Main Visits

Today's Story

Psychology in Poker

It is often said that poker is a psychological game. True enough, poker involves behavioral patterns. You can see it in the betting trends of poker players, in their reactions to the cards on their hands and those drawn as community cards and in the way people change their play.

Side by side with bluffing are the poker tells. Poker tells are the body's reaction to the game, usually unconsciously done by poker players. Some of the poker tells are holding your breath, tapping your fingers, smiling movement of eyeballs, and many more.

Poker tells are useful in catching bluffers. You can observe your opponents for a while and see how their body reacts when they get a good or a bad hand. Then, eventually, you can use their poker tells on them. For example, you will not fall for a bluff when the player who made the bluff is blinking too fast, because that's what he or she does when he/she gets a horrible hand.

However, you should also be careful in catching these poker tells, because they may also be used against you. Some poker players may establish their fake poker tells at the earlier part of the game and then use them to bluff you later on. For example, you may think that this certain poker player unknowingly scratches his nose when he gets a bad card, but what you do not know is that he does that on purpose to deceive you. Later on in that game, this poker player will scratch his/her nose deliberately even if he/she gets a good card. Poor you, because at that point, you think he/she has a bad card based on the poker tell that he/she has. You may even call an all-in, and surprise, surprise, you just lost to a more cunning player.

So put in your mind, poker tells aren't really that reliable. Therefore, you must have other alternatives in catching other poker players' bluffs such as in the way they bet. You may also sharpen your skills in computing your outs and bluffing. There are so many ways that you can use to win poker games. If you are able to use all of them, and interchangeably, then you may be considered an expert poker player. You become unpredictable and hard to catch. You don't want be just a master of poker tells, do you? Why be a poker tells master when you can be a poker master?