"After Tells" article - i'm back.........

The_Chopper

Previously posted under NoHassFatAss - I feel this article may have some discussion to it which was prematurely closed due to my "Tom foolery", which I apologise for.

I would like to post the article again and underneath respond to a few questions that I was asked in the original post.

I would like to hear peoples comments even to shoot me down about this article as I've been told that it may go out to a wider audience with more work.

If people like this article and it gets a good responce (i.e. thread on topic, discussion whether article is informative, good, bad, indifferent) I will post more up.

Finally for those of you who supported me through my rehabilitation (both here and personally) through my stint in prison I would like to thank you..... I couldn't have got through it without you

After Tells

Note: Throughout this article I will be referring to two players, player A (PA) and player H (PH) who are my fictional representation of a poker player.

1.0 Introduction
First let me state this it is all my own work and my opinion from my experience and observation as a poker player.

Big buy in or deep structured tournaments are as much about stamina as they are about poker skill. The longer you survive the more critical your decisions become. While a lot of value exists early on in tournaments, it’s the middle stages that you can really profit from. The reason for this is because players generally fall into 2 categories at this stage

1. PA will get tired and lose concentration and miss the simple things happening around him – reasons for this may be tiredness, unfit, drunk, hungry, personal issues etc
2. PH’s observation skills will heighten, just like when a footballer practices free kicks, penalties etc. Observing will becomes second nature almost as natural as breathing – reasons may include fit, healthy, good mental strength, determination etc

In the latter stages of a MTT (2 tables out) players start to get a second wind, their adrenaline is kicking in and they start to focus again. Even the most unfit players out there will generally pull it together. At this point the skill factor lessons and it’s more about timing, situations and a good variance.

2.0 What is an after tell?
A high percentage of poker players don’t realise that just because the pot has been awarded, doesn’t mean the hand is over. The good and/or talented players will still be watching, they will be looking out in case cards flash or are accidentally or deliberately exposed. PH will be listening intently in case PA decides to tell someone what he had this hand, last hand, 10 hands ago etc. After a pot is awarded PA tends to let his guard down. He stops concentrating and may unintentionally do things that he would not do during a hand. Why you might ask? Well this is very simple; it is quite unnatural for PA (and people in general) to suppress the nature instincts of his body which are to give off signals to his true feelings. To elaborate people like ease and comfort. When they are happy they find it hard to contain joy, when they are hurt it is tough to hide the discomfort. Just because we are now poker players does not mean we can suddenly cover up years of conscious and unconscious emotion, whether this is through facial, vocal or body expressions.

For example when PA check raises the river and everyone folds – PA may let a big ‘sigh’ out of him. During the hand PA would never reveal genuine emotion but after the hand PA relaxes and lets this unconscious sigh out of him. As mentioned above most players won’t notice this. To be successful PH needs to pick up on this, he may not use it, but it will give him a better understanding of PA. If PH can note things like this he may use it as part of his arsenal later.

So what do I mean by an after tell? An after tell is an action a player takes after a pot is awarded. For example after a player bets the river, everyone folds. The player then looks back at his hand, shakes his head and slides them to the dealer.

Let’s assume PH has picked up on one of PA after tells from the following hand

On the river the board read Ah Ad Jc 6s 2d. PA bets and everyone folds, PA slides his hand towards the muck and doesn’t say anything. This action PH picked up means he is likely to be strong. Later on PA confirms he was strong and tells PH he had JJ (PA is of good character and we believe him).

Now here’s the part that takes some practice and skills. PH has to replay the above hand in his head. PH has to try and remember how the betting went; did PA do anything with his chips, hand, etc during this hand? Maybe PA just stayed expressionless. Did PA speak, did PA look uncomfortable, and did PA recheck his cards? Once PH is confident he’s picked up on this he has to act on it. Next time PA plays a hand PH has to recollect the actions from the above hand and compare them to the present hand.
People are creatures of habit, especially in tournaments where one of the top skills is exploiting value from you strong holdings.

Finally an air of caution – quite often after tells may mean absolutely nothing as it is player dependant. It could simply be some yob who can’t stop himself shaking at the end of the hand. It’s your job as a poker player to be observant enough to pick up on whether or not these actions have meaning.

3.0 After Tells

“Acting strong normally signifies weakness, acting week normally signifies strength”

The above statement is a good rule of thumb when playing in large fields that tournaments offer. However I’ve observed the complete opposite to be true once the pot has been awarded. Terms such as stone faced and poker faced are thrown around the poker world as a good way of trying to get a read (put together) an accurate hand range. Players are aware of this and try their best not to give anything away. However it’s quite common for them to switch off once they have been awarded a pot and are more likely to give away clues to their holdings and thought processes.

Note: The following is based on an assumption that the player has been awarded the pot without showdown

3.1 Player looking back at his cards
When a player looks back at his cards and shakes his head this is usual a sign he was bluffing. Why players do this is beyond me – they’ve probably watched too much Phil Ivey on TV. They then add the little shake pretending to be unhappy about the outcome. In reality the shake of the head means weakness. If a player during the hand shakes his head, you would assume he is acting weak but is really strong, well the opposite is really true here.

3.2 Player mucking his hand
If a player mucks his hand but then starts talking about the hand once saying he had a house, straight etc etc it’s normally a good indicator he was bluffing. Like wise when a player says I had nothing after the hand, it’s a good indicator they had a strong hand. Why? Well if the player wanted you to know what they had they’d show you.
I’ve only seen one instance of this when the player was telling the truth about his hands and that was Daniel Negreanu. He seems to have clued on to this fact and will often muck his hand and then say exactly what he had “throwing a curve ball”.

3.3 Player mucking his hand and says nothing
Player mucks his hand in good time, looks confident and says nothing; this usually indicates a strong hand. Player doesn’t want attention and is quickly trying to move onto the next hand. These are generally very competent players that are aware that just because the hand is over, doesn’t mean people have stopped observing.

3.4 Player delays before mucking his hand
Be careful here as it can indicate two things. It can indicate a very strong hand that he wants to show and vice versa it can indicate a bluff he wants to show. Usually a smirk with a delay indicates a bluff, whereas a confused look or no change of expression with the delay indicates the near nuts.

3.5 Player rakes the pot in quickly
If a player rakes in a pot quickly it is usually a sign of relief, relief that he’s gotten away with one when he really shouldn’t have (Chris Moneymaker HU Vs Sami Farha, 2003 WSOP). An extension of this would be if the player quickly mucks his cards after all opponents fold.

3.6 Player mucks his hand and glances away from the table*
If a player mucks his hand and glances away from the table this is usually a very strong indication that he was holding a monster, normally the nuts or 2nd nuts. Glancing away is usually a sign of frustration, either at himself or due to not extracting maximum value.

*This would be a good time for you to stick the needle into the player on as he is probably close to tilting which you should use to maximise any situation which immediately develops afterwards


Since I've wrote this article a few inputs i've received.......
1. After tells are tells that happen when the hand is over......
2. After tells are more exploitable with weaker players, however you may go through many tournaments without ever exploiting it.
3. You have to factor in how genuine the player looks and combine that with the forementioned "after tells"
4. I have to read "sixth street"

The_Chopper

Mellor wrote:

One observation, once a player understands the above tells, they can often manipulate them, if they are a good player that is

This is very true and I agree.

I haven't observed many people aware of this though. Additionally one of the points I am trying to get across is that peoples natural body behaviour represents how to feel. In poker it's very hard to surpress this especially when you're tired, maybe a little tilty, hungry or generally a fat b*stard on the edge of collapsing

Good players will and can exploit these, no question. The problem is only a small % of people are observing, so how do you know who to exploit?

The_Chopper

Get in there wrote:

Two quick questions-

1. What do you make of people that check in the dark after they have called your preflop raise OOP? To me, they're trying to get inside my head so I like to counter-act that by betting in the dark after they check.

2. When players are trying to get tells off you, ie: staring you down, how do you find yourself behaving generally?

1. Honestly I think they've watched to much Phil Helmuth. However I have noticed that blind checks unsettle weaker players. They tend not to CB unless they've hit/have an overpair, draw of some sort. I don't know why put it seems to take bluffing out of their arsenal for this hand.
The problem with doing it is that you give a free card. Additionally I wouldn't recommend calling OOP in 95% of situations HU unless you're all in.

2. I do 2 things when people are taking a long time making a decision. I will either
a) sit their quietly, staring all around me or
b) start chatting to someone

The trick is to do them in different ways. For example in the case of b) I might just talk generally to whoever, alternatively I could say I "hope they call/fold etc". Basically I'll try do what I think will work to get my opponent to call/fold/raise etc. To break it down into math - if my opponent is 50/50 to call and I want him to fold, I will try and do something to make him fold and sway his thinking to 45/55

I don't think i've explained this properly, i'll revist it tomorrow......

Jayminator

I much prefer to use my tells ''DURING'' a hand. After tells about a hand that is over are completely irrelevant.

And before you come back Ricky and say you can use these tells for future hands thats irrelevant as the information you are talking about is revealed ''AFTER'' the hand. I dont really want tells after the hand. I want them during the hand. I want tells on people while they re playing hands.

WTF do I care if a guy reveals he was bluffing or strong after the hand is over... He has won the pot end of.. How can you use these ''after tells'' in future hands when the information revealed is only revealed when the pot is over....

Pointless really

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

Tinytony

Jayminator wrote: »

I much prefer to use my tells ''DURING'' a hand. After tells about a hand that is over are completely irrelevant.

And before you come back Ricky and say you can use these tells for future hands thats irrelevant as the information you are talking about is revealed ''AFTER'' the hand. I dont really want tells after the hand. I want them during the hand. I want tells on people while they re playing hands.

WTF do I care if a guy reveals he was bluffing or strong after the hand is over... He has won the pot end of.. How can you use these ''after tells'' in future hands when the information revealed is only revealed when the pot is over....

Pointless really

Are you really saying that information gained during a previous hand/hands is no use in future hands???

Good post from Chopper. I find it hard to stay constantly aware at the table, but there definitely is a benefit to making the effort to stay constantly alert at the table and take in the information being given off by players.

hotspur

I don't agree with the very vast majority of this and for the same reason I think Mike Caro's Book of Poker Tells is a piece of rubbish. Generally speaking you are just speculating what each behaviour means. I know enough about body language to know that it is far far more individual than you think. If you rely on general behaviours meaning X or Y then you will get yourself into trouble. The truth is that different people will behave the same way for different reasons. It is only by studying the repetition and deviation in an individual's behaviour that you can find a genuine tell.

I don't know where you got some of your analysis such as if a player looks back at his cards and shakes his head he was bluffing, if he mucks his hand and talks about having a good hand he was bluffing but doesn't say anything he was strong??? I'm sorry, I appreciate that you put effort into writing the article but that is just speculative rubbish and anyone who puts any store in it will be making a mistake. I could go on because I think pretty much every after tell you describe is utter nonsense that you just thought up on the spot.

I appreciate that I may come across as being very harsh on this, but I genuinely believe anyone could pull this out of thin air and it just has no veracity to it. People are often confused into thinking such things are of merit but you could have given a different meaning to each after tell and it would have made no difference. It is just evidenceless speculation and goes against the reality of the fact that tells are incredibly individual. Just like Caro really, I imagine you believe that shaking hands = a monster too.

Jayminator

Tinytony wrote: »

Are you really saying that information gained during a previous hand/hands is no use in future hands???

No. What I am saying is that you gain relevant information ''during'' a hand not after the hand.. Im saying that the ''after tell'' IMO is quite irrelevant as the information gained is only relative to that particular hand that is now over and does nt gain you a huge amount of info for future hands... If a player sighs after winning a pot and shows a monster its completely irrelevant to future pots as the guy only sighs ''after'' the pot. Thats my point.

Good post from Chopper. I find it hard to stay constantly aware at the table, but there definitely is a benefit to making the effort to stay constantly alert at the table and take in the information being given off by players

.

I agree that in a big buy in, well structured tourny you need to be well prepared, refreshed, and ready to concentrate for the entirety of the tourny including hands you aint even involved in.

Im just saying that the strenght of this ''after tell'' is not as useful as Chopper makes out. Thats all. Who really gives a toss if the guy is bluffing after he has been awarded the pot

jbravado

[
Im just saying that the strenght of this ''after tell'' is not as useful as Chopper makes out. Thats all. Who really gives a toss if the guy is bluffing after he has been awarded the pot]


I guess the suggestion is that if you can establish that he ran a bluff or whatever by his actions after the hand is over you can replay the hand which will in turn provide you with relevant information about how he acted/betting patterns etc etc that can be used against him in the future.

eagle eye

Jayminator wrote: »

Tinytony wrote: »

Are you really saying that information gained during a previous hand/hands is no use in future hands???

I agree that in a big buy in, well structured tourny you need to be well prepared, refreshed, and ready to concentrate for the entirety of the tourny including hands you aint even involved in.

Im just saying that the strenght of this ''after tell'' is not as useful as Chopper makes out. Thats all. Who really gives a toss if the guy is bluffing after he has been awarded the pot

I certainly do. All information is important regardless of whether its before, during or after a hand. You can pick up a lot about a player by watching him after a hand. All information can come in useful at a later stage of a tournament.
I also agree with Hotspur about the fact that each individual is unique and that you just cannot assign traits generally. Even during hands, one guy shoves his chips in and they fall all over the place and another guy places his chips neatly over the line, player a if you listen to Caro is gambling and player b has a really big hand. That is load of cow manure.

All the same its a nice post and interesting to read.
Welcome back Chopper.

YULETIRED

ah dont be so harsh on the guy, surely everything is general, how can he write an article about after tells that is specific, sure everyone is different however being poker players you have to think statistically and if statistically people behave in a certain way, you can more or less assume this tell to mean something........are these tells of any use to you, well surely ANY information is of use......having said all this, the real way to glean information is to pay more attention to how the player is betting/playing his hands and work it out from there, using tells should be a last resort, players who spend too much time researching tells are wasting time better spent on the more discernable aspects of the game...

good aticle though.......welcome back, how did it come about?

nicnicnic

hotspur wrote: »

Just like Caro really, I imagine you believe that shaking hands = a monster too.

Do you play a whole lot live Hotspur' because a particular type of shaking hands more often then not does = a monster dealing with your average punter. Some people are like rabbits caught in headlights when they look down at AA pre its quiet funny, there really are many players out there like the guy in the vC add on TV with Ken Dotherty

hotspur

YULETIRED wrote: »

are these tells of any use to you, well surely ANY information is of use

Disinformation isn't. I mean:

The_Chopper wrote: »

3.3 Player mucking his hand and says nothing
Player mucks his hand in good time, looks confident and says nothing; this usually indicates a strong hand.

This is just utter nonsense, plain and simple. My problem isn't *just* that tells tend to be quite individual but to the extent that it may be possible to lean one way or another on a general tell it at least requires more intelligent analysis than this.

nicnicnic wrote: »

Do you play a whole lot live Hotspur' because a particular type of shaking hands more often then not does = a monster dealing with your average punter. Some people are like rabbits caught in headlights when they look down at AA pre its quiet funny,

Yeah I've played a fair bit of live poker, play about once a week these days and in my experience if someone has gone all in they are just as likely to have shaking hands on a bluff as they are with the nuts, it totally depends on the person, and I've seen individuals who shake with both. Obviously hands shaking if they look down at AA is fairly obvious because there is no other reason to have shaking hands. Unlike some I find that hands are not the best tells I find that throat and mouth is.

a-k-47

How do we know if the player is good enough. that he is giving us fake tells, decent players that have studied body language/tells at the poker table, eg.. everyone knows fish scratching nose normally indicates a monster. If im an unknown at the table ill giving out all sorts of so called strong tells when in fact i have a pile of****.

zuroph

i have a terrible shake in my hand which i cant really control, and people have often seen this when im gathering chips after a pot win and thought i had been bluffing etc etc, players have commented on it a good few times. unfortunately (for them?), they're wrong, and it happens regardless of what i had. regular opponents have backed me up on this when i explain it!

I do find a lot of truth in choppers article though, there is some basics in there that would be almost univerally true. as i was requesting in the previous thread, id be interested in views on pre-tells, IE the stuff that happens while waiting for turn to act.

Drakar

a-k-47 wrote: »

How do we know if the player is good enough. that he is giving us fake tells, decent players that have studied body language/tells at the poker table, eg.. everyone knows fish scratching nose normally indicates a monster. If im an unknown at the table ill giving out all sorts of so called strong tells when in fact i have a pile of****.

I think the idea is that you use this information in combination with the other information you glean at the table. So for example, over the course of play you may discover that a player has a number of straightforward tells as they play, or you might notice that the line that they play is pretty much by the book, this might lead you to assign a greater chance to your ability to interpret their after tells (and perhaps the opposite is also true).

Reading any kind of tells is of course an inexact science, and against some players will be -ev as they give off false tells at the right times, but that's why you have to use all the information together I'd suggest, rather than treating after tells as gospel.

Hyzepher

It is quite interesting how much information average players give away after the hand - most of it voluntarily. A lot of this information is very relevant at the start/middle of a tournament as that's when the average players are still around and chips are easier to come by. As the tournament progresses it's important to rely less on the "after tell" as the stronger players can use these against you.

it is also getting very common for player to expose one card after the hand and this can give you a hell of a lot of information. In fact, this type of thing is very much contagous (sp?) - what I mean here is that generally if one player starts showing a card, others start to do it. To the extent that if you are the one to start doing it you may get some of the other players to follow.

The_Chopper

Thanks all for the feedback I take it all constructively........

Jayminator wrote: »

I much prefer to use my tells ''DURING'' a hand. After tells about a hand that is over are completely irrelevant.

And before you come back Ricky and say you can use these tells for future hands thats irrelevant as the information you are talking about is revealed ''AFTER'' the hand. I dont really want tells after the hand. I want them during the hand. I want tells on people while they re playing hands.

WTF do I care if a guy reveals he was bluffing or strong after the hand is over... He has won the pot end of.. How can you use these ''after tells'' in future hands when the information revealed is only revealed when the pot is over....

Pointless really

Hey Jay,

Lets say you're playing a hand or observing a hand been played. You think you have a good grasp on what's going wrong but you're thinking 'I'd love this to go to a showdown, if both players have what I think they have - i'll be able to take advantage of this later'. Now on the river the cards are shown and your read was right. You're now much more confident in playing pots against them?

So my question to you. Can hands that go to a showdown help you throughout a course of a tournament? If yes, read on.........

What I'm trying to suggest in the above article is when hands don't go to a showdown there is still a vast amount of information been leaked by a player, which I believe is much harder to 'fake'. From this information and with a bit of practice you should be able to interprete whether is holding was strong or whether he was bluffing. Given this information in further hands added on top off all information you've aquired you should be able to calculate you EV against his hand ranges slightly better.

hotspur wrote: »

I don't agree with the very vast majority of this and for the same reason I think Mike Caro's Book of Poker Tells is a piece of rubbish. Generally speaking you are just speculating what each behaviour means. I know enough about body language to know that it is far far more individual than you think. If you rely on general behaviours meaning X or Y then you will get yourself into trouble. The truth is that different people will behave the same way for different reasons. It is only by studying the repetition and deviation in an individual's behaviour that you can find a genuine tell.

Firstly thanks for posting. I like many other persons on this forum wish you'd post more.
Secondly thanks for comparing the article to Mike Caro's Book of Poker Tells

I agree that this article is completely generalised as will my responses here be, I will try and explain why.
People can react completely differently to any number of situations. I also 100% agree that I am speculating about what the above tells I have listed mean based on my experiences etc......

Lets look at your average Jo poker player at a table:
1. They sit 2 ways, back in the chair or forward with elbows on the table (occasionally they stand)
2. When involved in a hand they will do 1+ of 5 things, shuffle chips, play with their cards, sit motionless (with or without ipod in ear), talk or have a drink (munch on something)
3. When not involved in a hand they will study the table, talk or switch off

When people sit at a poker table they are all trying to play poker. Due to the games popularity and expanding coverage most people playing will have watched poker at some level.

A few years ago when Ronaldiniho was the best player in the world he had a box full of tricks. When people (inc myself) went playing football we all tried some of these tricks. Some of us were lucky enough to pull them off, others just looked retarded.

My point is it's natural for people to try and replicate the winners in any given game or sport. They have seen their 'heroes' win doing these things etc. They will try and replicate a winning style they have seen and with this comes all the behaviours. This is why I believe I can generalise.

Note: Obviously there an infinate number of little things you can observe at a table.........

hotspur wrote: »

I don't know where you got some of your analysis such as if a player looks back at his cards and shakes his head he was bluffing, if he mucks his hand and talks about having a good hand he was bluffing but doesn't say anything he was strong??? I'm sorry, I appreciate that you put effort into writing the article but that is just speculative rubbish and anyone who puts any store in it will be making a mistake. I could go on because I think pretty much every after tell you describe is utter nonsense that you just thought up on the spot.

I defintely did not make these up on the spot. The reality is i wrote this based around 5 or 6 tells i picked up on. I've acted upon these a number of times in later hands. I admit that what i've listed can be taken either way in the right circumstances but I believe for players trying to adapt observations and tells into their arsenal that this is a good starting point.

hotspur wrote: »

I appreciate that I may come across as being very harsh on this, but I genuinely believe anyone could pull this out of thin air and it just has no veracity to it. People are often confused into thinking such things are of merit but you could have given a different meaning to each after tell and it would have made no difference. It is just evidenceless speculation and goes against the reality of the fact that tells are incredibly individual. Just like Caro really, I imagine you believe that shaking hands = a monster too.

I welcome to feedback and I think it's great that we don't all agree on the same thing. I think it's harsh to completely dismiss it as rubbish though.

Caro's book is recognised by alot of great players and it's a very good basic poker book to read when you're starting off. Once tells are made aware to people they try to manipulate them for sure. There have been numerous articles published on tells, however very few have dealt with those gaps between hands + between decisions.

I hope this has somewhat explained my thought process and hasn't come across as rubbish......

AdMMM

As a poster on 2p2 said, the whole article could be summed up as "watch your opponents when the hand is over" because for someone to be interested in these so called "after tells", they must have some kind of knowledge of tells in general and have an idea of what to look out for.

It's a good article for people who don't know about tells though...

Jayminator

The_Chopper wrote: »

Thanks all for the feedback I take it all constructively........

Hey Jay,

Lets say you're playing a hand or observing a hand been played. You think you have a good grasp on what's going wrong but you're thinking 'I'd love this to go to a showdown, if both players have what I think they have - i'll be able to take advantage of this later'. Now on the river the cards are shown and your read was right. You're now much more confident in playing pots against them?

So my question to you. Can hands that go to a showdown help you throughout a course of a tournament? If yes, read on.........

What I'm trying to suggest in the above article is when hands don't go to a showdown there is still a vast amount of information been leaked by a player, which I believe is much harder to 'fake'. From this information and with a bit of practice you should be able to interprete whether is holding was strong or whether he was bluffing. Given this information in further hands added on top off all information you've aquired you should be able to calculate you EV against his hand ranges slightly better.

Hey Ricky,
My point is that these tells are only relevant to the hand thats being played. You make the point in your post about watching a hand between 2 other players hoping it goes to showdown and they both have what you thought they had.... This is exactly my point. The tells that they gave way during the hand were during the hand and far outweigh the importance of what they give away after the hand.

Interesting article even for players who may need to refresh their knowledge of tells

Jay

Drakar

Definitely tells revealed during a hand are more important, (as they may be the ones you'll be seeing when posed with a decision), but as poker players we're all about edges. If you can get say a 5% better read on a player, (eg because he acted in the same way in previous hand in a similar position, and by observing him after the hand you concluded that he was bluffing), even if this is only correct slightly more than it's wrong, it's an edge that one shouldn't pass up. This kind of information represents a very small edge, and it's variance would be high, but in the long run it has to be +ev.

Goodluck2me

i thought the point of this was that whatever information he gives off DURING the hand can be correlated to information given out after the hand, so that this information can be used DURING a subsequent hand with the same person.

Jay it's not that you will pick up tells on how he acts afterwards, thats important, its what they do during the hand is the primary concern.

AdMMM

Just a few thoughts on this, while I have the time.

Say if my opening range in the early stages of live tournament from UTG is AA,KK,QQ,JJ and the very odd time, Jack-****. If I'm bored, I might decide to raise 83o UTG, it's folded around to the button who calls and we see a flop of 9K2r. I cbet and take down the pot. I muck my hand quickly, and rake in the pot as fast as I can... because I was bluffing. You see this and make a note of it in your head.

A few orbits later, I look down at KK UTG and raise to the same amount I did before. You call in late position and we see a flop of 9K2r (coincidence or what?). Once again I cbet, but having witnessed this same action when I was bluffing earlier, you decide to 3bet me and you're left scratching your head when I 4bet, or flat call and could quite possibly lose more chips to me on later streets.

Information garnered from when the hand is over can be useful, but not in the situations you have outlined. Over long periods of time, and large samples, such information could gradually be of help as you recontruct hands and help you discover a tell given away during the hand which will be of much more use!

Lazare

hotspur wrote: »

I don't agree with the very vast majority of this and for the same reason I think Mike Caro's Book of Poker Tells is a piece of rubbish. Generally speaking you are just speculating what each behaviour means. I know enough about body language to know that it is far far more individual than you think. If you rely on general behaviours meaning X or Y then you will get yourself into trouble. The truth is that different people will behave the same way for different reasons. It is only by studying the repetition and deviation in an individual's behaviour that you can find a genuine tell.

I don't know where you got some of your analysis such as if a player looks back at his cards and shakes his head he was bluffing, if he mucks his hand and talks about having a good hand he was bluffing but doesn't say anything he was strong??? I'm sorry, I appreciate that you put effort into writing the article but that is just speculative rubbish and anyone who puts any store in it will be making a mistake. I could go on because I think pretty much every after tell you describe is utter nonsense that you just thought up on the spot.

I appreciate that I may come across as being very harsh on this, but I genuinely believe anyone could pull this out of thin air and it just has no veracity to it. People are often confused into thinking such things are of merit but you could have given a different meaning to each after tell and it would have made no difference. It is just evidenceless speculation and goes against the reality of the fact that tells are incredibly individual. Just like Caro really, I imagine you believe that shaking hands = a monster too.

I totally agree that tells are never set in stone, but I think you're putting too much weight in that with your criticism of the OP.
When I first read the article I kind've brushed over Ricky's interpretation of each of the tells as I understand they're totally subjective, but the whole idea of studying a player after a hand never really occured to me, and I consider myself quite an experienced player. For that reason I think the article is very good, and thought provoking. I just think you kind've missed the point with your critique.

Jayminator

goodluck2me wrote: »

Jay it's not that you will pick up tells on how he acts afterwards, thats important, its what they do during the hand is the primary concern.

Joe,
Have i not been explaining myself well enough or is your above post not exactly what i ve been talking about and trying to get across???

HIVeindhoven

hotspur wrote: »

I don't agree with the very vast majority of this and for the same reason I think Mike Caro's Book of Poker Tells is a piece of rubbish. Generally speaking you are just speculating what each behaviour means. I know enough about body language to know that it is far far more individual than you think. If you rely on general behaviours meaning X or Y then you will get yourself into trouble. The truth is that different people will behave the same way for different reasons. It is only by studying the repetition and deviation in an individual's behaviour that you can find a genuine tell.

I don't know where you got some of your analysis such as if a player looks back at his cards and shakes his head he was bluffing, if he mucks his hand and talks about having a good hand he was bluffing but doesn't say anything he was strong??? I'm sorry, I appreciate that you put effort into writing the article but that is just speculative rubbish and anyone who puts any store in it will be making a mistake. I could go on because I think pretty much every after tell you describe is utter nonsense that you just thought up on the spot.

I appreciate that I may come across as being very harsh on this, but I genuinely believe anyone could pull this out of thin air and it just has no veracity to it. People are often confused into thinking such things are of merit but you could have given a different meaning to each after tell and it would have made no difference. It is just evidenceless speculation and goes against the reality of the fact that tells are incredibly individual. Just like Caro really, I imagine you believe that shaking hands = a monster too.

....
Still if people want to waste their time refining their ridiculous soul reading methods rather then studying theory i'm not going to stop them!

a147pro

i think a strong 'after tell' online is if someone instafolds the hand after winning a hand by betting very aggressively there's a good chance they didn't want a call in the winning bet the previous hand. its like the fear of possibly being called the previous hand makes them fold straight away the next. this is obviously contingent on this being at a stage of the MTT where they are likely to be completely focussed on the game and taking a few secs to act each hand.

for the avoidance of doubt i'm not taking the p*ss I know people will take issue with online tells per se.

hotspur

The_Chopper wrote: »

I welcome to feedback and I think it's great that we don't all agree on the same thing. I think it's harsh to completely dismiss it as rubbish though.

Actually I quite regret the tone and language of my post, I had just spent 10 hours in excruciating abdominal pain and really shouldn't have been critiquing anything.

Get In There

Ricky- Does checking in the dark generally serve as a tell? I know I asked this in the other thread but I cant get my head around as to why people check in the dark after calling a pre-flop raise..

The_Chopper

Get In There wrote: »

Ricky- Does checking in the dark generally serve as a tell? I know I asked this in the other thread but I cant get my head around as to why people check in the dark after calling a pre-flop raise..

TBH I don't know what it means. I know if I check in the dark I'm doing it to make my opponent uncomfortable. I've never had anyone check in the dark to me that I can think of, sorry........