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Giving Up Tells
Online poker is undoubtedly and undeniably becoming famous nowadays. However there are poker players who would not give up playing live poker because they say it is more exciting and it has more drama than online poker.
For one, you can't see your opponents in online poker. In live poker, you come face to face with other poker player, and thus the game becomes more interesting. Poker, as we all know is a game between strategies and personalities. Of course, you can learn a great deal about poker players in their betting pattern. However, their body language gives additional information about them.
Some poker players wear sunglasses or caps to poker games so that they would be able to hide their facial expressions. Others wear headphones to shut them off from any audio stimuli.
These are some of the ways poker players take to block their opponents from getting any information about them. However, if you look closely, you will see that they are also blocking information coming their way.
Some poker players believe that it is worth it if you give out some information through your eyes or reactions. What is important is that you take as much as you give, if not more.
If you are wearing sunglasses to your poker games, surely, your opponents would not see your eye's reactions. They wouldn't know if your eyes were squinting, or have widened, or if your pupil has dilated. They would not use your eyes against you in determining if you were just bluffing, surprised, delighted, or scared to death. Thus, eyeglasses are really good device in safeguarding your eyes' tells. However, you also miss a lot of your opponents' tells if you are wearing tinted eyeglasses. Much information from other players will be lost because you are not using the normal vision, or light, while your opponents are.
On the other hand, if you are wearing headphones to the poker table, you sure will not hear any comments from others that would rouse any reaction to you. This is good in a way that you would not be sensitive to their verbal intimidations. However, a poker player also may use these verbal communications to decipher what another poker player is really trying to say or do, so headphones can also make you miss some vital information about your opponents. Also, it is considered rude to be using headphones at the poker table. Most of the time, the poker player who uses headphones do not hear if it's his turn yet, or what the other players had bet, which definitely slows down any poker game.