Hold'em championship

A Beginner's Guide to Avoiding Tells

Beginning poker players often commit the common mistake of giving away the value of their hand through a display of certain behaviors. For example, a player with a good hand may unconsciously smirk or smile, or all of a sudden become talkative. Or maybe a player who is bluffing might unintentionally shiver due to tension. This unnecessary behavior that often give clues as to what your hand is are called tells.

For the beginning poker player, avoiding tells is a valuable skill, which when coupled with other effective strategies, would help one win the pot.

The main idea behind tells is that you are unconsciously doing these giveaway behaviors. This means that you unintentionally act when a certain situation arises, for example, when you have a good hand. This also means that you do not know what these behaviors are. That is why they seem to be uncontrollable and automatic.

One way of avoiding tells is through learning in-game. Since you do not know when you commit a tell but other players could read and distinguish your tells, try to play with friends or acquaintances. Keenly observe their reactions to your plays. If you commit a certain play and they do not act according to what you expect them to do, then the next time you commit the same play, you could be more conscious and careful. After the game, try to chat with your friends and ask them what your giveaway behaviors are.

Another way to avoid tells is through committing to a constant table image. This means that if you are talkative, you should be talkative from beginning to end. If you are more comfortable wearing a hard poker face, then do so from beginning to end. This may be difficult since certain situations like bluffing could elicit excitement in such a way that involuntary movements could be present. However, ample experience in poker could make one used to these kinds of situations, and therefore treat it nonchalantly.

If you are having a difficult time avoiding tells, then consider using it to your advantage. Since your opponents would be using it to assess your hand, then an unreliable tell would enable you to lure them into acting favorably for you. For example, if you cannot control shaking when holding a good hand, then slow plays would not be a very good choice of action. However, if you could elicit the same reaction when holding a weak hand, then bluffing would be far more effective, since opponents would be thinking that you are holding a good hand.

Tells are a bane to beginning poker players. Since tells are oftentimes unconscious acts, then a good practice to avoid them is to be conscious of oneself and of your opponents' reactions while playing. Try to keep to a certain table image. In that way, one could avoid the quirks your "true self" could have. If you have uncontrollable behavior, like shaking, then try to use them to your advantage by creating unreliable tells. But the best way to avoid tells is to be familiar and comfortable with poker. Once you do, you are on the way to being a good poker player.