By Daniel Negreanu.
There’s a common misconception about how, and more importantly, when to read other players’ tells.

I get a kick out of the whole stare down thing after an opponent makes a bet on the river. Even though the bettor never flinches, the staring continues because one player (mistakenly) hopes that if he stares long enough, he’ll somehow figure out if the other player is bluffing or not.

That’s just not how you read people, and that’s not the right time to start searching for tells.

The subtle tells you pick up at the poker table will often occur well before you’re faced with your big decision. Why? Because tells happen early. To make a good read, you must pay attention to the action at the beginning of the hand, even though the table action doesn’t yet seem exciting.

It’s just very unlikely that you’ll discover a physical tell on the river that will miraculously sway your decision. It’s much more effective to look for revealing tells pre-flop, post-flop, or possibly as late as the turn card.

Here are a few pointers to help you know what to look for before the flop.

Let’s say you observe an opponent gobbling down a messy meal while seated at the table. Well, here’s a rule of thumb: Players generally get a bit more conservative when they’re…. continue reading at Falls Church News-Press

By Joe Navarro with Marvin Karlins
…..Pacifying Behaviors Involving the Neck: Neck touching and/or stroking is one of the most significant and frequent pacifying behaviors we use in responding to stress. I have observed over the decades that there are gender differences in the way men and women use the neck to pacify themselves. Men usually are more robust in their movements, grasping or cupping the front of their neck (under the chin) with their hand or stroking the sides or the back of the neck with their fingers. Sometimes they will adjust their necktie knot or shirt collar. Women do things differently. When they pacify using the neck, they will sometimes touch, twist, or otherwise manipulate necklaces they are wearing. The other major way women neck-pacify is by covering their suprasternal notch with their hand. The suprasternal (which comes from terms meaning “above” and “breastbone”) notch is the hollow area right below the Adam’s apple that is sometimes referred to as the neck dimple. Women touch this part of their neck and/or cover it when they feel stressed; for example, when they feel threatened, uncomfortable, or anxious at the poker table.

This covering of the suprasternal notch is a relatively significant tell. It can be used to detect when a person is bluffing, both in life and in poker. I remember one FBI investigation in which we thought an armed and dangerous fugitive might be hiding out at his mother’s home. Another agent and I went to the woman’s house, and when we knocked at the door, she came outside to meet us. We showed our identification and began asking her a series of questions. When I inquired, “Is your son in the house?” she put her hand to her suprasternal notch and said, “No, he’s not.” I noted her behavior, and we continued with our questioning. After a few minutes I asked, “Is it possible that while you were at work, your son could have sneaked into the house?” Once again, she put her hand up to her neck dimple and replied, “No, I’d know that.” I was now confident that her son was in the house, because the only time she moved her hand to her neck was when I suggested that possibility. To make absolutely sure my assumption was correct, we continued to speak with the woman until, as we prepared to leave, I made one last inquiry: “Just so I can finalize my records, you’re positive he’s not in the house, right?” For a third time, her hand went to her neck as she affirmed her earlier answer. I was now certain the woman was lying. A search of the house turned up her missing son hiding in a bedroom closet.

There’s an interesting footnote to this neck tell. When I was shooting a television special with Annie Duke, I noticed that when something disturbed her, she pacified by covering her suprasternal notch. I said to her, “You really need to watch that neck-touching response, because if I can see it, so can your opponents at the poker table. I suspect you might display that behavior when you’re bluffing, and other players might decipher it and realize you have a weak hand.” After I identified the behavior, she actually recognized she had been touching her neck in such a manner and said she would make an effort to stop. To her credit – she is an incredible person and poker player – I haven’t seen her doing it at the tables since our discussion.

Tells of the Feet: As I emphasize in our book Read ’em and Reap, the feet are the most honest part of our body; thus foot nonverbals normally provide very reliable information. Women don’t…. read rest of article at Bluff Magazine

By Joe Navarro
This is a question I ask attendees at the various poker seminars and training camps I conduct every year. The answer is important, because once you know the most honest part of an individual’s body, that’s where you’ll want to look to pick up the most accurate read on what your opponent is holding. The problem is that few attendees know the right answer; in fact, unless they are familiar with Read ‘em and Reap, they almost always respond incorrectly and, thus, they ignore the part of a person’s anatomy that gives significant, uncensored information about his true card strength.The correct answer to the question: “What is the most honest part of your body?” is… your feet!

That’s right: Your feet win the honesty award hands, uh, feet down every time. The feet are truly remarkable and truthful in the information they convey. Unfortunately, when it comes to reading body language, most poker players start at the top (face) of their opponent(s) and work their way down, in spite of the fact that the face is the one feature of the body that is most often used to bluff and conceal true sentiments. My approach is the exact opposite: I begin with the feet and move up from there. This is because when it comes to the honesty of a person’s responses, the degree of truthfulness decreases as we move from the soles of our feet to the top of our head. Thus, our feet are the most honest part of our body, and our face is the most deceptive.

When you think about it, there’s good reason for the deceitful nature of our facial expressions. We lie with our face because that’s what we’ve been taught to do since early childhood. “Don’t make that face!” our parents growl when we honestly react to Aunt Wilma’s treacherous meat loaf. “At least look happy when your cousins stop by,” they add, and you learn how to force a smile. Mom and Dad are, in essence, telling us to hide, conceal, deceive, lie with our face… so we tend to get pretty good at it. So good, in fact, that when we put on a happy face at the poker table, we might look like we’ve got…. Read rest of article at Bluff Magazine

See more Poker Tells

by Fred Thompson
Many people believe that playing live poker is the only way to play because there are many good tells you can use to gain an edge over the opposition. However, players shouldn’t make decisions solely based on tells. Instead, they should think of each hand as a puzzle, with tells being a small piece. You want to add up different pieces of information to complete the puzzle.The problem with tells is that most people rely almost exclusively on them and end up making the wrong decisions because they fail to incorporate other vital information into their game. Equally important factors are how an opponent is betting, what type of player they are, what their current mood is, and how they’ve played in the past.

Let’s talk about the following tells and how you can use them to exploit the players at your table…. read rest of article at PokerListings.com

By Dr. Tim Lavalli
Everyone wants to be able to read an opponent at the table but what does it mean when he riffles his chips? Why did she smile when she made that bet on the turn? Is that nervous twitch really a tell and if it is does it mean he has a good hand or he is running a bluff?

Perhaps there is just too much information rather than not enough. Every player tries to give off minimal readable tells but many players, particularly the talkative ones, actually give you more information than you can process. Rather than try to throw out the useless information looking for the useful, perhaps you might try looking for a group of signs that all point in the same direction….. read rest of article at PokerNews