Has any one watched that new TV show – Lie to Me? For those who haven’t, its a US television program that features two doctors who have their doctorates in the field of emotional and micro-expressions. Now if you don’t know what a micro-expression is, let me teach you with my new found knowledge (thanks TV).
A micro-expression is a facial of body expression that expresses how we are feeling despite our attempts to hide them. i.e, a swallow when we lie, a twitch of the corners of the mouth, the movement of the eyes. The premise behind the show is that they can pick the tell tale signs of liars any time and anywhere as they know exactly what to look for and exactly what the signs mean.
Now how does this relate to poker? Well if you hadn’t picked up on it already, a micro-expression in the poker arena is known as a tell. Not quite as relevant in online poker, but still interesting. What micro-expressions do you pick up and interpret at the poker table?
The best answer and interpretation will get $10 in their player account.
Tags: Contest, Poker Pop Culture
Its an excellent show and one I enjoy watching. I remember that a guy I used to play against would always place his cards down on the table if he had a good hand. He take them out of his hand and rest them on the table. Another guy would whistle whenever he was bluffing. I have a tell as well but I don’t want to say what it is.
a bluffer will look you straight in the eye, but in avoidance of giving off a tell, someone with a good hand will avoid eye contact at the table.
The best micro-expression online is when people add micro bets number like 51 – 101. When the blind is 50 or 100.
anacequeen
i play live two nights a week (mon/thurs) and have a poker buddy that when bluffing looks off to the right everytime she bets the bluff. in my opinion it is a way to avoid giving anyone a tell when they make eye contact. kind of ironic that she gives tells to avoid giving tells.
Lie to me is an awesome show. Someone with the ability to read people at a poker table like the abilities portrayed in the show would be master in the poker world but, as any experience poker player will tell you most tells at the poker table can be horribly unreliable. A good poker player will be away of the common tells and will use these to their advantage to manipulate their opponent.
Not all tells are as unreliable as the well known common tells. One of the things I look for at a table is habits that expressed over several hands that you can be for sure your opponent is unknowingly doing. One thing that a lot of players unknowingly do is glancing at their chip stack as soon as the thought to bet crosses their mind. This is an extremely reliable tell because most people don’t even know that they do it.
Say for instance a player is holding a low-to-moderate pocket pair and the flop comes out and they hit their set. They will immediately look down at their chips in turn revealing the strength of their hand and letting you know to stay away. Knowing that this player will glance at his chips when he has intentions of betting you can assume that when this player misses the flop they will avoid looking at their chips. That being known the pot is yours for the taking…
I hope this useful to you all in your future games.
what i tend to look for is anything different than a player would normally do, like if they are betting a lot and then they make a small bet they are either bluffing or have a monster hand. Also a person might be loud and talk a lot and then they will get real quiet again you have to know the person to tell exactly what that means.
The poker players that play regular all have ways to show tells to mix up the opponents. When you play with this type of player, you can create your own set of tells from them. This is a pro secret and should be guarded as such. What you have to do is make rediculous bets. Such as the continuous use of min bets and min raises to arouse their suspicions and tease them. Showing what your min betting and raising will bring them out of their shell. Then reraise with nothing and show.. this costs a little up front investment but will give you access to their emotions.. and
will give you more play on the table which is how you get paid back for the rediculous betting you begin with.
the1steve