Everyday players are sitting down at the tables and consistently making fundamental mistakes because of lack of knowledge, misinformation or failing to maintain focus.

Video poker strategy takes more space to display than blackjack strategy. There can be scores of lines. To properly use a video poker strategy chart it is important to know the difference between fully open and inside straights and straight flushes. You must also know the order of hands based on how much they pay. A highly exploitative TAG strategy is still absolutely the best way to smash low limit live games like 1/2. This is essentially the exact strategy that I outline in Crushing the Microstakes. You play tight and aggressive before the flop paying close attention to your position at the table. In this article we will point out some of the best live and online poker tournament strategy tips you can use to improve your game as quickly as possible. Tip 1: Play The Right Starting Hands Whether it be lack of patience, or an unfamiliarity with opening ranges, many tournament poker players still open too wide.

1. That said, live games are usually a lot easier to beat than online ones. Thus, the nuances of live poker are certainly worth learning. Here are eight awesome live poker tips that will help you crush the games on your next trip to the casino (including two exclusive video tips from Doug Polk and Ryan Fee).
2. Live 1/2 NLHE Crash Course Ep 1 - $1/$2 No Limit Holdem Poker Strategy Flexing Bet Sizes and Ignoring Balance Balance is only ever a useful part of poker strategy against good opponents. In a $1/$2 No Limit Holdem cash game your average opponent won’t play against you enough to use unbalanced play against you.

Even just a small strategical adjustment in poker can potentially save you a huge amount in the long run.

In this article we will point out some of the best live and online poker tournament strategy tips you can use to improve your game as quickly as possible.

Tip 1: Play The Right Starting Hands

Whether it be lack of patience, or an unfamiliarity with opening ranges, many tournament poker players still open too wide. This is especially true when it comes to early and middle position opens, where there are still many opponents left to act behind who can be dealt a strong hand.

The problem is when called, wide openers are often at a range disadvantage. Often being dominated by their opponents, they are vulnerable to 3 bets since they frequently won't have a holding strong enough to continue under pressure.

Furthermore, although opening a hand like 7 ♠ 5♠ might at times not be a terrible strategy from early or middle position, speculative hands like suited connectors and gappers, as well as small pairs, work best with deep stacks behind.

These speculative hand types infrequently connect strongly with the flop, so those times they do you want to have deep stakes behind to have the potential to win a huge pot. Modern day tournament structures often only see deep stack play occur during the first few levels of play. This leads us into the next tournament poker tip, being stack size aware.

Learn which hands to open raise in MTT's - Watch lesson 6.1 from the Road to Success MTT Course. A power-packed 50 minute video below, just use one of the button options to unlock it and get instant access.

Tip 2: Be Stack Size Aware

Effective stack size plays a critical role in a tournament players success.

Having a deep stack, and therefore expanding an opening range to include a lot of speculative suited hands and small pairs is a tournament strategy that is going to be punished if a number of short stacks are yet to act behind. This most notably occurs in turbo tournaments where the average stack size is quite short.

Short stacks will be in push-or-fold mode. Being short, they don't have time to wait and will be looking to take any opportunity they can to move all-in. This high rate of all-ins will leave wide openers frequently being forced to relinquish their hands, without even having the opportunity to try to hit a nice flop. Problematic hands often include; J8s , KTo and weak Ax hands.

It's not just short-stacks that can cause a problem, aggressive players will be looking to attack wide-openers. This is especially true when a player opens with a vulnerable M8-M14 (20bb-35bb) stack. 3 bets get good leverage against this stack size, since continuing in the pot represents committing a significant portion of a players stack.

Wide openers would be wise not to commit a large percentage of their stack with marginal holdings, and so will be forced to fold, or face being in a high-risk situation. Staying aware of your own stacks utility, as well as anticipating how opponents will utilize their stacks, is an important tournament poker tip to keep in mind.

POKER TIP: If you are currently using BB to calculate stack size, here's a look at why using 'M' is a better MTT strategy.

Tip 3: Be Careful Overplaying In The Early Stages

As a stack gets deeper, the less willing a competent player will be to put their entire stack at risk since they have more to lose. It's rare to see good players all-in during the early stages of a tournament with hands like AKo or JJ preflop.

Smart players recognize that their counterparts aren't going to be risking their entire stack with weaker hands like AQo . Therefore, even a strong hand like AK could be at a significant equity disadvantage facing a deep stacked opponents all-in range. Could you fold QQ here?

Rather than putting in an extra raise, often times just calling with even very strong hands in the early stage of a poker tournament has great benefits.

• Allows your opponents to continue with hands they were folding to a re-raise that you have crushed.
• Disguises the strength of your hand and keeps you unpredictable.
• Prevents you from getting all-in facing a super strong range where often times you're crushed.

Tip 4: Continuation Bet Aggressively But Not Always

Players have learnt the value of c-betting, but it's a strategy that is often misapplied. Being the preflop aggressor shouldn't lead to a mandatory c-bet and double barrels.

This is especially true in multi-way pots yet players continue to make fruitless c-bets with weak holdings into multiple opponents.

Even in heads-up situations, key factors to consider include;

• How does the flop texture interact with players ranges?
• Who has the strongest range?
• Who has nut advantage (the biggest share of super strong hands)?
• How passive or aggressive is the opponent we're facing?
• How does the stack size/SPR allow us to operate on the flop and future streets?

The following hand illustrates the effect nut advantage can have on profitable continuation betting and how it applies to this tournament poker tip:

Tip 5: Be ICM Aware

The Independent Chip Model or ICM, is a great model players use to make more profitable decisions when deep in a tournament and especially at a final table.

Unlike in cash games, chip values fluctuate depending on the stage of the tournament and the competing opponents stack sizes. At it's most extreme, ICM strategy can make A♠A♣: an easy fold preflop.

Imagine a situation in a satellite where 9 players get a World Series of Poker entry and there's 10 remaining. The action folds around to a player with 100,000 in tournament chips who moves all in from the small blind. You're sitting in the big blind with A♠A♣: and also 100,000 in chips. You look around and see a few opponents with only 1000 chips left, which is the size of the current big blind. Obviously one of these short stacks is likely to bust very soon.

Obviously one of these short stacks is likely to bust very soon. Moreover the chance that they collectively out survive your 100,000 stack is extremely remote. You'd likely be a 99% chance to get a WSOP entry, so why would you call with your A♠A♣ and risk busting next around 20% of the time?

Aside from calling too wide in spots when the most profitable strategy is to proceed tightly, the opposite can also be true when it comes to pressuring your opponents. ICM allows players when they have the opportunity to assert pressure on there opponents stacks, to go ahead and do so liberally, since thinking opponents counter-strategy is to play a tight range of hands.

Here's an example of how drastically a hand range can change when the opportunity to assert pressure at a final table exists. 5 of the 6 remaining players at the Pokerstars Sunday Millions have 15bb's, whilst the UTG player has a short 2bb stack. Since the 15bb stacks wants to avoid busting out next and missing out on a large pay jump before the immanent bust out of the 2bb stack, the small blind can adjust their all-in range. Instead of the profitably 57% all-in range in normal play, they can move all-in with 100% of hands to apply pressure on the big blind.

Whilst the big blind should adjust their calling range from the regular 36% to just 10% of hands to account for the ICM effect in play.

The PokerNerve Road to Success course teaches players how to master ICM situations, which is key to tournament poker success since ICM comes into play as the prizes become significant. If there was only one tournament poker tip that you take away from this article, it's that you need to know ICM!

Tip 6: Bet The Appropriate Size

Strong players are capitalizing on their opponents tendencies to bet too big or too small in a number of different situations. With some similar considerations to that of continuation betting, when selecting a bet size important aspects include;

• Which player's range does the board texture favor?
• Who has the greatest nut saturation?
• How does SPR influence our betting strategy

There are many great articles online about bet sizing. You should be sure to check out ThePokerBank's and the Pokerology's to learn more about this tournament tip.

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Tip 7: Take Equity Realization Into Account

Possibly due to the popularity growth of Twitch, many poker players approach to big blind play has evolved. The current trend is to defend the big blind with virtually any 2 cards, as some top pros elect to do, and the justification for this is taking advantage of the excellent pot odds being offered.

1-2 No Limit Live Poker Strategy

While the inclusion of antes combined with commonly seeing a small open raise size does offer the big blind generous pot odds, this has led to a fundamental flaw in the way many players approach big blind play in poker tournaments. The key concept overlooked, is equity realization.

Equity realization reflects a players ability to take a certain hand, and win their share of the pot, frequently enough, to make it profitable in the long-term. Although some top pros have the ability to win their equity share of the pot even out of position, less skilled players rarely do. This leads to a large chip loss in the long run.

It is quite difficult to realize of your equity when out of position, with no initiative and a weak range. This means them glorious odds you are being offered aren't quite as good as you think!

The following article explains this crucial tournament poker tip in more detail; Equity Realization.

Tip 8: Don't Miss Double And Triple Barrel Opportunities

'One and done' is the plight of many aspiring tournament poker players. Everyday at the tables I see players missing profitable opportunities to double, or even triple barrel. Understanding what turn and river cards are advantageous to a players range, along with opponent tendencies, are crucial parts of a winning barreling formula.

The most common scenario at the table, is a heads-up pot where the big blind calls an open-raise. And this happens to be a great spot to barrel. Big blind defenders have a wide range, and it's important to pressure this wide range, especially on only partially connected board textures with one or multiple high cards.

RedChipPoker has a great article on spotting profitable double barrel opportunities which you can read here: THE +EV DOUBLE BARREL GUIDE

Tip 9: Check-Raise More Flops

The biggest difference between the current tournament population, and the future generation, will likely be their approach to check-raising the flop. This opportunity typically occurs in a heads-up pot, after defending the big blind verse an opponents raise.

Currently, MTT players only check-raise the flop in this situation around 7-8% of the time, when closer to 20% is a more optimal strategy. On certain flop textures, check-raising close to 25% of the time is an extremely profitable strategy. And if players are getting out of line with their c-bets, then check-raising at an even higher frequency could be a profitable exploit.

By giving up too easily on a wide range of board textures, or taking a more passive approach and simply calling, c-betting can be done with reckless abandon. However, by selecting a nice mix of check-raising hands, combining some strong hands with some good semi-bluffing candidates, a check-raiser can become tricky to play against and exploit the average players tendency to over c-bet.

POKER TIP: Applied correctly and check-raising becomes a super powerful weapon in your arsenal leading to more profitable poker results. But also think beyond the flop, there's plenty of check-raising opportunities you may be missing. This video demonstrates an interesting turn check-raise situation.

We discuss check raising strategy in more detail in our post over on unfeltedpoker.com.

Tip 10: Develop A Good 3betting Strategy

Whilst 3 betting aggressively is a strategy many players employ, especially in online poker circles, failure to apply optimal 3 betting strategies has certainly led to a lot of spewy poker. Simply attacking opponents who are suspected of opening wide doesn't cut it in the modern poker world.

Players have learnt to deal with 3 bets more profitably, by mixing in some calls with timely 4 bets. Moreover, the role stack size plays when it comes to 3 betting it still largely misunderstood by much of the poker community.

Sure there are certain stack sizes where 3 bets gain a lot of leverage, but how about the role blockers play? And when is 9♦7♦ a better 3 bet candidate than K♦T♠ ? These are just some of the considerations when it comes to a profitable 3 betting strategy. See how to design strong 3betting ranges in this article by Donkr.

Bonus Poker Strategy Tip: Avoid and Deal with Downswings

As a poker player you want to earn your money as easily and as stress-free as possible right? Well, understanding ROI, variance and bankroll management can help (see TopPokerValue's article on bankroll management).

All poker players at some point experience downswings. In some cases, this can affect their play, volume or state of mind.

You'll be miserable, hating poker, playing less and earning less per tournament as your play will suffer.

Along with finding ways that work for you to keep a positive mindset, taking pro-active steps can help keep you confident by knowing you are dealing with the situation like a professional whilst at the same time taking positive action to get back on track and winning.

What is ROI and variance?

Every tournament you enter has an EV associated with it. So if you enter a $10 tourney, as a good player maybe you have a 30% ROI, so you make $3. So it doesn't matter whether you brick that tourney or win it for $5000, you make $3 in the long run.

Now, of course, you don't make $3 each time. 80-85% of the time you lose that $10, some percentage of the time you win a little bit, and some very small percentage of the time you win a lot. How small those ‘small percentages’ are primarily depends on not only your skill edge, but also the field size which is an extremely important concept that is often ignored.

Variance is a factor of two things:

1) Your edge

2) The field size

Example 1)

You play the Hot $55 which has $30K guaranteed, every day for a year on Pokerstars. It has 1600 runners and you have a 5% ROI, because turbo ROIs are small. Your average yearly profit is $605 however you will lose money on the year 55% of the time.

Example 2)

You play a $20 tourney with $3K guaranteed on a softer site every day for a year. It has 200 runners and you have a 30% ROI, because it's a normal speed tourney and you’re against an easier field. Your average yearly profit is $2400 and in this case you lose money only 12% of the time.

A lot of people would look at those two tournaments and make a decision based on the buy-in and 1st place prize money as to which was better to play, and it would be grossly wrong. Once you accept all the above, you realise that the 'up top' number is largely meaningless.

Yes, on the same site bigger fields may mean a lot of fish have registered to play, but you'll find a lot of small field, soft, non-peak hour tournaments have a great pro-to-fish ratio and hence are great value. Of course once you consider other sites that have smaller fields, you'll often find they are a better choice than what might be running on Pokerstars.

So what can you do?

When players start losing money and along with that, confidence, not only does their game deteriorate but they often compound that problem by failing to make rational decisions. Often losing players, or players on a downswing, go 'bink chasing' and decide to take a shot to win all their money back in one tourney. Or load up some quick $82 hyper-turbos to try to turn it all around quickly.

People get overly fixated on what's 'up top' and wanting to score big in one tournament. That’s a sure-fire strategy to fuel a down swing. If your house got knocked down would you try to slap it back up in a week? Take that opportunity to rebuild a better, stronger house.

Make sure you're adding in some study and keep focused (see Sky's Matsuhashi How To Study Poker series), and stay fresh and positive as you approach each session. Be smart and get back into profit quicker instead of enduring a 6-12 month variance rollercoaster!

Closing Words On Tournament Poker Tips

Poker is a multi-faceted game which makes it fun but challenging. Challenge yourself to factor in the relevant concepts, and make more profitable decisions. Tighten up from the big blind, and in general around the table. This tip often quickly improves a new players results, or those that have a got a little sloppy with their play.

Calculate stack size using 'M'. Always be aware of your own, and your opponents stack sizes so you don't get yourself caught in awkward situations. One awkward situation that often comes up is when you hold an overpair to the board and an opponent puts the heat on you. Don't be afraid to make big lay downs to preserve your stack, especially in the early levels.

Be aware of your cbetting frequency. There's no need to waste tournament poker chips cbetting every time, especially when the pot is multi-way. Pick your spots to make profitable plays. Remember when it comes to the final table, regularly profitable playing ranges might alter due to the payouts. ICM is the key when it comes to those final big decisions.

Another key to success is knowing when to fire multiple bullets at your opponents. Barreling, especially against a wide big blind range can really help increase your non-showdown winnings. Finding ways to accumulate chips without always having the best hand is what top players do. This is why check-raising and having a good 3 betting strategy is so important. Correct use of these strategical concepts and the other tips outlines will get you winning more at the tables.

Now that you've acquired some great holdem tournament strategy tips to help you achieve MTT success, go out there an implement them!

One of the quickest way to improve your poker game is to take on a poker coaching, a course or join a poker training site; if that is something that interests you be sure to check out the PokerNerve road to Success Course for some advanced poker tournament strategy or you can check out HowToPlayPokerInfo's guide on poker training & poker courses to find the right option for you.

Any other poker tournament strategy tips? Leave them below in the comments, we would love to hear them!

Update: Did you know I have a poker tells video series? Check it out here.

In the past couple of weeks (November 2012), I played a few sessions of live $1-2 NLHE with the purpose of studying what poker tell information was the most important and relevant. It’d been a while since I played $1-2 (haven’t been playing much at all lately with the exception of some $2-5 and the occasional $100+ tournament), so I was kind of curious what I’d find.

Before getting to the tells, a few caveats about using tells in a live $1-2 NLHE game:

• Playing in these games reminded me that, for your average live $1-2 player, thinking about poker tells is far from the best use of their time. Not that poker tells aren’t present; they are, but most players’ time would be much better spent studying some basic strategies and not looking for tells. So if you’re a struggling live $1-2 player, long before doing something like reading one of my books on poker tells, or getting my video series, I’d instead recommend reading a basic strat book like Dan Harrington on Cash Games, James Sweeney’s Dynamic Full Ring Poker, or Ed Miller’s Small Stakes No Limit Hold’em. I mention this mainly because I think there are many $1-2 players who think they are better than they are, and who need a lot of work put in on basic strategy. Only when you are a decent winner at $1-2 would I recommend spending a good amount of time thinking about tells/behavior.
• Looking for poker tells can often have limited use in a game where players often do weird, goofy, illogical things, which can often be common in a live $1-2 game. For example, getting a read that a player has a weak hand doesn’t do you much good if that player is weirdly going to give a lot of action with that hand. A lot of players at live $1-2 will passively call off a lot of chips with a pair and a draw, or even just a draw, even if they wouldn’t bet it themselves. Many players also overvalue hands like AK and AQ, and will put a lot of chips in pre-flop with those hands. (Of course, there are also a lot of nitty players at these stakes, too, so noticing player tendencies/styles is important.)
• I usually say that post-bet tells, when they come after significant bets, are the most important tells to look for. But there are a lot of very passive players at lower stakes who only make big bets when they have strong hands. For these types of players, there are no real post-bet tells to speak of, reducing a lot of the kinds of tells you might be using more frequently in higher-stakes games where players are more aggressive/active. For many passive players, you can forget about studying them for post-bet tells, just because the likelihood of them ever making a significant bluff is highly unlikely. (This also emphasizes the idea that aggressive players are best to study for tells because you’ll see them in a lot of pots.)

Decision points
Let’s look at some of the most important decision points where tells can help play a role in your average live $1-2 NLHE game (with a good amount of passive/tight players):

• Deciding when to continuation bet with weak hands in multi-way pots
• Deciding when to bluff the turn
• Deciding when to bluff the river

Most of these spots will boil down to fundamental strategy and player tendencies. But every once in a while a poker tell can help you out in one of these spots.

Studying poker tells can be quite valuable for low-stakes players, not so much for the purposes of spotting other people’s tells, but because they’ll help you prevent leaking your own tells. Knowing the common ways information can be leaked will help you become unreadable. And I think this is the best reason for lower stakes players to study tells.

Most important tells
So what poker tells are most important at your average live $1-2 game?

• Immediate calls
• Taking a long time to check when weak
• Defensive chip handling when weak
• After cards arrive, staring at board when weak

These are mostly waiting-for-action tells, as opposed to post-bet tells, which makes sense as you’ll usually be dealing with players who aren’t betting that much and who are instead more passive and doing a lot of calling. I’ll explain these all in order and give a couple examples.

Immediate calls
Immediate calls are one of the most useful bet-timing tells. When someone makes an immediate call, it means they’ve quickly decided not raise. Because players with strong hands tend to at least consider a raise (even if they end up calling), this means almost all immediate calls are made with weak and medium-strength hands and draws. This tell is rampant in low-stakes games.

For instance, in a few hands, players called my continuation-bet on the flop immediately. This tells me that, almost all of the time, they are on the weaker side of their range. If I am bluffing or semi-bluffing, I will continue bluffing on the turn most of the time with this read. For example, I raise pre-flop with KJo and get heads-up. The board is T -7-4 rainbow. I bet and the player immediately calls. I will usually continue betting the turn and maybe even the river, because I think the player will most often have, at most, a ten, and often a lot of hands like 99 and 88 or 98.

I would also you want to be choosy about who you’re attempting to bluff. I wouldn’t want to do this against a calling station, because you could be completely correct in reading them for a weak hand but they still may call you down or even just shove in with their hand. So you want to ideally be focusing on players you know are capable of folding.

Also, board texture is a factor in understanding immediate calls. For more aggressive players, immediate calls will also mean that it’s very unlikely they have a strong flush draw. For example, you continuation-bet a board of Kh 9h 3s and your opponent immediately calls you. If this player is capable of bluffing at all, this immediate call will make strong draws like Ax of hearts and QT of hearts very unlikely, because that player would probably at least consider a raise, even if he ended up deciding to call. So in a lot of cases, immediate calls can help you define a player’s range a bit more than usual.

Taking a long time to check when weak
Some players will take a long time to check to the aggressor when they hold weak hands. Don’t use this tell generally, though, because most players will vary their bet- and check-timing enough (both consciously and because there can be a lot of thought-inducing situations with many different types of hands) that it’s hard to get a good read. But against some players it can be very useful information.

For example, let’s say a player calls your pre-flop raise, hits a medium pair on the flop, checks to you and calls your flop bet. The turn card comes, doesn’t improve him, and he then takes like ten seconds to check to you. Whereas if he had a top-pair hand or better, where he knew he was probably going to be calling, he would only take a couple of seconds to check.

I’m not saying this is extremely useful information, because sometimes, with a medium-strength hand, $1-2 players will call you anyway. It’s going to be mainly useful against the most nitty players; the ones you know are scared to carry on without very strong hands. Those are the ones who you might bet off the hand on the turn if you get some sense of weakness.

Along with taking a long time to check, a player might look very studious in studying the board, as if trying to figure out what to do. That combined behavior is usually a sign of a vulnerable hand. As is the following tell, which you can sometimes see in concert with these:

Defensive chip handling when weak
The gist of this one is that players will often try to make you think they’re interested in calling by handling their chips in a defensive manner when it’s your turn to act. They might hold their chips in their hand, as if ready to put them in. They might start cutting out chips as if ready to call. Basically, any chip handling action that looks vaguely defensive in nature, even if it’s quite subtle, is usually a sign that the player holds a vulnerable hand. When a player holds a strong hand, they want to give no impediment to your bet, no matter how small.

This is a very useful one; it’s one that came up a handful of times in hands I was in, making me feel better about making a large river bluff. In one hand in particular, I had been betting first to act on the flop and turn, and I thought it was quite possible my opponent had flopped the flush draw. When a low flush card came on the river, I probably usually would have given up on the bluff, except for the fact I saw him riffling his chips in his hand while he stared at me (staring at an opponent when they’re waiting to act can also be a sign of weakness), so I bet $100 and he folded.

Two other hands went down very similarly to that. In one three-bet pot, where I’d three-bet and whiffed with AQ, an opponent called the flop, but I pushed all-in on a turn of 9JK3 based on my opponent grabbing his chips and holding them up defensively as he checked to me. It wasn’t usually a spot I would have felt so comfortable in.

Again, even if this tell is only 75% reliable, that’s still a great reason to carry through on a bluff that’s already got a lot of logic behind it; in my experience, though, this tell is more reliable than that for most players.

Staring at hole cards and board cards when weak
When players stare at cards, whether it’s their own hole cards or the board cards, it will generally mean they don’t have a strong hand. I had forgotten how much the staring-at-cards when weak type of tells apply to low stakes.

Why is this a pattern? Players who look at strong hands tend to look away quickly. There’s an instinct to “hide their treasure” from their enemies or competitors. This accounts for the common tendency of players to look at pocket aces and immediately put them down. Whereas players with weak hands don’t have a reason to look away.

1-2 Live Poker Strategy

Pre-flop, this can be useful when you spot limpers or players behind you looking for a second or two or longer at their cards. When you see this, and if you’ve decided it’s a reliable tell for those players, you can choose to become more aggressive in the hand. For example, you see a few limpers staring at their cards before they call, and you decide to raise pre-flop lighter than you normally would. Or you see a late-position player staring at his cards for a few seconds and he ends up raising. You might decide to call him or 3-bet him lighter than normal.

Of course, players are still capable of calling you with their weaker hands, and then you’ll have to play some post-flop poker. But because the read is generally reliable (and sometimes very reliable for some specific players), you’ll be putting yourself in a lot of profitable post-flop situations where a flop bet will often take down the pot.

Live 1/2 Nl Poker Strategy

Sometimes players look back at their hole cards after the flop, too, and the longer they look at their cards the more it becomes likely they’re weak.

For communal cards, it’s the same basic idea: players who connect well (like top pair or better) tend to look away from the board when the cards come out. This can be seen as an involuntarily, unconscious attempt to distract attention away from their “treasure.” Staring at communal cards, with no looking away, will tend to mean the player had no real reason to look away or be thoughtful about the hand.

Playing some $1-2 again, I got back into the habit of trying to watch everyone in the hand during multi-way flops, trying to see if anyone looked away immediately. Mainly I tried to watch the player or players behind me, because that is more valuable information than what the players in front of me do.

For example, in most three-way (or more) pots, if I’m the pre-flop raiser, I usually will shut down if the board comes down pretty scary and I haven’t connected. Like if I raise pre-flop and the board is 9TQ or something similar, I generally check if I raised with 6-7 suited, or AK, or something that missed completely, because those are the types of boards that hit right in the range of most players who call a raise. Whereas on a really dry board, like K-7-3 rainbow, I will usually bet my misses into two other players (but not usually three other players).

But looking for opponents who are staring at the flop can make me feel more comfortable about betting into a multi-way pot. It happened several times in three-way and four-way pots where I wouldn’t usually have bet from a fundamental strategy perspective, but the amount of staring going on by my opponents made me feel safer. Occasionally, I would still get one caller out of the bunch, but that still put me in more profitable spots than not betting, and I felt more confident, based on their staring, that they had weak hands.

Again, this is not something you want to use to make very large decisions. Good players are capable of staring consistently at the flop whether they hit or not. And even for the people who exhibit this tell very reliably, it won’t always be accurate. This will mainly be useful for determining fairly borderline situations, like when you decide to get aggressive and follow through on flop bets in multiway pots, or follow through on turn bets. Or, when you see people looking away from the board cards, for deciding to take a more passive line. There are a lot of fairly borderline situations where checking or betting or raising could go either way, so a little extra information can go a long way.

Conclusions
All in all, I never want to give the impression that tells are something that will let you crush microstakes, or any game for that matter. I think they can give you little hints here and there for the best action to take, but these are often actions that are dictated by fundamental strategy. Occasionally, you can get really obvious signs from some players that dictate a very specific course of action, but you shouldn’t try too hard to look for those spots. Those are spots that will come to you naturally, the more comfortable you get with tells.

Want to learn more about Poker Tells in $1-2 No-Limit Cash Games?
$1-2 No-Limit Hold’em cash games are one of the most popular forms of poker played today. In this short ebook, Zachary Elwood examines 35 actual $1-2 NLHE hands, finding meaning in opponents’ physical and verbal behavior.

The ebook bundle comes with the book in 3 formats: PDF, EPUB, and MOBI (Kindle). (It’s easy to sync third-party files with your Kindle reader.