Oh, I definitely mix them up! My default is to do the regular reverse against players that I don't know and that has worked well. I am not sure if they actually work, because I'm the type to pick my spots extremely carefully when bluffing, and people play so donktastically these days that it's not like you have to work that hard to induce a call.
Against players I know are strong, I try to learn something about what they look for by listening them talk to others and that sort of thing. If I don't think they know what I know about what they are looking for, I do the reverse tell thing. One of my favorite things to do, though, is to be completely game theoretical about a tell (based on the color of the first card on the board or something) when I know it's something I've discussed with someone.
Generally, there are classic things that are simply true about how people process non-verbal communication. It has to be a really strong player to actually be seeing pass that, so if I just give the wrong signs most of the time, most of the competition will fall for it, or, they just weren't sophisticated enough to look for anything and therefore it doesn't matter.
That said, I think people give a bit too much weight to tells in general. I watch people closely at the table, but I'm not looking for tells, I'm looking for moods. I see people shift their play when their feelings and moods shift, and I look to anticipate their shifts and be one step ahead. That's reading people and keeping the human factor, but it's not the “he scratches his nose when he has a monster” kind of stuff.
On my side of it, I'm focused on making sure people don't realize what kind of mood I'm actually in or try to get across something different. I want them to think I'm tight and ABC-poker when I'm gambling it up and gambling it up when I'm playing tight. Those kind of reverse meta-tells are much more important than the stuff I'm talking about above. The stuff above is just icing on the cake; the mood stuff is the cake itself.
Oh, and, I didn't mean to be whining over on the other journal. I actually know from my logs I got plenty of lurkers. I like lurkers, because it means I don't burn up too much time at work answering comments and then feel guilty that I'm a bad employee.
I'm very glad you enjoy the blog, though, and feel free to work away. Feel free to use the four-color deck graphics. I just made those last weekend from the Wikipedia entry on the four color deck. I still have yet to go back and change all my old posts to use them.
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Date: 2006-08-30 23:43 (UTC)Oh, I definitely mix them up! My default is to do the regular reverse against players that I don't know and that has worked well. I am not sure if they actually work, because I'm the type to pick my spots extremely carefully when bluffing, and people play so donktastically these days that it's not like you have to work that hard to induce a call.
Against players I know are strong, I try to learn something about what they look for by listening them talk to others and that sort of thing. If I don't think they know what I know about what they are looking for, I do the reverse tell thing. One of my favorite things to do, though, is to be completely game theoretical about a tell (based on the color of the first card on the board or something) when I know it's something I've discussed with someone.
Generally, there are classic things that are simply true about how people process non-verbal communication. It has to be a really strong player to actually be seeing pass that, so if I just give the wrong signs most of the time, most of the competition will fall for it, or, they just weren't sophisticated enough to look for anything and therefore it doesn't matter.
That said, I think people give a bit too much weight to tells in general. I watch people closely at the table, but I'm not looking for tells, I'm looking for moods. I see people shift their play when their feelings and moods shift, and I look to anticipate their shifts and be one step ahead. That's reading people and keeping the human factor, but it's not the “he scratches his nose when he has a monster” kind of stuff.
On my side of it, I'm focused on making sure people don't realize what kind of mood I'm actually in or try to get across something different. I want them to think I'm tight and ABC-poker when I'm gambling it up and gambling it up when I'm playing tight. Those kind of reverse meta-tells are much more important than the stuff I'm talking about above. The stuff above is just icing on the cake; the mood stuff is the cake itself.
Oh, and, I didn't mean to be whining over on the other journal. I actually know from my logs I got plenty of lurkers. I like lurkers, because it means I don't burn up too much time at work answering comments and then feel guilty that I'm a bad employee.
I'm very glad you enjoy the blog, though, and feel free to work away. Feel free to use the four-color deck graphics. I just made those last weekend from the Wikipedia entry on the four color deck. I still have yet to go back and change all my old posts to use them.