Tells & Mindgames

So I haven’t written much lately, and there is a pretty good reason, having to do with the fact that several people from The Caribbean have mentioned that they’ve read this blog.  I’ve been playing with some ideas (if you’ve played with me lately at The Caribbean, you might have noticed I’ve been playing differently, more loose and aggressive).

So a really good friend of mine and I have been reading a book; well, actually he’s been reading it, and often reading it to me.  I’m not illiterate; he just likes to read aloud, and I like to talk about poker.  Anyway, I don’t know the name of the book, except it isn’t directly related to poker.  It has more to do with human behavior – specifically, the ways in which law enforcement personnel interrogate and obtain information from people.

So in a way it does have a lot to do with poker, and this book has provided hours of conversations between my friend and I about tells and human behavior at the poker table.

I haven’t paid too much attention to specific tells at limit poker in the past.  I guess I’ve always found them to be a little unnecessary, except for the most obvious.  Because of that I have tended to play a very mathematical game.  I know the odds I’m getting, and whether I can call or whether I should raise based on the math.

Lately however, especially since my friend and I have been reading this book, we’ve decided to compare notes about specific players and tells.  (This is one of the reasons I haven’t written much – especially since I know that there are people at The Caribbean who read this, and I don’t want to give anything away.)

Most of the “tells” I’ve relied on were not specific.  There are certain players, under the right situation, who I will call all the way to the river with Ace high, and win often enough to make it profitable.  It’s not that these players hold their mouths a certain way or use a specific hand to bet with – it’s not as specific as that.  It’s usually a bunch of information that is kind of nebulous, but put together, make my “spidey sense” tingle.  :)  I love saying that.

But when my friend and I, who also plays at The Caribbean, started comparing notes, and identifying specific tells from specific players, we found that much of our information matched.  We even learned new tells by sharing information – some of which seemed way too obvious to be true.

There was one player, let’s call him “A” who, according to my friend, has such an obvious tell that I didn’t believe it when he told me.  About a week or so ago, I sat at the table and watched – and when I was able to confirm the tell, it surprised me so much that the person next to me,  seeing the expression on my face said, “Did you just spot a tell?”  I said, “You saw it, too?”  Apparently I had just discovered something that he already knew.  I can’t remember specifically the remainder of the conversation, but I think he said something alluding to “keep it to yourself.”  He didn’t want others at the table to know, and neither did I.

So I’ve been trying to put together a database of sorts, especially since I play with the same players so often.  Right now it’s just in a spreadsheet, but when I sit down at a table, I can now look over notes about other players at the table, if I have them, or create new notes as necessary.  It turns out this is very handy.  (I love smart phones!)

It has also caused me to change my game quite a bit.  Based on certain tells, I’ve tried to find opportunities to isolate players, often with hands that might be weaker than I normally play – sometimes I’ve been right, and haven’t had to show my hand, but sometimes I’ve been wrong.  Even more interesting is when I’m called at the river and have to show a winning hand, but clearly a hand that is out of character for me to play.  I’ve seen more than a few raised eyebrows lately, and I think it’s funny.  I love waiting after the showdown at the river for someone to say “You raised preflop with THAT?!?”

So I would never change my game so much at 8/16, so I’ve been playing quite a bit more at The Caribbean over the past couple of weeks.

Also, especially since I’ve been paying a lot more attention to tells lately, I’m trying to work on reducing and hopefully eliminating many of my own.  I know several of them, and I think it’s funny when I give off a tell and I’m aware of it.