white_lytning said:
I'm not saying pros don't have tells. I'm saying that a person that sees Gus Hanson turn his head a certain way in three televised hands does not have enough information to declare, "ooo, hes strong when his head goes to the right". The sample size is too small.
If this person were to play in a game with Gus and make plays based on this "tell" they would probably lose a lot of money.
Absolutely it's too small a sample. But again, you're missing the point:
1 - Nobody is
actually expecting that tells they pick up on players in televised games will have any bearing on any game they're ever likely to play. You don't do it because you really want to know what Gus Hansen's specific tells are because let's face it, most of us are internet players, and even those of us who play live are hardly likely to sit down opposite Gus or Phil (that can be any Phil you like, BTW, it hardly matters which) or whoever else.
The point of doing something like that is so that you can get better at spotting tells
in general, and maybe apply some of what you learn to the Regular Joes that you actually play with.
(FWIW though, if I found ahead of time I was going to be playing against someone who'd played on TV I'd sure as hell be reviewing the footage, for a number of reasons. Tells would be one of them and small sample size or no, it's still better than going in cold).
2 - Like I said before, what we're actually talking about here is
concealing tells and what we can learn and apply from the pros that are good at it.
I think the summary so far is there's a few approaches:
- The Brunson / Greenstein approach: play for so many years and win so many millions of dollars that it's just normal for your face and actions to be blank and impassive. Effective, but difficult to replicate. I think Phil Ivey, mentioned above (LOL at the video Mehman
), probably fits into this category too.
- The Ferguson / Fischman / Hellmuth* approach of adopting specific poses and betting actions for every single hand. Effective if you can get it right, and much easier to replicate.
- The Negreanu / Laak approach of giving your opponent other things to think about or misdirecting them. I've got mad respect for anyone that can pulls this off properly, gawd knows I'm pretty rubbish at it.
The Ferguson / Fischman approach is the one Joe Navarro recomments in
Read 'em and Reap as well, and it was kinda the catalyst for this thread. It's effective and relatively easy to apply, but at the same time it's gotta be acknowledged that sitting there like a robot just isn't for everyone.
Any other alternatives people can suggest or want to discuss for those that don't want to do the robot routine?
(* We didn't actually discuss Hellmuth, but it's the same basic approach as Ferguson - sometimes with the addition of a high collar so people can't observe the pulse in his neck. Always wondered before that why he wore those horrible ski jackets in Season 1 of the WPT. He makes departures from it, but usually only when they won't affect his opponent's decisions.)
