Below is an edited email from a reader, Jeremy G of California, who wrote about the content of mine he’d found most useful. I wanted to share this because I agree with him; I think verbal tells are very important in your average low to mid-stakes cash games, where there is a good amount of loose during-hand talking from not-very-aware players. And I agree with him that this stuff is powerful, once you key into it.
These are all reasons the book I’m most proud of is Verbal Poker Tells; I think it contains some of the most unique and reliable poker tell information available. I spent 8 months, full-time, working on it and learned a lot in the process of researching it and writing it.
Below he talks about the concept of the weak-hand statement: in other words, statements that imply weakness about the speaker’s hands. For example: “I’m bluffing,” or “I don’t have a full house.” These can be quite obvious and surface-level (like those two previous examples) but they can also be quite indirect/subtle (and that’s something I go into detail about in my book). But for the email below, the reader is talking about how players betting strong hands are fine eliminating strong hands from their range (e.g., “I don’t have quads”) whereas that’s something bluffers hardly ever will do.
The email:
I play a home game once or twice a week. Amateurs but stacks are between 1k and 10k. I am most of the way through your video series; it’s a nice review but probably a bit expensive for folks who have absorbed your books. Anyway, I enjoy it.
I wanted to tell you the piece of information that was most helpful for me from all your work. The fact that bluffers will avoid making weak-hand statements; that players with very strong hands will be willing to make weak-hand statements.
This tip has been extremely useful to me in my game. Here is how I use it: someone makes a big bet on the river into a big pot, I ask them if they have the biggest hand possible. Usually something like “I think you hit quads on the turn. Can you tell me that at least? Do you have quads again? I think you either are bluffing or you hit quads.” Then I gauge the response. Not just whether they are willing to exclude the massive very unlikely hand, but other comfort/distress behaviors. Then I decide what to do with my bluff-catcher of a hand.
Here is why it is so helpful to me:
1) These are usually big situations. Big river bet into a big pot. A huge swing for me if I can get it right.
2) It helps me get information that I can use immediately in that moment not somewhere down the line on a later street.
3) I can use this tip to proactively get info from my opponent . . I am not a big talker usually in these situations but this gives me something specific to ask for. I don’t need to have paid much attention prior to this moment.
4) Because it gives me something to ask about I can also gauge their general comfort level etc., and not just the willingness to eliminate a hand from their possible holdings.
5) I have found it quite reliable with my buddies.
For me I find your work most useful for those big bet decisions. We all have played together for years and are usually drinking and talking and getting up for drinks a lot so it is much harder to notice the small stuff like whether a guy is looking at me when I bet pre-flop or not. But if I can get just a little clarify from his behavior in those big bet moments, on the river usually, and just have a little more certainty that he is not bluffing or that is likely is, it makes a huge difference in my win rate.
Last night I got to use this approach to a buddy’s big big river bet. By the time I called a really tough call I was quite sure I was making the right decision and that he was bluffing and indeed he was. And that made me 3-4k. I might have gotten there anyway, without your help, but not every time, and I have a lot more confidence and know what to look for.
I liked this email because he does get into some good points about how to best make use of these patterns. For one, the approach of asking questions should be used sparingly, as you don’t want your opponents to figure out that you’ve got an approach to interpreting/analyzing their statements.
Obviously these are things that good/experienced players aren’t likely to fall for. But most profit in poker comes from fairly amateurish and over-confident players, and the more you can extract from those players, the better you’ll do. You might be surprised; even in quite high-stakes games you’ll see a good amount of these kinds of tells.