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Everyone knows that body language can disclose personality traits and intentions. On observation, you can tell if some one is bent on causing you pleasure or pain. This comes in very handy in a poker game.

Observing the body language of poker players, one can detect their “tells.” A tell is simply a repetitive signal given by a player disclosing his current hand and motives. It is important to relate the body language reading to the total environment with the same gestures being made over and over in distinct situations. Gestures such as playing with chips before a move to frighten you to check will reveal the opponents hand (even partially) to the table as well as his thought patterns.

There is nothing magical about body language and how to read it. When you think that professional poker players rely heavily on their keen observation of their opponent’s body language, you can bet there is something in it for you too. As you improve your skills at both poker and reading other’s gestures, you will earn yourself more money. And of no less importance, you will become more aware of this facet of the game. As you become aware of opponent’s tells, you will become more observant of your own body behavior and be able to hide your gestures, If you can, strive to remove your revealing body language gestures altogether. You may do this by converting them into something else entirely, thereby causing utter confusion in your opponents who fancy themselves adept at observing the nuances of body language.

Don’t underestimate the potential of reading body language. The best players always use what seems least likely. They perfect their directly card-related skills, but they also rely on the entire environment in which the specific poker table is situated. Advanced body-reading is mostly intuitive, but a good grasp on it immediately puts a player at the top among those players who do not appear to be the greatest logicians, yet still lead. Such players can tell their opponents hands and predict moves from how they raise and lower their shoulders or from how they look at things, like clocks on the walls.

Online poker is another thing entirely. Obviously one cannot read an icon’s gestures. What can be read though is the speed with which a decision is made. Buttons are key to the online game, you place bets, make calls and raise by clicking a button. Your opponents are very aware of how much time is involved before you press that decisive button. They will know whether your decision was instant and automatic or somewhat faltering and indecisive.

Keep this in context with the opponents typical game traits. They have not given the appearance of being slow-witted, they are attempting to portray to you that their cards are good, but need some time to think before clicking on “check” to lead you to believe that they are keeping the good cards while a later, greater bank amasses. What they are hoping that you will do is “check” also so they can delay the play of their lousy cards.

With practice you will be able to ascertain the difference between natural pauses and bluffs. Now that you have that down, you can go another step and learn the details of the pause-patterns of players you have targeted.

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