Poker Players' Body Language

It is often said that you should play your game by reading poker players tells of the other poker players rather than to a particular formula.

World Champion Poker player Doyle Brunson once recalled a No Limit game he played in and said "I could beat that game without even looking at my cards."  He didn't mean that the other players were poor competition or bad poker players , just that their body language was so apparent that the cards were almost irrelevant.

Clearly Doyle had to look at his hole cards and play his position appropriately or he would have given the game away, but in principle the other players body language was giving away too much information.
 

Is it really possible to win a game of No Limit Texas Hold'em without looking at your cards? It is a little academic really but to win at the highest levels of the game you will need to be able to read body language to gain that winning edge on your opponents. So let's see what we can learn.

• Position. Your position in a game affects your opportunity to read the other players as you can gauge from the way they play what sort of hand they might have if they play before you bet. If for example they check you could either bet a little or a lot higher to test their commitment to the pot and so the strength of their hand.
When some players check it means their hand is poor and they are playing the hand out at as little cost as possible hoping for some good turn or river cards to improve their hand. For some players it maybe that they are bluffing by under betting hoping you will be over confident. If you can learn to judge the difference by reading the tells that players give away you can more easily steal the pots.

• Reading the tells that players give away isn't easy but it can be learned by paying attention to the poker players body language as they play hand after hand some good some bad. It is said that 90% of communication is non-verbal and we can all sub-consciously judge how others feel about things all we need to learn is how people react when playing particular hands of cards.

By carefully watching players you will be filing away information on how they play, hold their chips, play with their chips as if pausing to consider the strength of their hand, hold their breath in anticipation and shift their weight about to compensate for how their feet move under the table .The feet are hardest part of our bodies to get to lie in body language as they will point away from a difficult situation and towards a pleasant one.

Great players like Jennifer Harman one of the best female poker player in the game  about why she played in a certain way, she'll say something like, "I don't know. I just felt he was bluffing." What she means by this is that her sub-conscious has warned her conscious mind that something doesn't add up.

The more you concentrate on poker players body language and tells the more easily you will be able to pick up key signs that will win you a game.
• Scare cards. Doyle Brunson is an expert at using his position and the tells given off by players to judge how strong a players hand is, almost to the extent that he can 'get inside players' heads and guess how they will play.
Imagine for instance if Doyle calls against a Rock who raised from an early position he  may not even look at his hole cards preferring to combine position, tells and the community cards to outfox him.

Imagine the flop is seven of diamonds, eight of diamonds and six of hearts, and the Rock goes All In. Going off previous hands Doyle may judge that he has a pair of either Aces, Kings or Queens. Without looking at his cards he makes the call.

 The turn card is nine of Diamonds and the Rock checks  Doyle can now steal the pot by allowing the Rock to think he has a straight or a flush.

That is just one example but bear in mind that to consistently win by out playing your opponents you need three things - position to gauge their behaviour off, attention to their body language and the use of scare cards to give yourself that winning edge.