Learn Play Poker

Have you ever looked around the table, only to run into blank faces and cold eyes, covered with hoodies, sunglasses and a beard? You need to learn how to conceal your poker tells if you want to throw off your opponents effectively and keep yourself in a position to win.

While most novice players will display a long pause before making a big raise, essentially yelling at you that they have a strong hand, more experienced players will not display such behavior and you need to learn how they do it if you want to reach their level.

Obvious behaviors you want to hide are over acting, talking too much, rechecking your cards, and some smaller things. Overall, it’s best to look at your opponents and single out the little things that stood out. These things stand out for a reason, and you can bet that your opponents are paying attention to you as well.

There are, however, smaller things you need to pay attention to on higher levels of poker players. For example, you should train yourself to always put down chips in the same way. It doesn’t really matter how you do it – by throwing them or quietly moving them, it has to be consistent all the time.

Breathing and speech is also a hard habit to get rid of. For instance, it’s very common for a poker player to hold is breath when they are bluffing. Also, over talking points to a strong hand. A cracking voice usually points to a weak hand. Overall, it’s better not to talk.

Eye contact is also a big one. A bluffing poker player will not make eye contact, while a strong handed player looks for eye contact. The best way to deal with this is to counter these things every now and then. When you are bluffing, try to make eye contact, and when you have a strong hand, look at the floor. Anyway, try to avoid eye contact whatsoever unless you’re using it as part of a strategy.

Also, it’s a good idea to make your betting consistent. The time it takes you, the amounts, what you say, should always be the same. This way you avoid any potential tells that your opponents can pick up.

There are more small things to look out for, but the bottom line with poker is that you should avoid anything that stands out.