Psychological Profiles of Poker
Players
I recently picked up and
read a copy of Ultimate Guide to Poker Tells,
whose title is pretty self-explanatory as to its
content. On a side note, I found the book to be an
excellent guide to common cardroom poker tells as well
as some lesser-known gems. Anyway, in the chapter
instructing on how to avoid giving off tells at the
table yourself, the author goes into a brief discussion
on different types of personalities at the table. I
found the commentary to be quite accurate and I thought
that I would share my thoughts with this article.
One personality, albeit rare, that a player can employ
at the table to keep their opponents guessing is one
filled with wild, crazy, and unpredictable mannerisms.
At least for a few hands, players with this style will
reinforce their sloppy appearance by bluffing and
gambling. Usually, however, they reserve these plays for
when they know they’re being observed in order to
represent that wild table image. The result is a highly
effective way to guarantee action when they have the
best of it. Also, since these players are constantly
yapping away, moving around, and distorting their faces,
their opponents haven’t a clue as to what their tells
(if any) are.
Examples a wild table psychology include Daniel Negreanu,
Mike Caro (known as “Crazy Mike” before being the “Mad
Genius of Poker”), Amarillo Slim Preston, Mike Matusow,
and Phil Hellmuth (in terms of yapping and needling
opponents). While you can use this method to avoid being
predictable, it is very difficult to appear natural. As
Dan Harrington says in Harrington on Hold’em Vol. 1,
“you might have trouble with this style of play unless
you’ve spent some time in a mental institution.”
While most of us would be pretty tense about playing in
major events under bright lights and documented by
television cameras, some players are simply at ease and
don’t mind a friendly chat with their opponents. Because
this style displays calm confidence, it is difficult for
their opponents to put them on a bluff, which bundled
nerves often signify. Examples of this cool, collective,
and talkative style include players like Greg Raymer and
Gus Hansen.
Most of us (including myself) fall into the final
category of poker player: the robotic tell-stifling
machine. We’ve gotten to the point in our poker career
where we realize that anything we voluntarily reveal to
our opponents through speech or mannerisms can only
expose information. What better way to suppress our
possible tells is there than freezing up, zoning out,
and keeping our mouths shut? It requires the least
energy and, for most of us, is the easiest to
successfully pull off. Advanced players in this category
have also reached the point where they’re able to subtly
give a reverse tell, believably and intentionally
exposing what looks to be a tell for weakness or
strength but is actually the opposite of their holdings.
Examples of this style include Doyle Brunson, Chip
Reese, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Chris Moneymaker, Phil
Ivey, Howard Lederer, Barry Greenstein, Dan Harrington,
and too many other players to name.
While you’ll find many different psychological
approaches to the game and player profiles at your local
cardroom and on television, the lesson should be that
you need to develop some sort of method of reducing (and
hopefully eliminating) the amount of physical tells that
you expose to your opponents. Are you comfortable being
a wild maniacal force at the table or are you better
suited for the classic “poker face”? Perhaps this
article doesn’t apply to you if you play poker
exclusively online, but you do need to prepare yourself
if you ever wish to ascend into the level of live
professionals or even just win a satellite into The Big
One. Regardless, it’s interesting to notice the various
methods used by the major professionals at the table.
Next time you watch a televised poker event, see if you
can classify players at the table and challenge yourself
to detect any physical signs of weakness or strength.
Back
to Poker Players.
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