That's the problem, you're taking a "non fakeable" tell, which does nothing other than tell you you're either way behind or way ahead...and then trying to pair that with a pacifying behavior which are EASILY and OFTEN the reverse tells people put out.

I agree, it's very difficult to fake some tells like neck throbbing. That doesn't do you any good though if the tell is "well i'm either ahead or behind". You're still then turning to other tells to sort out the "story", and those other tells you're turning to are the easily fakeable ones. It's not much different than your shaking hands tell. You're either way ahead or way behind, that's not a very helpful tell.

Everyone is telling you repeatedly that you are massively overvaluing an aspect of live play that is far less reliable and more easily faked than other aspects and you just keep arguing that in spite of everyone else disagreeing with you, that you must be right. Consider that you might have some stubborn in you when it comes to this topic as well.

I think it's true as has been said that as you move up in stakes tells are more likely to be false, and the players also are better at hiding tells. That said we're all human and there are subtle things that we can't control. In the 2+2 magazine that comes out every month(top left hand corner) there's usually an article describing a specific tell and what that tell means.

I wouldn't trust a tell of a player that I just started playing with, but I have made some close calls based on tells of players that I have a lot of experience with. One guy would throw his bet out on a string with a lot of wrist action when bluffing, but when he was value betting he'd put his chips in with authority. Another would always say "all in" when value betting but put his chips in silently when bluffing. I played with these guys enough to know that they weren't giving off fake tells. One even asked me after I knocked him out of a tournament with a weak pair when he went all in on a scary board, "did I give off a tell?" he said. I just said I had a feeling.

cliffs: watch out for fake tells. If you know a tell to be reliable then act on that knowledge.

Good luck using your acting skills and getting your pupils to dilate, or the pulse in your neck to throb.

The most reliable tell, for me anyways, is if I can get them talking. If they're really nervous they will tend to talk with incoherent sentences. Similarly, they may actually reveal their hand. I remember once getting villain to talk while considering calling a b/3/b all in.

Villain: "Come on man, you know I got overs."
Hero: "What? Overs?"
Villain: "An overpair."

Hero called, villain had two overs with a flush draw (and I faded the draw, for once).

I think that's a pretty good read, and you did it without being able to see his hands shake or neck throb...

My response on tells is that they can be helpful if you are good at reading people and used as a PART of the story told with each hand. Very very rarely should it be THE reason you do something unless like Bob147 just said, you know the player well. I have some people I play with all the time that I can't even pinpoint exactly how I know but I know by reading their overall body language combined with bet-sizing etc.

I do have some specific tells though, the one guy I play with almost always rests his head on one hand and stares at the table when he is going to raise pre-flop.

I played with someone for the first time and he was a terrible player. He called me with 2nd pair on the flop and hit his trips on the turn and it was comically obvious to anyone paying attention. He literally sat bolt upright when it hit and then bet half his stack with shaking hands about 2 seconds later. I told him that I was "guessing" he hit his third 7 and folded to his overly excited bet and he sadly showed me the 7.

Others (most players) I've played against you can't count on any of the "book tells" like that.

So with tells as with everything in poker: You should never say never, never say always and every situation is different.

Just my 2 cents

Oh this is a great tell story:

Playing 2/5 limit a few years ago. Young guy shows up, for completeness sake, I think he was MID. 2 hands into his session, a card hits on the turn, and he fist pumps... and then he looks around with a 'did anyone see me do that??' look on his face. The entire table cracks up.

The guy he's heads up with was laughing too, shrugs and decided to pay the bet on the turn/river and sure enough, Young guy turned a straight (the nuts on that board).

We all crack up again after we see his hand.

Now there was an example of a tell that was pretty blatant and accurate 100% of the time.

I already stated in this thread that the pupil dialation is one that I haven't figured out yet. Neck pulse is easy though, force yourself to take VERY slow breaths, your heart rate will increase while oxygen levels decrease, thus raising your blood pressure and causing your neck to pulse, look flustered, etc...

Just my 2 cents

I think you have to be very good to use "tells" effectively most of the time. It also is highly important to be familiar with the player to get much milage.

Maybe it works for you. I just tried it and felt like I was going to die before any throbbing took place.

Just thought of another (very rare) tell. In an old, but very cool thread 25-50 100 ante at bellagio: SICK spot >1,000bb deep the following came up: "afterward, dan said that she turned white when he showed his hand, and aaron katz agreed, saying she went pale."

Might be another on the "unfakeable" list.

Just because you have a physical reaction does not = tell unless you only do it in a specific scenario..... and the person reading the tell has had enough time on the table to have seen the villian do it before

Sounds nice, but this just isn't true. There are some physical functions that are almost universally true. Now, you may make an error in estimating with what range a certain player's tell represents. A beginner's pupils may dilate when they hit TPNK, where a more experienced player's would not.

For a better example, just go to the post you quoted. There's no way to mistake someone going pale when shown a hand that is contemplating calling. Their body just initiated a fight or flight response which would never happen if villain showed them a hand that left them in a comfortable situation.

Name one other uncontrollable, universally true, tell besides eyes dialating with a big hand.

Going pale and the opposite of the one listed (pupil constriction when stressed).

I always shake my head when Net-Boys spew this crap. It doesn't seem well thought out to me.

Sure, good players can be Actors, giving off false tells to mis-lead. But is it not possible that if you realize a villain is an Actor, and you see him give a certain sign, and you understand, what he's WANTs you to think, can you not use that knowledge to arrive at the correct decision?

It's just another facet of the whole multi-level thinking thing ("I know what he thinks and I know what he wants me to think, but does he know I know...?)

Imo, its just another skill, another tool in the box.

How did this thread get this deep without the word "Caro" being mentioned. His book was the first in-depth look at the subject. It's pretty good, broken into short sections, so it's good bathroom material, like a Readers Digest. The photos are grainy b/w, so it's tough sometimes to really figure out what he's talking about, but there are still some powerful concepts discussed. And lol that because the books 20+ years old and talks about draw poker etc that it's out-dated. While the game's changed allot, human responses and mannerisms have not. Caro also produced some tells videos the used to be available on Youtube. No idea if they're still on or not.

Mentioned in posts 13 and 15, although disparagingly.

Caro's Book of Tells is a +EV read. It's also a +EV reread. I know it's an old text, but that's good stuff right there.

Here's two that are pretty good:

Tell: On the flop, villain glances at/reaches for his chips...then checks. Meaning: He's flopped a monster (first instinct is to get his chips into the pot) and is now trapping. Action: check/fold

Tell: On the turn, villain stares at the board. Meaning: He's missed his draw and is subconciously trying to see if there's some combination that leads to a good hand. Action: Bet him off the hand.

As with everything, ymmv, but these are some basic ones.

I'm glad someone finally said that. If you are ignoring tells, you are missing a piece of the jigsaw. If you only pick up one tell in an 8 hour session, and only get to act on it once, it is still one occasion where your decision making has been improved. BUT, it is still better than none.

Recognising tells, recognising if they are deliberate, involuntary, natural or forced, and interpreting their meaning, is a skill. If you are able to develop that skill, it is +EV. If you ignore it, or choose to discount the possibility, you are playing poker without one of the tools.

It's like playing golf. Recognising tells and interpreting their meaning is like a 2 iron in your golf bag. You may only use that club once a round, but the time you do use it, it was because it was the best tool for the job. You carried it for 3 1/2 hours, you didn't use it for putting, you didn't use it around the green, and you didn't tee off with it on the par fives. But there was one occasion when it was the best tool for the job, and you were glad to have it. Consider tells in poker as being your 2 iron.

(And maybe for other players, it may be their sand wedge, or their putter, or their 7 iron. But it is still a tool in their bag).

Yeah because when a large volume of people say something, it MUST be correct. Like when people believed the sun orbited the earth 700 years ago? I can tell you first hand that tells are a powerful tool at the table, and fake tells are relatively easy to detect. It's just annoying to hear lots of players throwing their weight around on a subject they know nothing about.
I mean can you actually tell me they have a good knowledge of body language with some experience, and that it's virtually useless at every stake level?

IMO, the reason they're not given greater weight in these parts is because tells are not so universally identifiable. Not only do most depend on the person, almost all tells, in this context, involve decisions about whether a person is bluffing or not.

To be honest, I've made calls w/3 high flushes on a 4 flush board because the bettor winced when the river card came, and the call made sense with the action leading up to it. I think paying attention is a really good idea in poker, and a basic understanding of human behavior is necessary to win.

We all process "tells" at a different rate, and any winning live player is, you're right, silly to assume that reading players body language isn't a huge part of the game. But we're processing them throughout the hand, and bet sizing is one of the most reliable because it happens with far more frequency than any other.

Sure, there are players out there that chuckle when they bet the nuts, and players that go white when they're bluffing; the reality is that the chuckle player wins pots less often than they should, and the white person either a) stops doing it because they become more comfortable or b) stops playing the game because they can never manage a missed hand.

Short to short, the only reliable tell is the one you, the OP, can put in context with regard to your opponent. There's more of a feeling thing involved than "this means that, always" and you get that from experience. Any winning live poker player will concur, I think: it's not always the way they do things, it's the way that things happen. You know before you do.

The question was about uncontrollable tells. Both of these are not only quite controllable but easily faked for reverse tells. Much easier to fake than shaky hands which at least sometimes can be picked out for the reverse tell when it looks too unnatural.

In the generic sense of "lets discuss tells"...yes. In the general sense of "should you pay attention and attempt to pick up things for specific individuals"...yes, you should. If you notice that Joe's hand shakes every time he's bluffing, then use that. But there's not much discussion to be done with people who don't know Joe because "what does Joe's shaking hand mean" is either "he's bluffing, or he's not, depends on what kind of tell a shaky hand is for Joe".

"John looked at his chips when the flop hit, what does that mean?" "Well, it's either a real tell or a reverse tell, so not much help I can offer. Either he has it or he doesn't".