Still there is one major area that I have yet to truly attempt to utilize while playing poker. One skill set that is blown out of proportion in the movies, but is underdeveloped probably by 95% of all poker players.... reading tells.
For years Hollywood has portrayed the tell as being something so obvious that it's comical. From teeth tapping in Maverick to Oreo cookies in Rounders and many other extremely obvious examples that even an 8 year old could pick up on, most poker players realize that poker tells are never this obvious, and as a result, they don't even bother to look for them anymore. But tells are still there to be read, you just have to know what you're looking for, and what they mean.
Like many poker players, I've read numerous articles on tells, but then when I sit down to play poker, I get lost in the excitement, and rarely perceive anything that I think could even possibly be a tell. You see, picking up a tell takes hours of research, a great memory and keen observation. Sadly, I seem to lack the memory of the attention span required to do this successfully.
So.. as many of my previous blogs have done, in this one I'm going to challenge myself. I have a Championship game this Friday, after a 10 game regular season, for which I am the defending champ. I'm going to focus on one or two players at my table, and watch them as closely as I possibly can. I'm going to watch for things like how they place their chips in the pot and how they react immediately after seeing the flop.
For information on tells check out these links:
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