Poker Tells.

When playing poker in a face to face situation, there are a few way in which you can establish whether or not they are bluffing. The common name for these give away signs is ‘tells', this is because they tell you something. They are the body cues that people emit when they are feeling secure or insecure, and they all occur at a sub-conscious level so people may not even realise that their bodies are telling you a message about their game.

The usual place to begin looking is at the eyes- this is because eye contact is supposed to be a key consideration when you are trying to establish whether or not a person is lying. The problem here is that it is common knowledge that eye contact is diminished when lying, so most people will try to do the opposite, this ends up by giving out miss signals that are not natural, and thus are not reliable.

Remember, some people are never comfortable with eye contact, and some people can maintain eye contact easily, liars are especially good at manipulating the conventions of eye contact, so this is not a reliable measure of another person's internal state.

Also, when some of the body language that people are giving out is exaggerated and overly obvious, you should be suspicious of their motives, they may be acting according to an internal script which they believe is going to portray a particular impression to other players, but when it is over acted you should keep a very open mind about the message that they are sub-consciously issuing. For example, if a person is trying to portray that they have a very strong hand (by sitting up straight, giving excellent eye contact, staying relatively still with no nervous expressions) you should consider that it is an act and that they actually have a weak hand. Players with a genuinely strong hand will appear relaxed.

On the other hand, a person who is acting in a particularly nervous way (fluttery eye contact, constant fidgeting, unclear speech) may equally trying to portray that they are fearful, when in fact, they have a really good hand.

Unconscious signals:
Those bodily cues that are hardest to imitate are the reflexive ones, this means the ones that happen instinctively without conscious control, and examples include; dilated pupils, shaking hands, rapid or slow breathing. Dilated pupils usually happen in times of excitement, whereas shaking is normally a sign of stress, breathing can often be controlled but when it is too rapid, it is likely to be a sign of fear.

Consider also your opponents posture, look at their shoulders, when they are curved forward it will mean that they are fairly confident in their hand and they are excited about play...they are leaning forward in a sub-conscious manner to tell themselves that they are ready for action.

Another important consideration is the voice; a dry throat often indicates that a person has a good hand.

Often a clear sign that a person is lying is either the nose touch, this is used to show that "I know something you don't know", and is an unconscious expression, or a person may cover their mouth, as if to say "I didn't tell you anything".

If you play in a casino you will often end up playing against the same players, when you do, this gives you the opportunity to study them and to establish what kind of tells they give off, try and remember the things that you have learned about the player, and this will help you in subsequent games with the same person.

The most important thing to remember is that the more experienced players know this already and will use it to their advantage, pay particular attention to their games because they will still follow set patterns, they will just be less obvious and more complicated.