I just got back from a bachelor party at Lake Charles, in which I spent some time in the poker rooms. I am reflecting on how many tells I was able to pick up just by paying attention. For instance, in a 3-6-12 game, one of the guy across the table “accidentally” tries betting $12 on the turn. Just as Mike Caro teaches, I saw right through this attempt at feigning strength and re-raised him when I had nothing. The other 2 players in the hand fold as soon as they see the re-raise. Our “strong” guy across the table promptly folds as well. While this seems about as elementary as it gets, I was surprised how much I was seeing it at the table.

IMHO, seeing weakness at a table is the most important read you can have on a person. It will let you know when your 2nd button pairs are good, or let you know when you can buy a pot.

Doing it the entire night, I only got burned on it once and it was myself showing weakness which was my downfall. I had pocket 9’s and the board showed 2, 4, 8, J, J. The only other player still in (probably the best player at the table) raised $6 on the river. I was a little puzzled that he wouldn’t have raised the full $12 if he had tripped Jacks. So I put him on two pair, Jacks over 8’s. His showing weakness by not betting $12 caused me to reraise him, but I only raised $6. He hesitently called. He flipped up a Jack-5 and won the pot. He was thinking he was weak because of a weak kicker. Which I totally missed. Had I bet the full $12, he would had most likely folded it.

While there are a lot of other tells I saw, I concentrated on weaknes. By focusing on this, I ended up w/ a pretty nice $400 return for 5 hours work.