Seven percent of what you’re telling people is in the speech that you use. Seven. The other types of messages that people are listening to come through your vocal tone (38%) and your body language (55%), so it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. That’s why it’s important for you to keep your ears and especially your eyes open to get all the messages that people are trying to convey.
What's he trying to say?
See that girl who’s winking at you from across the room? She’s actually winking at someone else. But the girl with the upward-lilting voice who keeps giggling is into you. And the chick that says “hmmfp hnnmmhh” while giving you head is actually drunk and doesn’t care one way or the other about you. I hope you didn’t expect a long-term relationship from a hookup in the public restroom.
I wanted to put a whole paragraph in between that imagery and mentioning Mike Caro, and I’ll assume you thank me for the courtesy. Mike Caro is, for those who are uninformed, the Carl Linnaeus (the guy who first conceived of a taxonomic rank system to categorize life) of poker tells. He has contributed a ridiculous amount of wisdom about the messages people send through their actions (voluntary and involuntary) that have been tumbled around in the poker community to the point that they’re some combination of common knowledge, superstition, and reversal. That being the case, you can - at the very least - attribute any discussion about poker tells to Caro.
This would be called a persusive exercise in body language communication
Nice Car, Small Dick
Sometimes, the messages that people convey are meant to show strength, dominance, and power to make up for a big lack in confidence in a poker hand.
Some of the tells that you can expect are:
So Beautiful, Can’t Look Away
When the player stares at the flop, feigning interest in the board and what it does for him. Bluff in this situation if you haven’t got much, or call liberally to get as much out of him as he’s willing to give.
The Big Stare-Down
If you’re betting out and the player is looking you right in the face (as opposed to the size of your bet), he probably has a weaker hand that he’ll stick around with, which is evident because he’s trying to scare you out of a bet to see the river cheaply. Keep betting with medium strength hands and up. You can try a bluff on the river if you like, he might be on a draw.
Gimme Gimme Gimme!
If the player reaches for the pot when it looks like you’re folding, he might be doing it because he’s over-eager to get the hand over with, i.e. he has a bad hand. If you were about to throw anything away that’s marginally related to the board, call instead (and raise with hands that are utterly hopeless). Watch out for the exception in higher-level games where this move can be used to induce a call, not a fold.
Every Step You Take
Tomorrow in Part 2, I’ll discuss the intricacies of the betting movement, which has very little to do with gamblers’ suffrage. Until then, keep an eye out for the messages people are sending you.
