10 Hold'em Tips: 5 Common Poker Tells to Look For

Players who are relatively new to no-limit hold'em sometimes overvalue the importance of "tells" in poker.

By tells we're referring to those actions, either physical or verbal, players make at the table that might give away information about the strength of their hands. In any live poker game, especially at the lower limits, it isn't uncommon to see players revealing information via such tells without being aware they are doing so. Players also will deliberately act in certain ways or say certain things to try to deceive their opponents, and thus might give away information to others who are able to see through such performances.

However, new players are probably better off not worrying too much about deciphering other players' tells, but instead focusing on other aspects of poker strategy while trying to minimize their own tells.

In fact, when we offer the following list of "five common poker tells to look for," instead of looking for them in others, you might first look at yourself and decide whether or not others might be witnessing you give off these tells. Then, after you've become more comfortable knowing that you aren't giving anything away, you might begin taking notice of what others are doing.

1. Making eye contact, or looking away

Generally speaking, players who look squarely into your eyes during a hand are conveying strength. Having a big hand often makes players more relaxed, and when they are more relaxed they are more likely to make eye contact than not. Players who are weak or bluffing are usually less comfortable about the situation, and won't be so ready to look directly at you.

The flip side of this are players looking away from you or obviously avoiding eye contact, which often will represent relative weakness. Especially if they have just bet as a bluff, players will deliberately avoid engaging their opponent by looking at them.

As with all tells, though, in order from them to be reliable, they have to exist as part of a larger pattern of behaviors that have proven to be reliable as indicators of hand strength. The action also has to be distinct in some way, and not part of the player's usual routine. Some players — like Mike McDonald, pictured above on the left with the tell-hiding Orpen Kisacikoglu — will always stare right at you, or will always look down at their chips or community cards as hands play out. For those players, you probably won't be able to use eye contact or the lack thereof as any sort of tell.

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Author: PokerNews Staff