket pair, but if people do eye movement more with offsuit hands it would weight them towards such hands and away from pairs.

The absolute most rock-solid one I have seen is the player who is very emphatic on clarifying the action and then they raise. This is the absolute goods, especially when there is no reason for there to be any confusion.

Was dealing a tourney the other night, someone made it 300 by throwing out 3 100 chips, and another player calls. It folds to the SB, and there are two players with cards and chips in front of them. SB "How much is it?" and then raises to 1500. Sure enough, he showed down AA.

One of my few times to fold KK preflop was in response to this tell, and it was shown to be AA that time as well.

This one’s pretty basic, but it’s the first one I ever spotted and it’s fairly common among not very good players.
Preflop, if it’s raised to a guy, especially to the guy closing the action, and he tosses his hand up slightly as if to say “oh what the heck, I’ll give you a call, let’s see the flop.” This guy loves his cards. He’s probably got an AK, but it might actually be a premium pocket pair - it’s generally a hand he should be three-betting, but he’s going to try to trap you.

My favorite is an increased respiration rate when they have a monster.
It's probably correlated with hand shaking but I've found it to be more reliable.

Yeah some recs are so bad at controlling their breathing you instantly know they're polarized. I've seen this pattern with players making large bluffs also though. I've found if I tank a few minutes and the breathing starts to slow it's probably the nuts as they're realizing they might not get paid and excitement fades. If I tank a few minutes and the breathing speeds up it's probably a bluff as they're realizing they might get called. I especially like to, after a few minutes, gather out the chips for a call and watch the player's reaction through peripheral vision. Often they start to look more excited again or conversely suddenly look very uncomfortable.

Had one hand I was tanking a few minutes after a huge turn overshove. Someone calls clock and I say "that won't be necessary" and count out the chips for a call. The guy looks super dejected and I push them forward, and in fact he was bluffing. If his reaction had been more neutral or especially looking eager or excited the plan was to say "never mind I fold" after gathering the chips.

@Black Aces

I *always* ask how much is it before raising or even calling (unless I can VERY clearly see the raise amount). I need to know the exact amount to make my decision and it's particularly important for raising so I size correctly. It doesn't mean anything as far as hand strength. I could have a bluff, the nuts, a thin value raise. Whatever.

I have noticed when other people ask this and then raise they're somewhat more likely to be nutted, but it varies from player to player. Some of us can't see that well and want to get the count right. Some people want to seem like they're weak and then raise, but this makes no sense to me. You don't look weak if you raise even if you just asked "how much is it?" before putting the raise out.

Also some people will put out bets with large denomination chips on the bottom of a stack. If I ask the dealer he always separates them and I can gauge the player's reaction. Usually the "big chips on bottom" bet is a very strong hand, particularly on an all-in. Someone with a short stack of say 275 at 2/5 has 2 black 1 green 10 red. If he shoves without verbalizing and has the 2 black on bottom, then the green, then the 10 reds on top, he is quite strong and wants a call. JJ+ AK usually with a disproportionate amount of KK+.

Yep, a few players always ask and I don't correlate that with strength in that spot of course. Also, there is something a little extra in the demeanor of the method I am discussing that is difficult to describe in print.

My buddy and I used to play a lot of Caribbean Stud and of course would talk about how it would be to get dealt the Royal, and also discussed the crazy ways it could get botched (sparked by a lady who didn't get paid because she jumped up and ran to her husband to show him her straight flush, carrying her cards with her).

We both agreed that we would kind of freeze up, place our bets carefully, and say something like "it is really important that there are no irregularities on this hand".

That same "OK THIS IS IMPORTANT LET ME BE VERY CLEAR ON ALL ACTIONS" demeanor is what I am meaning. For sure there are spots where that's not present, especially on things where, say, the blinds are 600/1200 and someone has tossed a 5k chip pre, and someone says "how much?", they can very reasonably be asking if the 5k is a limp or a raise.

Not saying this is the case with you, but i would bet that 100% of the players that exhibit this tell also think that they always ask to clarify action for every hand. It is because they do so for the hands they are engaged in, so these are the hands they care about and remember. I would bet you that you do not as consistently ask for clarification as you think, just because some hands are very routine and mechanical. If you do, you are the exception, not the rule.

In this same line, I look for signs of engagement. Player sits up straighter, takes out headphones, and starts to observe action very closely means he probably has a strong hand.

It is the rare player that can show consistent engagement over a long session with his whole range of holdings.

I actually do always ask unless the bet is right next to me and I can clearly count it exactly.

Unless you mean whether I ask when I intend to fold. If I have a zero or low equity hand I generally don't ask unless it looks like the bet is absurdly small. I just fold in these spots. But every time I'm considering a raise or call I ask, again with the exception it's the guy next to me and his bet is laid out neatly enough to see and count easily.

Thanks!

Easiest and most reliable tell I find is hand on the cards.

Pre-flop, this is a sign of disengagement and is rarely ever faked. It's usually goodbye charlie.

Ironically, this changes dramatically at the river. If a player has their hands on their cards at the river, it is a powerful indicator of a big hand. In fact, I don't remember the last itme I saw hands on cards at the river and it was a bluff.

Remember using this poem,..


Hand on cards before flop...keep betting don't stop
Hands on cards at the river..tremble and shiver

I'm not exactly sure if this would be considered a read or a tell.
Since I've greatly bennifited from this Forum, I guess I'll contribute what I can.

Most common trait of a player having a medium strength, made hand on the flop, in low stakes NL, is when they bet out, the same small amount, on flop and turn, immediately. Almost mechanically, without looking at their hole cards again.

They already know what they have, it hasn't improved, they're not too excited about it. They're usually not betting for value but rather hoping, with their weak bets, to get you to fold.

I was playing a $100 buy in at a Florida card room.

Russian guy across the table bets $5300. I called thinking it was $530.

Did not notice a $5K chip.

V didn't announce.

Whoops, there went half my starting stack.

If in doubt, I ask and if not announced there is suspicion.



In a WSOP, I called my neighbors smallish bet with A high.

Something in the tone of his voice lacked conviction.

I mostly try to focus on the players to my left.

So you had 10600 in a 100 cap game? And that's messed up allowing 5k chips in such a game especially when his stack is 5300.

So did he have AA or something? What is the tell aspect? Going all in non verbally with big chips = strength?

I've accidentally called shoves. Largest loss around 2k. I always ask now. Mistakes like that just massively eff your winrate, so you cannot make them, ever.

One tell I've noticed that's very reliable...someone makes a bet or raise, especially an all-in, and deliberately puts it out with the big chips on the bottom, this indicates major strength and is usually the effective nuts.

I'm wondering if there's a pattern regarding verbalized all-ins vs. silently pushing the chips forward. My guess and instinct is the silent all-in is more polarized, but I have no real evidence of this. I do think there is some kind of pattern though...

He definitely meant a tourney but I can't imagine a tourney had both 5k chips and 5 chips so dunno how it could be 530.

It was the day before I played a WSOPc Seniors Event at Seminole.

I may be foggy on the details, but it was a $100 buy in tournament at a small casino in Fla.

It was early and made a call for 2/3 my chip stack without confirming the bet.

He had flopped a straight and I was on a flush draw.

It was only my second tourney of any kind and was something seared into my mind forever going forward.

I think I've gotten a few bluffs through that otherwise may have failed with this exact "strength tell", ie, asking the dealer to clarify the bet amount, then clearly verbalising the raise (usually a standard looking half to full pot sized "value" raise) while looking at the dealer and pushing my chips out in a careful, deliberate manner. Whenever I've gotten these bluffs through I've attributed the success to these purposeful actions. However, other times I've casually tossed out the same bluff, same half to full pot sized bet, while trying to look disinterested and I've had the same result.
It's interesting that you as a dealer have perceived the former behaviour in other players as strength and I'll be paying more attention to these situations in future.
It could be villain dependent, and I wonder if I unconsciously sense this as I don't think I ever consciously decide which behaviour I use whenever I'm in these spots even though my default behaviour is the more clarifying, clear and deliberate type.

The problem with this kind of tell is that it goes both ways.
Many people breath faster both when they are weak or super strong.
It's very hard to differenciate between the two but once you succeed it can be very profitable.

Not so much respiration rate but excess rise and fall of the chest IMO.

Increased 'chest' breathing comes from using your nose more than your mouth. I agree that this can simply be 'large pot' nervousness/excitement from being both strong and weak in mostly non-regs.

I don't get excited about AA much anymore, so my behavior with them has pretty much diluted down to the 9To level. But put me in a hand with 35s and 600bb in the middle and I will probably exhibit some sort of behavior whether I'm bluffing or have a straight flush.

I have found more recently that if a Player quickly inhales or exhales when a street is exposed that they tend to be strong. It's pretty easy to pick up on when they have their mouth closed due to the increased noise created by the nose breathing. GL

My favorite tell is the sigh-bet, sigh-call or even sigh-raise. Virtually every time an inexperienced player sighs and bets or raises he has you crushed.
In the case of a call you still need to figure out if it is a genuine "don't know what to do" sighing or a fake one.

This is just a level 1 of bad players with some experience. They somehow (maybe even unconsciously) think that their bets looks weaker this way. And of course: weak means strong here as it is most of the time.

As an example I played a hand vs a total donk. She limp-called my open with K7s then donk-barrelled F + T on QJ2K. No Flushdraw. River was a K. She then sighed big-time and put in another 1/2 pot. Unfortunately I was unable to find a fold there with AA.
Of course, she would then go on to tell my that I played this too passively ;-)

When people move with their heads or dancing with their body (as if they are listening to music) - they are usually weak as hell!

IMO the bolded part is very important. I've found that if they are 'actually' listening to music AND make the motions that they generally have an above average holding for the ongoing hand/their range.

Pretending to move to music would fall into the strong/weak-weak/strong category, yes. GL

You also have to watch out for reverse tells against players you know to be thinking players. I have used hard breathing and hand shakes to get massive overbets called before. One against a player I run into often at my home casino, and he will remember that hand for a while. So I can now use the same tell to possibly get a bluff through on him. If you are playing a thinking player and they know that YOU are a thinking player, they will throw off reverse tells.

Caro's tells are everywhere at low stakes.

Some people do the reverse of what he says. Some people will fake tells.

Then you have this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7M2__J4c1s

Or it might mean that the player is truly relaxed, which denotes strength. As with most tells, you have to interpret this behavior in the context of the player's typical behavior.