My philosophy on physical tells

I’m terrible at reading physical tells.  I’ve tried over and over to learn it and get in tune with this part of the game.  I’ve read Caro’s Book of Tells and watched the video a bunch of times as well as other books.  I’m just not getting it.

At this point, fuck it.  I don’t care and I don’t think I need to get good at that to dominate the game.  At least, I think that’s true for the limits I’m playing now and will play over the next couple years.

Here’s what I do with the whole physical tell game.  I think that if you are as bad at it as I am, this is a good way to neutralize that aspect of the game on both sides.

My behavior once I'm involved in a hand

Once I'm involved in a hand, I try to stay as silent and still as possible.  What I've done lately is pick a spot on the table and just stare at it.  Maybe I stare at the "V" in Venetian on the felt, a button on the automatic shuffler, or the table number.  I try to just zone out until it's my turn.  

This has a couple different benefits.  First, I'm looking in the direction of the flop but not actually seeing the flop itself.  I actually try to have my vision a little fuzzy if possible.  I can see face cards, a high number (8 through 10), a low number (ace - 3 - basically a lot of whitespace on the card).  But I can't tell exactly what the cards are or what the suits are.  This limits the amount of physical tells I'm giving off because I seriously don't know if I hit the flop or not.  

In fact, sometimes I'll bet out without truly seeing the flop.  For example, the other day I raised with 99.  I could see the flop was an ace and a high card (probably 9 or 10).  I either missed or crushed the flop.  It was heads up, so that additional information really wasn't going to help me.  I was planning on c-betting the flop regardless.  So why even take in that information and allow a physical tell to creep out?  If I know I'm betting anyway, getting that information can only hurt you.  So I just bet without that information.  In this case, I did flop a 9 and didn't get called, but I wouldn't have played it different if I saw the flop.

Second, I think it makes me look somewhat intimidating.  I'm not moving or saying anything.  People don't get any reactions out of me when they are moving their chips around or gesturing like they are going to call or fold, because I'm not paying attention.  It probably looks like I'm totally in the zone.  The reality is that I'm just waiting for my turn.

Another thing I'll do periodically is just randomly take more time on some decisions.  That way when I'm taking a lot of time, it's not always a critical decision.  If people are trying to read me and putting those instances together, it might mess them up. 

Trying to get called vs trying to get people to fold

I just don't play this game.  Period.  

It's the river and I have a monster, or I bluffed.  I put a big bet out and am waiting to see what happens.  Either way I'm staring at the flop waiting for my fate to be revealed.  I think that you probably can influence people one way or another by saying or doing specific things.  However, I don't know how to do that in a reliable way.  I think that peoples' minds have a way of creating their own insane realities that are way more out there than something I could put into their heads anyway.  So if people want to sit there and stare at me, talking themselves into calling or folding, I just let them do that.  No reason to add anything more into the equation.  

Paying attention to others

I literally don’t pay attention to what other people are doing, as far as their physical movements.  I try to block it out as much as possible.  If people say anything, I try not to take that into account at all either.  I’m basically playing online poker.

That's it.  Very simple.  Just don't pay attention and it doesn't affect you.

I realize this is not optimal.  However, I don't think poker is necessarily about doing everything optimally.  There's something to be said for finding a weakness in your game, and neutralizing it whether that is the optimal approach or not.  There are a lot of weaknesses in my game that I need to work on.  I'm prioritizing my use of physical tells very low at this point.  Maybe in the future I'll get to a point where winning and losing are separated by noticing the smallest twitch on an opponent's face, but I'm not there yet.  This approach allows me to avoid making emotional, bad decisions under the guise of "I KNOW he's bluffing".