What do Chip Tells Mean?

It took me a solid 3 years to figure out what chip tells really mean. I had heard/read countless times before about how most pros find chip tells rather than facial or other body tells the most reliable. They study the manner in which players put their chips out when they're weak vs. when they're strong and by detecting a pattern, they can pick up a tell on their opponents.

Sounds easy in theory, but it took me forever to figure out what this really entails. One day, I was talking about it with a pretty good player and it just hit me. It is very true and incredibly accurate that if you look at the way a player releases his chips, it is a consistent tell about hand strength.

What is usually the case is that if a player puts his/her chips out very shakily, knocks over chips, or declares a bet while still in the middle of putting out chips (in other words, just looks very unsure and unconfident while putting out chips), he/she is bluffing. To give an example of the last statement, I was playing with a guy who had maybe $75 in chips in his hand and cut out two stacks of $20 very slowly before just saying, "I make it $150." He was bluffing and I caught him.

Conversely, when a player cuts his/her chips very smoothly and calmly, it implies a big hand. Also, the most obvious and common tell people talk about, shaky hands, implies a monster.

I wish I could put out video of this stuff, because while it sounds easy to pick up, it is actually pretty difficult to explain but such a vital tool in live play.

This concept also took me a long time because I started as a limit player, and I don't think this type of tell has any bearing in limit since people are only putting out 6 chips max per bet.

Here is a crystal clear example of how this tell is so important in live cash games and provides a huge edge over online play. I was playing in a $2/5 NLHE today, about $800 deep in a very aggressive game, and I had AdKd UTG. I limped in with the intention of reraising and a bunch of players called. A guy who was in the BB, a very weak player who with luck had ran his $500 stack into about $1400, raised to $25. He had been doing this shit consistently and I had been consistently popping him in the mouth to get him to stop. I raise to $75 and he just glares at me. I can tell he's fed up and he asks me why I keep doing that. I tell him, "Because I know you don't have a hand, you just love raising preflop." The table folds around back to him and he says, "You know what, I'm gonna call you, you're not doing this again this time." He makes the call and the flop comes down 5c-6c-7d. He immediately pushed $150 in the pot very very shakily when the door card of the 5c came out. He didn't even see the other two cards.

Now there is no hand here he can really represent since he should be scared of me having a big pocket pair here and he probably would have checked a set to me since I will always continuation bet here. It just seemed like such a bizarre bluff-type bet. The bet was big though, so I was in a real shitty position.

Then this guy starts talking. He says, "No matter what you do, if you raise I am going to call no matter how big it is." Strike one.

He then gets up and starts pretending to shout about the Bulls game on TV. He is just all over the place with energy, totally ignoring the hand. Strike two.

Combined with the crazy ass way he put his chips out, all shaky and stuff but not the same type of shaky hands that come with a big hand, I was just so sure this guy was bluffing, maybe he had pocket 8's or 4's but his hand couldn't stand up to a raise. I very very rarely make plays when I play low limit NLHE since the percentage of times you get called is so high and the players are so bad that you can pick better spots when you're like for sure an 80-20 favorite, but this seemed like such a good spot. I just knew this guy was super-weak and bluffing into me. I popped it to $400, telling him if his set cracked my aces he had me, and he insta-called! Uh oh, sometimes your read is wrong I guess.

We checked the turn and the river, though, and lo and behold, he flips up Kc 10c for no pair, just a draw! Sick! My AK high no pair no draw takes down over a $1000 pot! This was mostly because of chip tells and trusting my reads, things that I just could not do online. The $400 raise and talk of aces also froze him so he couldn't bluff on the turn or river.

I would always have to make this fold and give the guy credit online, but in live play this was a very easy raise.