In order to become a winner at the game of poker, you need to master the common poker tells. A “tell” is any kind of behavior or reaction by someone that you’re playing with that can tip you off about their hand. You may also have “tells” of your own that tip off your opponents. There are even online poker tells.

Now, you should not get the idea that knowing about common poker tells is going to make you a great poker player. It’s just one part of a total plan that includes position knowledge, the ability to calculate pot odds, understanding things like the 4/2 technique for betting, and things like that. Understanding tells involves the psychological component of your poker strategy, a component that is also very important but won’t win you games all by itself.

When you are sitting with people for a while, you can start to get to know their unique little habits that may be their unique tells. But you can use knowledge of common poker tells to even be able to pick up on online poker tells without needing to see the other person, because some of these can come through even online.

First, whenever a player acts like he has a weak hand, he probably has a strong hand. The opposite is also true: acting as if you have a strong hand probably means you have junk. This is behavior that can come through even as online poker tells, because you can pick it up from the betting patterns of the online players. One thing to keep in mind, however: experienced poker players know how to deliberately give off false tells, and they may use false tells to their great advantage and really burn you in moves like the Squeeze Play. Try to ascertain the experience level of your opponents early on.

Common poker tells that you can pick up on when playing in person with people that tell you that a player probably has a good hand include: acting disinterested in or despairing of a hand but staying in; nervous behaviors like heavy breathing or shaking hands (these probably have a very, very strong hand); and looking at chips just after looking at hole cards (they’re figuring out how much they should bet because they have good stuff).

Now, what are common poker tells indicating a probable weak hand? These would be: instead of heavy breathing, holding their breath; and glaring at other players (kind of the silent version of trash talk).

There are even a couple of common poker tells that can reveal a middle of the road hand, a drawing hand: after the flop, if players are re-checking their hole cards, they are double checking to see if they got the exact card they need for a strong hand or if they still have a good possibility of getting it on the next deal; and, if they seem like they are thinking a great deal before calling a bet, that’s because they are–they are doing careful mental calculations of risk because they have a hand that contains possibilities but is not (yet) a winner (this may be a online poker tell).

Once again, knowing common poker tells gives you a competitive edge–and it can teach you how to really fake out your opponents as you gain experience. One of the best sources for learning about poker tells is ‘Caro’s Book of Poker Tells’ by Mike Caro. Pick up your copy and become a Texas Holdem master of the tell-tale signs.