Hi all,

I am a recreational live tournament player in the UK. I play once a week in a local casino in a small competition with a £30 buy in. There are bigger games around, but I am perfectly happy playing in this particularly friendly card room. I don't want to move up in stakes (although I do play in maybe 3-4 £120/£220 multiday comps per year). I don't want to become a professional. I can't afford to spend $000's on coaching or other ways to improve. I have a young family, so can't spend hours grinding online- and quite frankly I don't want to. Poker is a hobby, and it enriches my life. Having said all that, I still want to play decent poker.

This means I am always looking to improve my game- but within the context of where I play. Quite frankly there is no point me triple range merging, or whatever the latest high level buzz word is (I don't know what triple range merging is!). I want to play a solid game. To help me improve I tend to read. I am interested in poker generally, so I have read lots of books around the subject- Stu Ungars biography, or Anthony Holdens brilliant "big deal". I also read poker "text books". I find poker text books are quite difficult to apply to a live setting when hand recollection is difficult for post game analysis, and you can't exactly take notes into the casino with you! However I do my best.

At the levels I play it is very hard to assign ranges to quite a few players. This leads to lots of frustration from players like me who tend towards the tighter end of the spectrum! The only real weapon I feel I have to counter this are my chips- I need to blow my opponents out of the hand with aggression- for example always pricing flush/straight draws out. Unfortunately this doesn't always work- and can be expensive when I run into made hands bigger than mine as pot control has gone out of the window. What I felt I needed was another weapon, and the weapon of choice is tells. When I am betting into someone, or someone who I know is aggressive is betting into me, an idea of "weak" or "strong" is incredibly valuable. I hope to move away from the logic of "he bluffs pretty often, so I am probably getting a decent price to call", or "he rarely bluffs- I better fold". If I can have a clearer idea, then that will help me take some of the guesswork out of my game.

Many years ago I read Caros book on tells. It was short, simple, and to be honest it only really helped me with the absolute most basic of ideas. I am still waiting to fold a hand to "poker clack". I also know how much the game has moved on since it was written, and wondered if there was anything else around. So I googled and came up with 2 other options- Zach's poker tells and another product called beyond tells by Blake Eastman. Both offered some introductory videos on you tube and on their website. I signed up for both introductory packages. Both were similar in that they offered you a video a day as a sample of what was on offer.

This brings us up to date to the 27th of July. I would like to jump forwards to a couple of days ago to explain where I am going with this. I saw the new forum, and contacted Zach to ask if he would mind if I blogged my efforts at learning how to read tells. He was happy for me to do so. However I can see some potential problems.

The first is simple- if I start explaining all these tells I am picking up on, and what they mean, am I going to give away the contents of his book? That doesn't seem very fair. As such I will try to be slightly obscure about specific tells. If Zach wants to add detail himself, that's up to him. If Zach feels I am overstepping a line of his choosing, I am happy for him to edit my posts as he sees fit- to protect his intellectual property.

The second problem is what if I don't like it/can't do it? Well I told Zach I would be honest in the blog- if I struggle, or get something wrong it will go in here. This is pretty likely as I am a fairly harsh critic of myself- but also as I am learning to do this, mistakes will be inevitable.

So my next post will be a straightforward review of each product I looked at, and we will go from there. Please chip in with any comments.

By all means, say whatever you want about specific tells and my books. I love getting feedback. And I'd be the first to admit there's nothing easy about trying to use tells. Never worry about saying too much.

I will say my only concern is that I do believe your results would be much more improved by focusing on fundamental strategy. But that being said, it's obvious this is what you want to focus on and it's what's interesting to you, so go right ahead.

In both cases I found videos on YouTube, which then gave links to their website.

Beyond tells.

If you are reading this forum then you have an interest in tells. I can't recommend highly enough the idea of signing up for the beyond tells introductory package. What Blake Eastman has done is got a group of poker players together (of varying standards) and videoed them. Then he has broken down this video into detail watching them play over several hours. The advice he gives is excellent- very clear, easy to follow, and well thought out. I really liked what they were sending me. The videos were very professional, and Blake is an excellent presenter. I think they sent me 5. I learnt a lot. In addition to this they sent out an exercise, where I was shown a number of examples, and had to describe whether the tell they were focussing on was present or not. This was a very good learning tool. Interactive resources like this are an excellent way of learning (I am a teacher, so understand the benefits of active learning rather than passive). Every video I was shown had a direct email link if I wanted to ask questions, so it looks like they take support pretty seriously. Finally I was also invited to a webinar, where we were given a video to watch, and we had to try assign a hand range. This was done before the webinar, then Blake spent an hour taking us through it and answering questions. This was very very useful. The webinar was set up for 9pm CET, which translated to 2am UK time, and I was delighted I decided to stay up and participate. The introductory package was so good I feel like I owe them money. Ah, yes, money. The pricing of beyond tells seems to be changeable- they claim (might be true, might be salesman patter- I couldn't spot any tells ) they will increase the price as the content increases on the site. It was offered to me for $900ish.

As I said in my intro, I play once a week for £30. I am currently about £700 on the year. Realistically I cannot justify investing close to a years poker profit on this. However if I were a bigger player I think I would seriously consider investing in this. Unfortunately to me it seems like I would be buying a Ferrari to get me to work in the morning! However I emphasise that this is due to my poker habits, and not about the product.

Poker Tells.
This is very different. I watched a very impressive analysis of a couple of professionals and some specific tells. In these Zach uses footage from various televised hands and explains his concepts. This works very well. It worked especially well when he was analysing the behaviour of some pros. I felt I would have won the 2011 WSOP after the analysis of Pius Heinz! From there I followed the link and signed up for the email introductory course. These are written texts, like articles, rather than videos. They are clear and well explained, but not as easy to visualise as the multimedia versions on YouTube. It's probably fair to say (sorry Zach) that the videos are not as slickly done as the Beyond tells ones. Zach reads from, or refers to notes. The transitions between text, video segments are a little clunky. However none of this should distract from really detailed analysis, backed up with examples. You could probably make an argument that the use of selected videos to prove a point isn't as scientifically valid as it could be, but I think that would be to miss the point. We are not seeing the research, but the results of research. On the strength of the videos I subscribed to the introductory course. These emails were simple text. A tell, the basis if the idea behind the tell, and then some hand examples. It worked, but not as well as the multimedia option shown in the introductory videos, or the beyond tells package. I'm sure Zach will correct me here, but it felt like these were designed towards selling the reading tells book. However, once you put together the basic ideas in the email, and ran it alongside the YouTube videos they made a lot of sense.

At the end of the course I decided I had seen enough and bought the book.

The book isn't long, but is jam packed with information. I might be wrong here, but I remember Caro's book as being a succession of tells explained. This is different- it breaks down tells into different phases of the game, and then into strong/weak. This inevitably leads to some repetition, since (and I make this tell up) if looking left is strong, looking right will then be found in the weakness section. However it does make the information MUCH easier to follow. The final section on verbal tells is also very good, and makes me wonder what Zach has left out that could fill another book! What has been left out? Well I plan to take the tells and construct a table of them, to neatly show them all in the same order and structure as the book uses. This could have been an appendix? Then again that might just be open to total plagiarism. There is no doubt that trying to describe "relaxed eyes" would be much easier if supported by video. A book might not always be the best format to show some of these tells.

Alongside the book are a number of series of videos. I have only just got access to these, and so haven't had a chance to watch any yet, so I cannot comment on the quality of these compared to the free YouTube ones. There are a number of different options, from renting to buying them all and any future ones. There are then some extra bolt on ones, I think- it is a little confusing. The videos feel like they have grown from the books weaknesses as a medium. In fact Zachs whole course approach seems to be one of organic growth, as new content has been added- possibly from previous feedback.

As a final, and relevant point, I had some ideas on how to implement the lessons from the book, but I wasn't sure if it was the best option. I simply emailed Zach through the contact on his website and got a lengthy and detailed reply. The support is present in the reading tells course, even if it isn't quite explicit as above. Now I would simply use this forum- and maybe this is another example of that organic growth I mentioned before.

Would I recommend Reading poker tells? Well to be truthful, after the introductory modules, given a free copy of either system, I would have selected beyond tells. However I can buy Zachs book and videos for about $80- 10% of the price. This brings it into my price bracket, and well worth the money. I used the Ferrari analogy above- well beyond tells is a BMW 3 series. It is a very good option for a car to get me to work. I really like it and think it has shown excellent value for money.

Well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating as they say. Here's how my first couple of tournaments have gone.

Firstly my plan.

There was no way I could remember all the tells in the book. One thing I forgot to mention in the review is Zach also starts from the best tell and moves to less reliable ones in each of the 6 sections. This enabled me to pick the 3 tells I thought would be most helpful to me- one preflop, one waiting for a bet, one post betting. The 3 I chose were 3 I thought would be easy to spot and reliable.

My first tournament was played in a different casino to normal. This meant I wasn't as comfortable, and was paying more attention to my surroundings that might have been routine in my normal game. I felt a bit overwhelmed. So what I did was pick a couple of people on the table to focus on. Sure enough I started seeing the behaviour I was looking for.

Zach makes a big point of saying that it is not the behaviour itself that is the tell, but when it changes in a stressful situation. I really felt that I was picking up some solid information on a few players at the table, and correctly predicting outcomes of hands- although unfortunately they were all involving other people! One interesting incident did happen though- one guy suddenly turned around and (in a good natured way) said it wasn't fair that I was sat there analysing the table like I was! Zach recommends using peripheral vision to observe- I just sit and stare!

In my second comp I was back at my normal game. I had emailed Zach about my plan, and he advised to start with the 2 players to my left, which makes sense. Strangely I was really struggling after my positive start last week. The 2 guys to my left were friends who had happened to be drawn together. They were happily messing around and carrying on with themselves. I didn't spot a thing. However I realised something. In the early levels of a comp there are very few big pots- so no stressful situations- especially when you are laughing with your friend. Something to remember- use the early levels as baselines. In the end I gave up on them, and turned my stare onto weak players (not the loose aggro that scare me, again on Zachs recommendation). I think I got a solid tell on one guy, but he got stacked before I could test it out on him. The bad news is apart from that I was just drawing blanks most of the night. Some players seem much more susceptible to giving off tells than others, and I think my simplified system is only scratching the surface. There was one really interesting hand however, that is worth relaying. A player had raised preflop, and got a couple of callers. The flop had come down A high, and he shoved. The other player agonised over a call for a long time. I spent my time watching the raiser. He saw me watching him, and gave me a little smile, and a passage from the book jumped out at me- He was weak!. The other guy eventually folded, and he showed KK. Not exactly weak, but terrified of the ace on the flop. I actually saw that a few times- people showing weakness where they had hands that were vulnerable, rather than "weak". Sounds like a spot for a raise?

I also noticed something else about my play. All the poker advise is to spend the time between hands watching the game and picking up free information. I always thought I (sort of) did that, but I was wrong. Now I am really concentrating. Before I was sort of watching, bit with no real idea what it was I was actually looking for. Now I have a system and a structure, but because I am also more focussed, I am being more detailed about peoples bet sizing and frequency of betting. It might be counterintuitive, but by concentrating on watching for tells I am actually picking up far more information on other aspects of the game, not less.

I couldn't think of a specific hand where I won chips directly as a result of a tell, but I learnt a lot. I paid more attention, and so played better poker. I saw examples of tells in action, just not against me. I have a couple of weak tells banked for next week, where hopefully I can use them to steer my decisions. As I said, I am only running a simplified, cut down, beginners version of the info in the book- I will add to it over time. But I was pleased that even someone as unsubtle as me could spot tells (I really did think I might not see anything). Not only that, but it wasn't too hard to drop a simple version into my game.

Sorry- something I meant to add into the reading tells book review, but missed the timeslot for editing.

One thing that kept hitting me between the eyes whilst reading the book was recognising my own behaviour. Unfortunately much of the time the sentence began:

"Weak players will often................"
"Poor players will often................."

Although sometimes I did feel better to read:

"Average players will.............."
or even
"Good players will.................."

That really drove home to me that Zach knew what he was talking about. I could recognise the tells in myself (and yes, I have tried to drop them!), so I should be able to recognise them in others.

In response to Zachs point above- he is very clear that tell reading is the icing on the cake, and supplements solid play. You cannot expect to use them to profit despite poor play. His concerns are valid, but I do think I have something here that will directly address a weakness in my own game that I can tackle.

Oh, last thing- I promise. I don't think renting the videos is a sensible idea- the saving isn't massive from what I can tell, and you are likely to want to watch them several times over a period of time. My advise is to simply buy them.

I assume you play NL. Your not going to get better reading those kind of books.

Write the hands down if you can't remember. Order NL Holdem Theory & Practice from 2+2. Make sure you understand everything in that book & the Harrington books before focusing on anything else.

Common complaint among beginners. You need to work on your fundamentals. Any strat is villain & stake specific. Start paying attention to what happens at showdown & playback the hand in your head. You will find that continuation ranges & stack off ranges are often more important than pre-flop opens or completions. Fundamentals!!

Please refrain from rubbishing up this thread & a new forum with posts like this. If you want to review a book or other publication please do so in the appropriate forum. Are you seriously going to load this silly blog of yours with all the content in Zach's books? The man wrote some good books & they sell for a very fair price. Think about it your doing here.

Zach, you should edit out the Beyond Tells stuff. It belongs in books & publications.

I think you're being a bit hard on him. If I have no problem with him writing whatever he wants about my books/videos, I don't see why anyone else would care. It may be beneficial to people curious about how much use he gets out of it. Even if the conclusion he makes is: "I wasn't able to get much use out of such-and-such material" that's still possibly useful for similar-level players.

If someone doesn't want to read his occasional blog, they can just ignore it. I doubt it'll be too frequent or go on forever, in any case.

And I have no problem with him mentioning Beyond Tells. I actually interviewed the maker of Beyond Tells for Bluff a few months ago, although I haven't seen his videos yet.

Thank you for your thoughts.

I think you misunderstood my book references. I thought the sentence structure was clear, but they were illustrations of my general reading. I read them for pleasure, not improvement. My copies of Harrington are both well worn and full of post it notes.

That in no way is meant to imply I play outstanding poker, but I think my poker is probably better than might be assumed from my regular game. I might be best described as a regular ABC type player. I do play in some bigger comps, and have run quite deep in some. Against many players I find my game holds up well, but I also have run into players who are seemingly very capable of exploiting my game and making it very uncomfortable. So yes, my fundamentals do need to improve- but isn't that the case for everyone?

I should write more hands down to remember them better. Funnily enough this was a point I emailed Zach about (about tells not hands)- what's the best way to do this in a live environment? I have an app on my phone called live poker tracker, but it seems a bit blatant. I'm not sure what the response would be if someone read my tell notes, although hand notes would be easier to justify. I have decided to text message myself with comments, then compile them after the game.

I do like your idea of looking towards C bets and stacking ranges, rather than preflop opening. I will explore this idea further, I don't think I have recognised it before- maybe I missed it's possible importance?

I am a bit confused with your instruction for me to stop rubbishing up my own thread, and you are referencing my OP. I would also respectfully remind you that the purpose of an internet forum is for people to exchange ideas and discuss them. I'm not sure why you don't like that? If you feel superior to the thread, then I suggest there are 2 reasonable options- either contribute or save your own time and don't read it. Anything else seems like a waste of your own time.

The book reviews were an attempt by me to outline my initial exploration into improving my tell reading. I came across 2 different structured approaches, and gave my thoughts on both in order to explain the decisions I subsequently made. I don't feel qualified to review either product as I am attempting to LEARN what they purport to show- a critical review needs expertise to assess. In my opinion both look excellent, but this is hardly a qualified review. As Mason has made clear elsewhere- this is a tells forum, not a forum for Zach to simply sell his book- the beyond tells comments are appropriate here, although they will obviously become less prominent as the blog progresses. Perhaps you got a bit bored reading my OP, then decided to comment anyway- I covered how I planned to deal with the book content- you might notice Zach has also replied. I had also emailed Zach about the idea before I started. It seems he is perfectly happy with my silly little blog.

I buy most of my poker strategy books second hand. There is a very good reason for this- there are millions of copies sold every year that people read as novels, then put on shelves before they enter the resale market. If you read any text book on any subject from page 1 through to the end, you will learn almost nothing. In many ways this is one of the central purposes of the blog- how to take a written text and actually use it. Whilst I don't hold myself as one of the best poker players in the world, my 20 years experience as a teacher does qualify me to try explain how to learn something from a book.

Hotwarmcold2 references Harringtons books above. These are (rightly) regarded as seminal works. This is very unusual- how have these books managed to stand the test of time whilst most books from their era are now discarded as being redundant? I see many comments about how players are playing a game that is obsolete from 5 years ago. Harringtons books are double that, but still remain valid. No one suggests Supersystem as a reference. I think there are 2 reasons for this. The first is that the content is undeniably excellent.

However I think a second reason is even more important. The exercises. The structure of the book almost forces you to do some thinking. It removes you from the passive reading into actively thinking about the hand. There is a huge difference between passive and active learning and reading. Yes, you could simply skim them and move straight to the answers, but you do yourself a disservice. Harringtons book makes this transition from passive to active integral to the book. I am quite frankly amazed it is not either a standard format in all subsequent poker books, or hasn't been developed and refined since then.

When my students are revising for their exams, I have a simple mantra- "if you are not writing, you are not revising." Even good students make a horrible mistake of sitting and reading their notes or text books for hours- and learn almost nothing. If they had spent less time, but made notes or tried exam questions, they would have learned far more. A poker game is a very good exam situation. You have an idea of the overall pattern of what you will see, and you know the rules. However you have no idea what the specific challenges you will face will be, and when you face them you have to be able to adopt the appropriate response quickly. To do this you need to be able to access all the data you have stored in your memory- and the better you can do this the better your response.

Let me make a comparison. Chris Moorman recently wrote a book of hand examples. These were all analysed in detail, both by his playing/writing partner, then by Chris. The contrast between the 2 analysis being the "learning zone". It was an interesting approach, and Moorman obviously performs at a far higher level than Harrington in modern NLHE. I am not qualified to justify the analysis, but I haven't seen a bad review of the book. On this basis I am happy to accept the content is also excellent. However I learnt very little from it. Not because it is a bad book- but because it is passive. I read the hand, then simply move onto the next. I can't seem to place the hands or their lessons into a systematic structure. This means that even if I were to play an identical hand to the book, I struggle to access the details in my memory and apply the analysis.

What this means is that even where the content of both books is outstanding, the book which moves you from passive to active learning is going to teach you more. So why is Harringtons book an essential? Because people learn from it.

What's that got to do with Tells? Well quite a lot. I need to move from having read the book a couple of times into active learning. If I can do this, then the book repays it's purchase price. If I don't then it sits on a shelf (well, and electronic shelf as I bought the kindle edition) and I learn very little.

So, having read the book- here's the plan.

I need to condense the book. Zach spends a lot of time explaining why each tell means what it means- the psychology of the tell. He makes analogies of predators and prey. These are very useful to help me understand "why". Once I understand why, my brain can start to accept something as common sense. However I don't need to understand why at the poker table, so the information becomes superfluous. I need to simply assign a label- "strong" or "weak" then go back to reading the action to interpret what that might mean specifically. So I need a simple list of the tells.

Secondly I need to apply a structure. This is really important. This is my brains filing system. The better the system, the faster and easier my brain can recall the relevant information, and also relate it to context. Look at your "my documents" file on your PC. If you make neat little folders with proper names and sub folders, it is far easier to find the document you are after than if everything is in one big folder. Luckily for me, the book has already done this for me in what looks like a very efficient manner.

All the tells are categorised 2 ways. The first is when the tells is seen:
Before any action
Waiting for a bet
Post betting
They are also categorised as strong/weak

This gives me a simple 3*2 table which I need to populate (and add the verbal onto the end). This table becomes my blueprint for what I need to bring into the game. It shouldn't be too content heavy as I am just outing in tell "titles", and not too complex as a table. The idea is that if it were appropriate I could have this sat next to me on the table as a quick reference sheet. It would easily fit onto a single sheet of A4 paper.

Next I need to internalise that reference sheet. This becomes the key to whether I can apply what I am reading, or whether it just floats around to occasionally rise to the surface 2 minutes after I have lost a pot.

To internalise that sheet is much easier than trying to internalise a book. To do this I will take a small number of tells (I am starting with 3) and using videos to experience what the tell looks like. In my opinion I won't be able to really apply these tells, or at least the majority of them, without the video support. So I pick my tells, use the videos to learn them, then apply them. As this becomes comfortable I gradually add more.

Finally this blog. As I write I have to think. As I write and think, I learn- I hardwire those ideas and concepts. As I learn I improve. Hopefully people will be able to see this process, and in helping me they will also help themselves. That sounds like +EV all round

please continue i think your on to something.

Just a quick update today.

I am currently on holiday from work, so I am trying to get moving on this before I get busier! Of course, real life keeps getting in the way too. I managed a (small) cash in last Fridays tournament, despite not being able to exploit my newfound tell reading . If I cash I always spend the money of frivolous things, and I had promised my son a new nerf gun. So much of Saturday and Sunday was spent running round the garden shooting each other! If you ever want a definition of +EV, that was it!

Anyway, I did manage to get the videos downloaded off the website. There are 12- each is about 10-15 minutes long. I also had the opportunity to watch a couple. Not in detail (making notes or using them alongside the books), but I simply sat and watched whilst feeding the baby at 5am!

I think it's important I expand on some of the comments I made about the YouTube videos above.

I made an observation that the YouTube videos were full of very good quality info, but the "the videos are not as slickly done as the Beyond tells ones. Zach reads from, or refers to notes. The transitions between text, video segments are a little clunky". I stand by this statement, however the videos off the website are significantly more polished. I am guessing that the YouTube ones were early ones, and Zach has refined his approach. Anyway, the website videos are very good, with clear layouts and exceptionally good highlighting of the concepts in real game situations. Because you get to actually see the tells, this addresses a potentially very difficult area for a stand alone book to cover.

I think the videos will really help me make the bridge between the book and the game. This should speed my attempts up to increase the number of tells I look for over time; but more importantly make sure I know exactly what I am looking for, and help me see it if it is there.

Zach, I know you are planning new videos and webinars. Could I suggest something else- and that would be a number of interactive practise exercises. Something like a piece if video, followed by questions about the video content? I have no idea if this is easy or hard to do. I also have no idea if it is something in the pipeline already, but as I said in a post above- the transition from passive to active is an incredibly important learning tool.

Hey thanks for the feedback and ideas, Cobweb. Yes, the free YouTube videos I put up have always been pretty low-budget and I didn't spend much time on them. Considering I was going to be charging for the new ones, I put a lot more time into them.

One reason to do the blog is to give me some discipline. So rather than just doing things half arsed I have written down my plan and so it becomes more detailed and better applied. I don't want to fall into the trap of just flicking through the book every now and again/watching the videos, and then think I am "Working" on improving my tells.

So, today I have made concrete progress.

I have condensed the book. I have read it twice, and now I have simply given a name to each tell. In reality, because of the way the book is laid out, this isn't much more than using the contents list! This isn't rocket science Just as an aside, I did this longhand, as I find physically writing helps me learn it far better than typing. I then transcribed my table into Word.

I also developed a table to give me structure. I outlined my planned 3*2 structure above:

.................................................. .Strong............................Weak
Waiting for action
During action
Post bet

I then added a final row titled verbal and misdirection. So the final table looks like this:

.................................................. .Strong............................Weak
Waiting for action
During action
Post bet
.................................................. .Verbal............................Misdirection

I think as I move forwards I need to bring the verbal tells into the strong/weak categories, but for now I am focussing on non verbal tells in a systematic way.

I then simply populated the table using the tell labels I had above. The book made the waiting/post categories very easy as they are set out in this format. For some reason the during action tells are not categorised like this, so I had to do it- but I did notice man of these tells seemed to be more contextual- more relative to baselines. Anyway, I split those too. Currently the verbal section is simply populated with tells from the other sections that are verbal. I am not planning to use the misdirection tells yet. I have a total of 52 tells in the 6 categories. This is far too much for me to try analyse- possibly ever, but certainly starting out. I have highlighted one tell from each category. I chose the tell based on a number of criteria:

Zach tries to list the tells in a rough order of reliability- so more reliable tells first, so the higher up the table the better.
It should be something I feel I have a good chance of recognising when I see it.
It should be something I have a solid chance of correctly interpreting when I see it.

I won't post the specific tells I have chosen, as I don't want to give out too much content from the book. I know Zach has outlined some tells elsewhere on another thread, and if any match I will highlight them, as Zach has then put them into the public domain.

The next step is to use the videos where they correlate to these tells. This should help me implement these tells. All other tells will be ignored for now (although if I should see something and remember what it means I will use it obviously). The goal is to get comfortable with these 6 tells.

The good news is during my holidays I get to play twice a week, so I am going out to play in a tournament tonight. The bad news is there aren't any really decent games on a Tuesday, except for a £100 buy in, which is a bit above my preferred stakes for a 1 day comp. So I am left with a smattering of free-rolls. I am slightly concerned that the gung-ho "who cares" attitude that seems to prevail during these games means tells will be harder to spot (who knows, maybe they will be easier?), but it could be good for some baselining practise.

Well, I would be updating this tomorrow if the comp had gone better, but hey ho! The Tuesday freeroll is a horrible shortstack donkfest tbh. However it was a good opportunity to test out my new elite tell reading skills

Preparation. I always like to get to the casino nice and early- I just hate being late for anything. I treat myself to a KFC next door, and whilst munching on my chicken I review my 6 tells, drilling them into my brain. I then quickly flick to the relevant section of the book and reread each specific tell. Then back to the drill. I am confident I can rapidly mentally recite both tells at all 3 phases, and I understand them.

I cross checked with a post Zach made in another thread. Here he identified a number of tells for tournament players. The good news is a lot of them are ones I also selected, so I will partially populate my table, since Zach revealed these specific tells.

Waiting for action: WEAK- long looks at hole cards (also called a long card apex).
During betting: WEAK- quick betting/calling, STRONG- slow betting/calling
Post bet: Eye contact (It's one tell, where one action means strong, the other weak, although they both have supporting behaviours.)

I should make clear that I have more details than what I have posted above, in fact Zach does go into more detail on some of them in the other thread. However it is not my place to reveal more from his book than he is comfortable with. That said he specifically covered 5/6 of the tells I am looking for, so that makes things easier.

One thing that was immediately apparent (apart from the truly awful standard of poker) was the nature of the game- short stacks and brutal blinds meant there were lots of all ins, and so lots of stressful situations. Zach tells us this is where tells become more reliable- so that was good. My regular Friday game is deepstack with a slower structure, so the early rounds didn't produce anything like the same amount of indicators.

Firstly who to watch? I am pretty useless at using my peripheral vision! I tend to concentrate on one player at a time. This makes it bloody awkward to watch for players checking their cards. If only they would do it in a nice order to make my life easier! Anyway, I concentrated on the player to act behind me. The next player was the dealer (self dealt tournament) so he was very busy doing dealing type things, and I couldn't get much from him.

On the waiting to act tell:
The card apex- I didn't really get much. This one takes time- you need to get a feel for "standard" first, then look for deviations. I did pick up some spots where I could predict someone would fold before they did- but the habit a lot of people have (including me) of waiting till it's their turn to act does negate this tell as advanced warning. I also find it difficult to watch more than one person at a time, as I said. I think this is one for specific players in my regular game- the ones I know look at their cards immediately, then try pick off late position bluffs with reraises if the opportunity presents itself. Seems like a decent blind defence mechanism.

The strong tell, well I did see it a few times, but not often enough to really out much faith in it, or it didn't get to showdown. However I do think it will improve over time.

During betting tell:
I got nothing at all here. Normally this was because I was tending to watch either the person who had already bet for post betting tells, or someone waiting to act for those tells. This sort of got lost in the middle. Having said that, Zach makes clear in the book these are very conditional- you need a secure baseline to work from, and then they are very subject to deception. So in a way, if I was going to miss some tells, these are the ones to miss.

Post bet action:
The eyes have it. I really wish Zach had been more specific here, because this is where the action was! The advantage with this tell (it's really 2 sides of the same tell) is there's loads of time, and normally only a few people involved. This means I can concentrate more easily on more of the action. I was accurately assigning strong/weak tells to many bettors. No, let me rephrase that- I was accurately assigning strong/weak many times to certain bettors. 2 players in particular were like open books to me. The first guy shoved all in, and I called with 99, confident he didn't have a bigger pair. I was right- he had KQ (notice weak is a relative term- he didn't have a hand he wanted a call with). OK, it was a flip- but I knew I wasn't a 4-1 dog when I called. He rebought and 2 hands later I folded to another shove from him, knowing he had a premium hand. I sat and watched someone else lose to his AK. Would I have made the 99 call anyway? Maybe, but it would have been an uncomfortable call based on the tournament structure/chipstacks. Instead it was a confident call knowing I was in front/making the right decision.

I moved tables shortly after that, and almost immediately picked up the same tell from someone else. He was also short stacked, and I watched him shove with 2 excellent hands- and I knew it every time. I also knew the time he was weak. I also knew he was weak when he shoved, and I found A-Q. Easy call, he turned over J-10. Unfortunately he hit, and I lost half my stack. I don't mind that- I did the right thing for the right reason. I knew I was in front, or at worst flipping against a mediocre pair.

So I made 2 decisions- that I would probably have made anyway in truth, but in both cases I knew where I was, and most importantly I was right.

In addition to this I picked up a significant number of what I will call occasional tells. What I mean by this are the tells in the book that I have read about, but am not focussing on. Zachs descriptions can be uncanny sometimes. This allowed me to sometimes put players on weak/strong on things I just happened to spot and remember. Partly this is due to me watching much more closely what is happening. I always knew exactly what the action was, who had what chips- just a much improved awareness at the table. I guess folding the right cards is discipline, but so is the mental concentration. I did drift away a few times (not helped by a football game on the TV), but quickly snapped back and refocused myself. This in itself is a tangible improvement to my game.

Finally my knockout hand. Actually it was no biggie. I shoved a 10BB stack with A-10hh and got called by AQ. However the villain is interesting. He is a young lad I play with a lot. I joke he has a hex on me. I do this partly because he does, but partly to encourage him to think he is lucky against me and make mistakes. Maybe that is a strategy I should stop! However, the reason I think he is interesting, is he seems to be an abundance of movement. Most players I can't read are "stoic". They try to do the same thing the same way every time. This guy seems to overload me with information, and I just can't pick him off. In an earlier hand I hit top pair on a wet board, OOP, and ended up paying his flush off on the river. He was probably showing every strength tell in the book. I have also seen him seemingly agonise over decisions- again with no reference to concealing his discomfort. He is very LAG, and a total pain to play against. I just can't seem to get a decent read on him. He is also a drama student- so I wonder if he is acting, as his behaviour is just so overt. If I can get a read on him I will print money, but for now he just leaves me confused every hand!

Just wanted to put this private correspondence I had with Cobweb in here, if anyone's interested. It concerns some known ambiguity of the categories I created for Reading Poker Tells.

His email:

My response:

This is starting to feel a bit like a monologue! Does anyone want to chip in with some advice about the guy showing loads of movement? Is there anything sadder than talking to yourself on the internet?

I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank Zach for his help here- it's certainly more than I have any right to expect for simply buying a book. It feels like I bought a book and got a special coaching deal thrown in!

Zach always seems to play down the roll of tells, both in his book and here. My very limited experience so far seems to confirm his judgement. However 2-4 spots in a 1 day comp is very significant. Walking into a flopped set can lose you a tournament. This might be less important in a cash game, but in a comp that's it. As I said of my experiences yesterday- I didn't change my decision (I don't think), but it did mean I knew they were right.

Anyway- next excursion is Friday, wish me luck!

Ok i'll chip just to say that im enjoying your posts and the content of them. I dont play live so i cant help you out in regards to the guy with a lot of movement.
Reading your blog almost tempts me to play live & learn about this stuff & then i remember - 30 hands an hours, smelly people, rude staff, insane rake etc etc and i come back to reality.
Best of luck on your journey!

Thanks for the feedback! I do wonder what an internet only player is doing reading the tells forum

Strange how different people see things differently- I barely play online, I just find it dull. I think I said in my OP, one of the reasons I play in the game I do is the nature of the people that play- they make the game what it is. If it were simply a case of playing the most efficient and convenient game possible, then online makes a lot of sense. It is funny when we get new players turning up to the tournaments. These days they have almost always played online, so they are nowhere near as bad as newbies used to be, before the word newbie existed . However it is often a shock to the system, realising how much extra stuff you have to keep track of yourself, and how much stuff you need to filter out. They really struggle to apply what they know for a while. Obviously this isn't always the case. and normally they adapt pretty quickly.

Anyway, Friday today, so playing tonight. The usual routine- I will get there early and spend some time prepping. This will involve going over my crib sheet again, and rereading the sections of the book that relate to the tells I will be using. I will also try watch the relevant videos again if I can.

Zachs response above was interesting- especially his thoughts on memorising lists. What I am hoping to do is slightly more subtle than that. The list I memorise is very quick and easy to use, but once I have spotted something that flags up the headline tell, I then stop. The deeper reading I keep going can then be called upon. I should then be able to understand the why behind the tell and apply it to the situation/player. Hopefully this will allow me to make less mistakes in my analysis than simply following a "monkey see, monkey do" strategy.

Hmm, not a happy night at the tables last night. I must remember that this is a tells blog, and not just a rant!

Having just told everyone what a nice friendly card room I play in, I had the unfortunate luck to end up sitting next to a drunken idiot last night who just wouldn't shut up, kept betting out of turn and generally did my head in. I'm really annoyed at myself, because I let him annoy me in the end, and I made a rash move which bust me. Stupid really, as I take pride in trying to play my best, but not last night.

Anyway- the start of the night was fine- in fact I bust someone early to sit on a solid chipstack. I was sat to the left of 2 maniacs, so I simply hunkered down and waited for a hand against them. I know both are very capable of running very big bluffs, so I had an opportunity to sit and watch for tells as they contested almost every pot! Nada! Not a thing.

Why is this? Well I have a theory. Zach will no doubt be able to explain it better (or more likely correct me!). Tells happen for 2 reasons- stress or habit. These 2 are old adversaries, and very friendly with each other (and everyone). So when they are raising they are having a great time- even if the pots are quite big. That means no stress. After all if they bust out, there is a rebuy! They also don't really have much in the way of habitual behaviour as they are too busy laughing and joking with each other. One of them constantly plays with his chips, in a way that looks like a defensive chip tell, but I don't think it is. Maybe I will need to watch them deeper in the comp. Anyway, this happy situation was spoiled by me getting moved to balance the tables.

New table, and on my first hand at the table, I had an interesting one. I looked down at 77 and a few of us saw the flop.
K 23
Villain leads out, and it folds round to me.. Now I know Villain is a solid player- pretty tight, but he will also bet his draws. It folds to me, and I am last to act. So I call.
Turn: 10
He leads out again. Once again I call, knowing he will bet his draws, but not really liking it.
River: blank.
At this point Villain overbets the pot. I hate this. This guy is not reckless, and he knows I am not too. Maybe he is firing 3 barrels? Maybe he thinks I am weak since I haven't shown any aggression myself? Maybe I am paying him 3 streets of value for a AK, KQ or K10? I really don't know. I still only have a pair of 7s. I look at V and he is almost a textbook case of weak post bet posture. There are a whole load of these in the book, and they all sort of fit together into a bigger picture. That's what I saw. I called, and his cards hit the much before my chips had finished moving!!

Now Zach will probably (and correctly) say I misused and abused his book at this point. It was the first time I had played with the Villain since I started working on tells. This means I had no baseline reads on the guy at all- although I knew his playing style quite well. I did what Zach repeatedly warns against, and put too much faith in a very precarious read- but it was just such a perfect example of the concepts Zach had been talking about, I couldn't help it! I nearly reraised, as I was worried he might be bluffing with a better hand than mine, but I didn't want to risk that many chips if I was wrong.

Unfortunately that was the start of 3 hours of being card dead. However I used the time reasonably well watching for tells.

I noticed a couple of things:
1) Preflop tells are frustrating. I am going to stop trying to watch people in early position looking at their cards, since if I ever see the weakness tell the cards simply go into the muck. I will concentrate on people near the button.

2) I still haven't seen one example of a reliable during action tell. I did see one yesterday, and "correctly" assigned it- but without any confirmation I can't place any strength in it.

3) Watching for physical tells really improves my ability to spot betting pattern tells too. One player, who I know is decent, but too tight for the format really (he has a £40k win to his name) will always bet his made hands, will check the turn/river with top pair/mediocre kicker, and always check his draws. There were several times I could place him on very specific hands. I also got a very strong baseline read on him, which he deviated from a couple of times- but it never showed down.

4) On a related point, it's bloody frustrating to make what feels like a strong read, only for the hand not to get to showdown. In fact I felt pressure several times to not play the hand aggressively just to see what they had!

gl!

Thanks Murdershow!

I was starting to think I would get more love if I had described myself as an online 1/2 crusher that was trying live for the first time!

One thing I forgot to mention above was just how difficult it became to maintain focus and concentration on spotting tells with this idiot next to me. Even ignoring his behaviour, it still disrupted the "flow" of the table.

Anyway- no game for me this week until Friday as I am away for a few days before returning to work next week.

Have fun all.

You need to know a person's centre. You need to know what's an outer and what's an inner.

If you can figure out what's a subconscious motif (an inner) and what is an outer (action performed for a functional purpose with a measure of conscious volition), you can then have a more reasoned and informed idea of the person you're dealing with.

(Movement Psychology, learn about it.)

Also, with that in mind, if someone's reaction is a subconscious motif are they going towards or away from the idea, that's solid information. If it's a conscious action, expressing that they are moving towards or away from the idea, that's solid information and the question is why did he/she do what he she just did? Or what is the idea they are trying to express. (strong/weak) (comfort/discomfort) (stability/mobility)

Sometimes a flop is dealt and a person jolts backwards, sometimes forwards. Backwards is away from the idea, forwards is towards the idea. Sometimes it's an inner (subconscious), sometimes it's an outer, (conscious). Most poker players are bad actors, most actors are bad actors. it's not hard to figure out what is subconscious and what isn't. That's your starting point to figuring out a person's centre.

Talk to a player during a break. Ask them about a matter relating to the past. Ask them about their family, ask them who they think is going to win the superbowl, ask them what's their favourite food. Ask them a question they might not want to answer. Or observe as another player talks to them and just collect the info. (You're looking for how they move their body consciously and subconsciously, you're looking for the speed; quick/sustained; the force; light/strong; and the direction; flexible/direct.)

You can quantify external behaviour but it's not easy. And you can make assumptions about a person's inner life and tempo, and this is even more complex. Start simple.

Watch what they do with their hands and fingers. What how they move their head and neck. Watch how they are in comfort and discomfort in present, future and past. Note: leaning forwards is in future, remember how people at school lean forwards just before the bell goes, that's cos they're in future, they're already out the door thinking and feeling about what they are going to do next.

Most of this won't make much sense, but if you ever get the chance to talk to someone who really knows Movement Psychology, buy them a drink and write everything down and keep it to yourself. Moreover, if you ever meet someone who went to the Drama Centre, buy them a bottle and see if they have a copy of 'The Book' they can talk you through...just the simple stuff I've aluded to. It's all you need.

Thanks Joe,

There is undoubtedly far more to this than I am currently utilising. What I am trying to do is systematically move from a level of incompetence to a comfortable level of competence. From there I need to decide how I continue to develop. In truth it might then sit at that level whilst I move onto other areas of my game. If it's something that I find interests me, I might try and develop it further.

One of the difficult things for me is accepting the validity of the psychology and translating it to a tell. I am a chemistry graduate, so the maths of poker isn't a problem. It's easy to understand why a bet of X is a "good thing". There was another thread in this forum where the "tell" of people looking left when lying was debunked. There is a lot of pseudo-science that can creep into these fields unless you are very careful. Actually I was really interested in Zachs explanations behind the tells- and more importantly I trusted him more because he very much played down the importance of the isolated tell. I think I am picking up more post bet tells because I have more time there, but also I able to understand Zachs rationale behind the tell. Having said that, a lot of it seems to relate to what you are saying, but with different "labels". I hope I haven't insulted anyone with my oversimplifications! Zach sometimes puts the same action into both strong & weak classifications for the same reasons you suggest- some people respond one way, some the other. I guess the ultimate example is fight/flight. So you are suggesting a similar approach- baseline, then observe responses. Once you have done this you have a read!

Big day tomorrow, it's day 1 of a 3 day comp covering the North of England. It's only a £100 buy in, so the competition isn't too strong at first (unless you are unlucky with a seat draw), but the large numbers (and big prize pool) mean the best players also play, so it gets serious later. I hope to have my reading abilities firing on all cylinders against players I have never seen before!

Hi Joe,

This topic looks interesting, any specific book recommendations? Looked on Amazon and didn't see anything specifically on the "movement psychology" topic. Further info on this topic or 'The Book' would be much appreciated.

I enjoy searching for and researching new or rare perspectives on how to possibly get an edge playing poker. Tells, psychology, body language, memorization techniques, brain-training, micro-expressions, etc etc etc. I'm not looking for any real "secret" way to beat poker, but just areas to work on that I don't think the average or even the exceptional players pay much attention to.


Hi Cobweb,

I'm enjoying your Blog! Good luck with using tells! While I agree with Zachary that tells are usually a small factor, I think that by working on enough of these types of things, they can become a large component of one's overall poker performance and success.


Hi Zachary,

Really nice to see you so active in this thread and in this new forum section! If I hadn't already bought your books, this would have clinched a "buy" from me! Like OP, I'm still working through your books, but very impressed so far! Will check out your website soon.

Mike

H Mike, and thanks for the kind words. I agree with you that you can make a significant difference with lots of small things. I think this is especially true here, because by their nature tells will be more....erm telling..... when the pressure is on- i.e. in critical spots.

I've been really busy over the last couple of weeks, so poker has had to take a back seat to work and family. Played 2 tournaments, but without much success- and I'm determined to not make this a poker whinge blog about how I gave my money away each week! . However I am still keeping going.

Where things are going well- I am definitely spotting things from the book at the table. Unfortunately it always seems to be in a hand with other people! Either that or they fold and I don't get to check my read. In fact that is one of the most frustrating things about trying to habitually look for tells- you have an X% chance of spotting the tell (X=small number!), but then you only have a Y% chance of actually seeing the cards to confirm any read. I guess it's the same in most places, where most winners show their cards and the losers just muck- so even if it gets to showdown there's no guarantee you will confirm.

This means the reads are infrequent, so establishing a reliable baseline is tough. It also makes it hard to keep discipline. I realised last night I had almost completely stopped watching for how long people looked at their hole cards for- just because it hasn't really given me any useable information yet. This is a mistake though- because as Zach pointed out tells "spots" are rare anyway, but also the action bring extra focus into other areas of the game.

I have, however, realised that you can't assume decent players have less/no tells. I saw an experienced player in last weeks bigger tournament making defensive chip handling movements that Zac could have used for a video. At moments like that it suddenly becomes worthwhile. It takes you into a realm where you can act with certainty, not guesswork.