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PSYCHOLOGY OF POKER & TELLS
After all is said and done, poker is ultimately about psychology - playing against your competitors. For example, many games often end with a very small hand, such as a pair of 7s, beating a smaller hand, such as a pair of 3s. Your hand doesn't have to be the best hand possible. It simply has to be better than those left, in the hand.
Knowing what your opponents have is an art, not a science. Poker players talk about "tells" - twitches, trembles, and other bodily signs that might give you a clue as to what your opponent has. In time, you may even learnto "read" those tells. Mastering the psychology of poker, however, is much more important (and, in fact, a crucial foundation before reading tells is even possible).
Poker psychology boils down to your ability to watch how others play, and use that experience to judge how your opponents may be playing in the current hand. It is critical that you never become distracted from the game. For example, do not watch TV, even during a friendly game, for this will deprive you of the information you gain while watching your opponents. Even in a friendly game, your "friends" are trying to take your money from you!
The simplest layer of poker psychology is to watch what your opponents visibly do based on their own cards. For example, keep track of how each player bets. If you have problems doing this, start by only keeping track of those who did not fold, and don't worry about keeping track of amounts. Simply get a feel for whether the players bet strongly or weakly. During a showdown, note the hands each player had. Were they betting heavily with a weak hand? Was the hand possibly going to "make it?" (e.g., were they drawing to a flush, and just didn't make it? Was the flush even possible? Was it likely, or was it a long shot?)
This is not a skill learned in a day. You must play THOUSANDS of hands to master it. Gradually, you will build a feel for how players bet in response to what they have in their hands. Then focus on how they respond to other players. Did they come out betting heavily early in the game, then fade away and eventually fold to heavy raising, even if their hand looked like it improved? Did they instead re-raise or cap the betting?
The same mathematical strategies that apply to you can be of assistance here, especially in community card or stud games, which give you some information about what the other players have even before the showdown. In fact, it is during these games that poker psychology is most readily learned, because in draw games you never know what the player discarded.
Learn to classify your opponents, and adjust your strategy against how they play. For example, identify whether your opponents are loose or tight. If they are loose, they are likely to bet heavily or stay in for a long time with even a very weak hand, or on a long shot draw. Tight players, however, tend to fold at every breeze. Also categorize them in terms of passive or aggressive. When raised, do they tend to call or fold? Or do they re-raise?
Ultimately, no single strategy will ever teach you the art of poker psychology. You will either learn it over a long period of time playing many hands, or you will go broke trying!
TELLS
In poker, a tell is a detectable change in a player's behavior that gives clues to that player's assessment of their hand. Possible tells include leaning forward or back, placing chips with more or less force, fidgeting, changes in breathing or tone of voice, direction of gaze and actions with the cards, cigarettes, or drinks.
For example, a player who believes his hand to be weak, hoping to bluff, may throw his chips into the pot forcefully and with a direct gaze at a player he hopes to discourage from calling.
Tells may be common to a class of players or unique to a single player. A player gains an advantage if she observes another player's tell, particularly if that action is unconscious and reliable. However, better players may fake tells, hoping to lead their opponents into costly traps when they rely on the false information. So the observing, creating, and evaluating of tells can add another level to the play of poker.
It is important to note that a player's tells only give information about that player's own assessment of their cards, and thus is only reliable in the context of a player who has accurately assessed their own hand. An unskillful player may reliably give information in a tell, but that information may be an unreliable guide to the player's hand if the player cannot assess the strength of a hand in a particular game.
A number of tells are common to most poker players -- when someone with normally-still hands bets, and their hands shake, it's a release of tension indicating that they are confident in their cards. As well, most players act -- as in, try to conceal their intentions -- and generally behave aggressively or loudly with a weak assessment, while acting meek and mild with strong ones. More in-depth information can be gleaned from Mike Caro's comprehensive book on tells; his Book of Tells (ISBN 0897461002) is now a standard reference on the subject.
David Mamet's 1987 movie House of Games includes an interesting discussion and visual reference to tells as an essential part of the plot. The movie Rounders contains an even more subtle use of strategy: at one point, "Mike" discovers a tell in his opponent (that he eats cookies in a particular way after he has bet a very strong hand), and after using it once, he reveals to the opponent that he has this tell; although this eliminates the usefulness of the tell itself, it upsets his opponent so much that it affects his later play.
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