how to learn live game's tell?

[kim2005]

Is there any good book for it? and how is the best way to improve this skill?

thank you

[signal]

A popular book on live tells is Caro's Book of Tells.

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Is there any good book for it? and how is the best way to improve this skill?

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Skip the book on tells, its not that important skill to learn until you master reading hands based on betting patterns and opponent tendencies - the real tells. If you havent read it yet I recomend Professional NL published by 2+2, its an eye opener (and it includes a very good section on tells and how to incorporate that into your overall decision process).

If you don't want to take my advice (I recommend that you do if you like money) then read Joe Navaro's Read'em and Reap. Its a good book if (and only if) you can separate the tell fiction from tell truth. Joe spends no time discussing betting patterns and instead focuses only body language which is a huge error, world class players are incorporating the two to determine their decision (and they are relying far less on tells than the TV announcers would make you think). Even with the flaws in Joe's book (which again is actually very good if you can separate the truth from the fiction) its still much much much better than Caro's outdated work. Caro's concepts were developed during the days of California draw games when there was far less information available because there were only 2 betting rounds.

[Sly Selea]

I agree with the Joe Navaro recommendation. I won the book as a joke in a tournament, and it turned out to be very informative.

[kim2005]

thank you for the information, it is really helpful

[Felix_Nietzsche]

I agree that betting patterns is MOST important however....there are some tells that can be quite useful.

Speech tells: If a guy starts talking before making a BIG BET. Watch out! If he says something like. "Well, I'm ready to go home anyway" or "I have to keep betting my top pair" or any speech where they allegedly desribe their hand.....watch out! The BIG BET! is the confirming tell. I find the 'old-timers' LOVE to do this.....

Timing tells: After an opponent bets...a LONGGGGGGG drawn out pause is a solid tell of a borderline hand. More sophisticated players will use a fake pause on a HUGE hand but it is VERY RARE that their hollywood act drags on for too long. For these players, the excitement of having a great hand can be suppressed shortly but.....I've never seen them delay too long. Fast calls often imply a draw or top pair crap kicker. The fast call is designed to convey false strength. Again more sophisticated players will make a short pause before making calls on their draws to avoid giving timing tells to players like me.

Betting tells: In the 1/2 NLHE games I play. the mini-re-raise is OFTEN a tell for AA/KK. I happily call their raise and follow the no set/no bet strategy....

[Dima2000123]

I disagree with the widespread 2+2 notion that live tells are a bunk. I agree that betting patterns are important, but combining live tells with the betting will work much better. After I read Joe Navarro's book, I decided to watch a couple of players in every hand to see whether I can put them on strong or weak. I was right the majority of the times. The trick is to follow your read when you're actually in a hand and putting your own money in, which is very hard, and something that I haven't mastered yet.

[Topset72]

It sounds like you are new to live play so here are a couple of the tells I found helpful when I first started playing. Most of these came from limit but they are aplicable to no-limit.

Turn pairs board and flop bettor sighs but still bets. Flop 7 10 Q. 4 players in. One guy bets everybody calls. Turn is another Q. It is checked to the original bettor. He sighs like he is unhappy to see the third queen. Then he bets into 3 people? The bettor always has the 3 queens or a boat.

This may be obvious, but in the almost same situation as above when the turn is a queen, a player not in the hand bangs the table. He had a queen and it makes it less likely your opponents hold the other queen. Same goes for when you have a set and player is having trouble folding on the turn. A river card which would help make the straight comes and the folder winces a little. This makes for a better chance your set will hold.

The last two have more to do with knowing your opponents understand the game. In limit is more important to bet your big hands strongly to try and protect your hand.

I was playing with a guy who is a good player. There were four people in including myself. The hand was capped at four bets before the flop by good player.

Flop K22. He checks and it is checked around to me. I check my pair and give him a wink. I am 90% sure he has KK and a boat. There were four bets and no bets on the flop? Alarm bells. He would make a flop bet here with AA AK and AQ. He would bet QQ,JJ,1010 to see where he was at. He would also make a continuation bet with nothing to try and pick up the pot. The only thing he wouldn't do is check.

Turn came out somebody bet, i folded my pair, and good player started the raising war with his boat.

Lastly a good/decent player who just calls on the button with just the small blind and big blind left. The standard play for the button is to raise or fold here. If he just calls he probably has a premium hand and doesn't want the blinds to fold.

[fishyak]

The Caro book is dated, but it remains useful for teaching how to think about tells.

Step one: Is the "tell" the truth or a lie?

Agree with others that tells are the LAST tool you use, but I still found Caro's book useful. I'll have to check out the Navarro offering.