effectivepokerplaying

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Wouldn't you like to know if your opponent is lying when he pushes all in? With a little knowledge and observation skills, you can apply some formulaic tricks to learn how to knock down that bluffing bully.

Steps

1. Don't look at their eyes! Your dear mom's advice of looking someone in the eye to see if they are lying is actually quite useless in telling you if someone is lying. Many liars have no problems looking someone in the eye, including poker players.
   
   • Strong means weak. When a player is trying to bluff you, their natural basic reaction is to try and look intimidating so that you'll meekly fold your hand away. This generally involves slamming down chips, talking loud and staring you down.
     
   • Weak means strong. On the other hand, when someone has a monster of a hand, they want to look as meek and passive as possible, to convince you to bet into them. This usually comes in the form of big sighs, slumping in their chairs, saying things like "I *guess* I'll bet.." or shaking their head. Never believe for a second the oscar performances you see at a table- if they're showing anything, it's usually on purpose.
     
   • The shoulder crunch. One of the most popular vacation activities is to get a good old massage. Why? Because of all that tension in our shoulders that we develop. Stress causes our shoulders to tense up, which if you're keenly observant, you can see in some of your opponents by a slight crunch. If you see it, it usually means your opponent is scared (read: bluffing) or has a weak hand.
     
   • The shoulder drop. When your opponent drops his shoulder (slightly) that usually means your opponent missed his or her hand. This is caused by a release of stress that causes the shoulders to unclamp. If your opponent had hit their card, the tension would still be in the game and you wouldn't notice any variation in their shoulders, since there was no release point. That said, if you see a huge shoulder drop, it's not normal (read: on purpose for you to see), which means a strong hand.
     
   • The heavy breathing. Another big indicator in the physiological stress game. Stress means higher pulse, which requires more air circulation to supply oxygen to the bloodstream. When an opponent starts breathing heavily in a deep up and down motion (as opposed to hyperventilating), that is a good sign that something is deeply stressing him or her out. If your opponent has just made a huge bet, chances are that he's bluffing. On the other hand, if he is not currently making the action and he's stressed, you'd better watch out for a monster! (This is why it's important to pay attention to everyone during a poker game.)
     
   • Talking or not talking. When a quiet guy at the game suddenly starts talking, it's time to pay attention. Quiet guys are quiet because they're introveted people. Introverted people don't talk because it tends to stress them out. This means that if a quiet guy is talking, he's quite relaxed, which means he's probably got a monster and isn't worried about his hand. On the flip side, if a big talker suddenly gets quiet, he's devoting most of his brain power to his hand. Chances are, he's got something good and needs to think about how to play it out.
     
   • Intently staring. If you've ever played any board game and wanted to know what part of the board your opponent was thinking about, just look at -where- his eyes are looking. Same goes with poker. If you're close enough, you can see if he might be staring intently at that Ace or King when the board flops. If he stares long, he's probably hit it, whereas a quick glance and lean back usually means it's not what he wanted to see.
     
   • Shaking hands (the tremors). This is a huge tell of a player holding a monster of a hand. Some people think this means a player is nervous as hell about a bluff, but if someone is this nervous, they aren't in any condition to make a bluff. Usually a tell given off by newer players who have trouble holding their emotions in, Aces, sets and other huge hands are what you can expect when someone bets with shaking hands.
     
     • On the other hand, when you see shaking stop, that is a big tell your opponent is bluffing. The best example of this, is seen right after your opponent bets into you, look for any signs that he is trying to control himself. This is especially apparent in people who shake/jiggle/bob their legs unconsciously, when they make a bluff all of a sudden this unconscious movement stops as they attempt to control all movement so as not to give away tells!
       
   • Betting patterns! Apart from a lot of the hocus pocus of tells and going to the nth degree of observing which direction your opponent spins his chips into the pot, the biggest indicator you can use are straight up in front of you- how your opponent bets. An opponent who normally raises pre-flop to five multiples of the blinds suddenly makes it 2x the blind instead. This is a major tell- he wants you to call. Or he makes it 10x the blind- he wants you to fold. Being able to observe these type of pattens in conjunction with your
     

Tips

• Just remember, while tells are scientifically based on the human reaction and physiological traits, not everyone reacts in the same way. Some people get stressed when they bluff, but not when they have a monster. Others get excited when they bluff but calmly handle huge hands. It depends on your opponents.
  
• Online poker is a completely different camp than real life poker. You can find good lessons and details for online poker tells here and information on bluffing here.
  

Warnings

• Don't get so caught up in tells that you miss out on the whole poker game. While the pros are able to take in information from multiple facets at once, the new player is so overwhelmed with all the information at the table that keeping up can be hard at times. Concentrate first on the game, then when you are accustomed to the game, focus then on your opponents' reactions and behaviors.
  
• After reading this How-To, don't make the mistake of putting out tells yourself! You should realize quite quickly that even attempting to put out a tell can have the effect of backfiring if your opponent knows what he is doing. So, if you are going on a bluff, the worst thing possible would be to stare down your opponent, start talking trash and act big. That's a big no-no!