Glancing at chips, etc.

[Aisthesis]

Started reviewing my Mike Caro (just "Book of Tells"--I presumably need to get the DVD as well) and found a particularly good one that I thought I'd just post largely to get myself in the habit of observing this stuff. And my plan is to keep you guys posted about practical applications, in the hope that you folks can get some additional ideas going.

But first, a few simple ones: Almost all of the players in my game are pretty predictable in terms of fold-call PF IF they have looked at their cards already. Even the better players will often protect the hands they want to play and are overly ready to muck before it comes to them. Caro does point out that you have to be a bit careful about this one because actors will sometimes pretend to have the intention of mucking when in fact they intend to raise. There are a few players in my game who I think are capable of this move but only very few. I don't think most of the table pays much attention to these things, and, honestly, I haven't yet been able to use this tell. UTG, where it would really be most useful, the action is usually to me quickly enough that only 1 or 2 players have even looked yet. I really view observing this tell as just good practice in observation for the moment. The only real use I can see for this one is if the game is so tight that making a UTG raise with weak to horrible hands for blind steal purposes is worth the trouble.

One that again didn't have practical use but very well could eventually was "checking hole cards" when 3 to a suit come up. I wasn't in the hand but did notice one player double-checking his hole cards on the turn when 3 to a suit hit. It means: "I have at most one card to the flush." Corollary: Be sure to remember the suits of your own hole cards so as not to need to double-check yourself!

The one that I think has some enormous potential is glancing at chips when the flop comes out (also applicable on the turn). I unfortunately didn't catch this one at all last night, largely because I'm not yet sufficiently in the habit of watching for this yet. It normally means that there's an intention to bet. What I did observe last night was players NOT looking at chips, just focussing on the board or whatever, when the new card(s) shown didn't help them.

Oh, and one that is pretty obvious is the old "weak means strong." Actually, it's the better players in my game who'll put on this act. Largely to MVP (who I think does put on this act): Caro says that it's a definite minority who KNOWS weak means strong, so he actually does not caution players against putting on that act, particularly against a weak field. But I do think it's worth making a mental note of any players at the table who may catch on because you can get into trouble against these. I will say that I do think at this point that I can read this act pretty well, although I haven't had much of a practical opportunity to exploit it.

So, I guess those are the ones I'm working on at the moment. I'll probably just keep posting some stuff like this and, hopefully, some practical situations where some of these tells give me a little more edge.

The "looking at chips" one, on my view, has ENORMOUS potential that I can see, if I can really get it down--like, out of position, checkraising sets or even TPTK rather than betting them out.

I guess one additional note: Last night I was focussing a lot on a couple of players to my right, simply because those were the biggest fish at the table. But these tells seem to me to have greater advantage if you can read the players to your LEFT. If you have a pretty good idea of what the players who have NOT acted before you are going to do, you get some nice additional options for your own betting.

[digital scar]

[briachek]

There were many good tells in Caro's book but the one that I fold to be the most prolific was people looking at their chips when they hit or intend to bet. It has saved me a lot of money when they look at their chips and then check. I know I can't buy the pot and take the free card.