Giving Away Too Much Information
Are you an emotional person? Do you like to talk a lot at the table? Is showing your hand, win or lose, something you do a lot? These are all common traits associated with players that tend to give away too much information to their opponents when playing poker. Sure you might not have to worry about these types of things at your local home game or even in a very small limit table at the local casino, but the rest of the time, especially against skilled players, you’ll want to minimize the information and tells you may not even know you’re giving away.
Everyone has an unique personality, a way that they act, talk and react when they are in a normal state of mind. However, poker as a game creates tense, stressful and emotional situations where people will start to act outside of their comfort zone and begin to give off signs, both physically and emotionally, that will alert other players that something is up. This can be something as simple as a very talkative player that all of a sudden becomes mute and doesn’t say a word after looking down at their cards. Perhaps they just realized they have pocket aces and now want to quiet down so they can focus on the hand. Someone that has been playing with you for the last few hours will definitely notice that.
Another area where players all but completely hand over their strategic game plans is when they show their hand a lot to their opponents, regardless of whether or not they win or lose. Showing your hand can sometimes be the right play if you’re doing it for the right reason, but I always see far too many players flip up their drawing hand or bluff for no reason whatsoever. All this does is let your opponent know to watch out for the next time you play a hand exactly the same way, this way they can have an idea of what your hole cards are.
The point is that if you’re going to take your poker seriously, you need to worry about more than just hand selection and bet sizes, you need a table persona. A table persona is the person you become when you play poker. This person can act almost identically the way you normally do, but with a heightened sense of awareness. Learn to recognize the way you act when you have a big hand, when you’re bluffing, etc. See if you can start to act the same way all the time no matter what hand you have, in essence developing a “poker face”.
Being self-aware of the way you move, talk and react at the poker table will allow you to camouflage your play and protect yourself from giving away too much information. If you move the same way no matter if you’re bluffing or value-betting, your opponents won’t be able to use this information to make a decision on how to react. Failing to do so only makes it easier for them to get your chips.
By: Chris Iaquinta
