How to Observe Your Poker Opponents

Many experienced poker players will tell you that poker is less of a card game and more of a people game. By practicing a few simple observation techniques, you can quickly learn a great deal about the hands that your opponents hold.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

1. Make an effort to focus your attention on each player individually throughout your playing session and remember what you observe. You can’t watch everyone at the same time, so manage your observation time well as you pan the table for clues.
2. Observe each player’s general behavior when they’re in the middle of a hand and when they’re not involved or waiting to fold. Try to identify physical tells that show how each player acts when they are and aren’t interested in what they’re doing. Once you identify a pattern for a particular player, you may be able watch that player’s behavior with each additional card dealt and determine if the card crushed their hand (creating sudden disinterest) or made it (creating sudden increased interest).
3. If you’re playing Texas Hold’em, Omaha Hold’em or any other poker variation that involves community cards, don’t watch the community cards as they’re being dealt. Pan across the table instead, watching for changes in the expressions of the players. If a player looks at the community cards and immediately looks away, it may be a sign that she’s made a big hand and doesn’t want to attract attention.
4. As you observe players and notice specific physical tells, be sure to follow the course of the hand and observe the hands they show down at the end.
5. Keep an eye out for involuntary reactions. The most common instances of this are trembling hands, sudden perspiration and increased heart rates, which can be observed by looking closely at a player’s neck to see if the pulse is visible from across the table. These types of excited, automatic reactions are usually very hard for players to hide and typically indicate very strong hands.
6. If you play with the same group of players over an extended period of time, consider writing down your observations in private notebook after each game. Create detailed case studies on your opponents, update them frequently and study them often to gain the advantage.

Tips & Warnings

• Keep an open mind about what a tell on a specific player might mean until you’ve associated it with strong or weak hands and have observed a reliable pattern over the course of several hands.
• While you’re watching other players, they may be watching you. They may even be watching you watch them! In these instances, they could take it upon themselves to deceive you by acting.