Learning how to keep a poker face is critical to improving your poker game. Use these five tips get your poker face in tip top shape.
- Keep your face serious. Having a serious expression on your face tends to give other players the impression that you know what you are doing. Whether you have a good hand, bad hand, or you are not sure what to expect. Keep your facial expression serious. This will also help you avoid giving away how good (or bad) your hand is to the other players.
- Watch your body language. Do you have a nervous tick when you are bluffing? Do you act overly confident when you have a good hand? Does your leg twitch when you are nervous? What are your eyes doing when you bet? You need to monitor everything you do when you play poker. Keep that body language in check. No matter what your hand looks like, make sure you act the same each and every play.
- Watch how you place your bets. If you have a great hand, don't throw your bet down to quickly. If you are not sure if you should bet or not, don't hesitate to long. These types of behaviors can give away your hand to the other players. Think ahead before your turn to bet comes up so you know what your play is going to be. Then you can keep your betting behaviors consistent so that other players can't figure you out.
- Keep your eyes in check. To keep a poker face consistent, you either need to always look your opponent in the eyes on each play, or never look your opponent in the eyes. Flipping back and forth between these behaviors can give you away. On a side note. Statistically speaking, a players eyes will dilate about 45% when they look at something they like. Use this to your advantage and hide your eyes when you see a good flop. And keep watch on your opponents eyes to see when they are dilating.
- Watch what you say. Silence is golden in the game of poker. Words can give away your play. If you are playing a serious game, it's best not to talk at all.
Following these five tips are a great starting point on how to keep a poker face. If you are playing a really serious game and need some help hiding your tells. Consider wearing a ball cap and sunglasses.
Before you go, please take a moment to check out our deals on poker chip sets, poker tables, and poker cards. We have a big sale on right now, and we are offering free shipping on everything in our store!
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In Texas Holdem Poker, the big and little blind are the required bets that must be made in every hand of the poker game. These bets are called the blind bets because they must be made before the players are able to see the 'flop' of the first three cards by the dealer. The blind bets are predetermined amounts. Small blind is always half the amount of the big blind bet. Usually, the larger the stakes of the game, the higher the blind bets are.
The blind positions rotate with each deal. If you do not have dedicated dealer for your game, the person to the left of the dealer at the poker table is usually the 'small blind' and the person to the left of the small blind is the 'big blind' bet.
All other players at the poker table must match the big blind or fold if they wish to stay in the game and see the flop of the first three cards by the dealer.
One thing that often happens to new players is that they feel the need to defend their blind bets. They often continue to bet even on a poor hand just because they already have money in the pot. This is a poor strategy. The blinds are forced bets and you should not adjust your playing strategy just because you were forced to put money into the pot. If you have a bad hand - fold! Unless of course you plan on bluffing :).
The only exception I would make to this rule is if you are the small blind, and no raises have been made on the big blind bet. Since it won't cost you much extra to see the flop, go ahead and match the big blind bet to stay in the game. Once you see the flop, then you can better analyze if it's worth throwing any more chips on the poker table.
Before you go, please take a moment to check out our deals on poker chip sets, poker tables, and poker cards. We have a big sale on right now, and we are offering free shipping on everything in our store!
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