Betting Patterns/Tells (Live Poker)
Play Poker ยป Betting Patterns/Tells (Live Poker)
To start off with betting patterns of live players, one of the most obvious and frequent betting patterns seen at low to middle stakes games is when a player will repeat a bet post flop. If a player bets the same amount two streets in a row this will almost always mean that they are very weak. The reason that they are weak is because a great deal of the time they are not willing to put more money in than they have already since conceded to the pot. When they are doing standard things like betting twice as much on the following street they are far more likely to have a big hand. To take advantage of a player who is betting the same amount consistently often a big raise will fade them, but, other times you can even just call with your hand and have a better hand. Most of the time, when a player repeats the same bet, they will fold to a big raise. You will get no value from putting in a raise. If you just call the bet, you can see their hand, gather that information, and showdown a better one.
Also, a great deal of players at the lower to middle stakes will simply not bet their hands. Most of the older players will just check to younger players and assume that the younger player will fire chips at the pot. If you are a younger player you should look at spots like these as the ability to see free straight draws or flush draws without committing a great deal to the pot. Almost always older men, in general, will pay hands off because they are just looking at their hand as opposed to the texture of the board. In this spot, you can get a ton of value from hands by looking at that simple detail.
There are a handful of obvious tells in live poker. One of the major tells in live poker is if someone is talking throughout the course of a hand or not talking. If a card comes out that makes a straight or a flush or something that looks like it improved your opponents hand and they instantly start talking, nearly every time they have hit that card. The main reason they will start to talk is because of adrenaline building up in their body. That adrenaline will cause a player who is stoic to adjust their chair back or lean their head to the side. When a card comes out and a player reacts to it in some way it more times than not has improved their hand. You will instantly know this if the player reaches for chips or looks at their chips when the card comes out. Along with reaching for chips if you move to make a bet and someone attempts to mock what you are doing they do not want you to bet. This is a spot where your opponent is trying to intimidate you in to not betting again and if they do call then they are making a very thin call.
The opposite of that is if a player is quiet during a hand, which most players are, but you ask them questions and they cannot respond to you, they are more prone to have nothing. When a player is nervous about a bet they will respond with answers that make little to no sense at all. If you ask them what they have and they reply with nothing relative at all to the situation you can certainly assume they are bluffing. Also, if a player makes a bet away from you they are more prone to have nothing. In this situation, it is more of a psychological thing where they are afraid of playing a pot with you, so they bet the chips away from you. On the converse if a player bets the chips at you they most likely have a big hand and want you to be able to see what they bet. If you see what they are betting you are more prone to make a loose call.
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