Being able to read your opponent is crucial in poker. It is what differentiates a game of skill such as poker from other games of chance such as roulette. Everybody has poker tells at the table and the more you observe, the better you will be able to read what a player is thinking and what cards they hold. Poker tells include any source of information that you can gather from an opponent including physical movement, changing and patterns of talking as well as how they move the chips around the table.

The Eyes Reading a player starts with their eyes. Watch how they view the world and you will gain insight into their thoughts. An opponent who glances at their chips immediately after seeing the flop is thinking about betting and likely has a monster. Some players will stare at their hole cards longer than normal when they have a big hand. When the flop comes down and the player stares at the flop as if staring straight through it, they have often missed.

The Hole Cards Double checking the hole cards usually means a weak hand. People don’t often double check big pairs because they remember what it was the first time. Looking away and uninterested after seeing the hole cards is a dead give away for strength. Squeezing out the second hole card sometimes means the first card seen is an ace. Checking the hole cards on a flop that is all the same suited usually implies someone doesn’t have the flush.

Patterns in Betting In poker, one thing that is often true is that strong means weak and weak means strong. Any player that forcefully shove chips into the middle looking aggressive is on a bluff. The reverse is also true.

Chip Stacks Studying how the chips are put out, the amount of bet, whether it is large chips or small chips can give clues to betting tells. Loose aggressive players usually have unorganised stacks while tight conservative players keep neat stacks. Some players keep two stacks in cash games, these type of players will stack their winnings off to the side or in front so they can easily tell how much they are up on the game. If you can determine this, they will be less likely to call a bet which would put them in the red for the game, unless they have a very strong hand. If you ever notice a player winning a large pot, and perhaps may still be stacking their chips from it, they will not play the hand unless they have good cards.

Speaking at the table If an opponent is having a conversation during a poker hand and his talk is all of the place, as if his mind is on something else, it usually means he is not too confident in his hand. This correlates to a weak poker hand. Conversely, if a player is talking smoothly while in a hand, it means he is not overly concerned about the hand he is playing. This is because he feels comfortable and usually means a big hand.

The more you observe at the table, the more tells you can pick up and the better player you will become.

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