The universal tell in poker is called betting!

You can always tell poker players, but you can’t tell them much.

Poker is not a game of cards played with money—It is a game of money played with cards. It is about M-O-N-E-Y., but too much respect for money makes you a bad no limit player.
High Stakes Poker is not about winning, it is a game about excelling, and making good decisions. More than that, it is not the winning, but the losing, that makes a winner in No Limit Holdem.
Whether your decision is good or bad depends on how you make it, not on the outcome. Bad beats happen, and they usually happen from making correct decisions. Anyone can get lucky once 100% of the time. That's poker.

The Secret is about the law of attraction and results—the secret of high stakes poker is the complete opposite! The way to get better is to think about process not results—focus on better decision making and ignoring short term results.
Everyday Players enjoy the risk associated with winning; and are for the most part, risk averse--they don't want to lose---and when they do, you can be sure TILT is not far behind.
Our brain is the most powerful computer. When on tilt, our brain is the most powerful broken computer . Tilt makes us sub-optimal for evaluating rewards, sizing up risks and calculating probabilities.
Winner,winner chicken dinner...
There are two ways to put opponents on TILT: Win a pot to showdown with the best hand, or bluff with the worst. The former is "regular", the later, "extra crispy". This is what seperates the PROS from the JOES, the ROUNDERS from the FLOUNDERS--Ain't nothing but a thing, chicken wing--the big shrug, and "oh well". Chicken's have wings but can't fly. Don't worry about it.

Poker Without Cards-Bluffing If you never get called, you can never lose!
Bluffing is a big part of NLH since most players miss the flop 33% of the time.IN NLH there are 4 opportunities to bluff, 1 pre and 3 post flop. LOOSE players are looking for reasons to CALL; TIGHT, to FOLD. Yet, if the right players don't show up, the right game doesn't either.
You aren't a bad poker player if you get caught bluffing sometimes or most of the time. You only have to win a fraction of the time to net a profit. Sklansky's (game)Theory of poker points out that you cannot play optimally unless you include bluffing into your game.
Every bet or raise can be a bluff, and you can beat a bluff with a mediocre hand. The only way to compensate for the bluffs of your opponents is to bluff them back!
You don' t get what you deserve in poker, you get what you negotiate--Bluffing is the quintessential negotiator. If you are going to be a winning player, you have to include bluffing in your game.
The more your bluffs matters, the harder they are to pull off because they are, after all, bluffs. It is, however, impossible to defend against a solid bluffing strategy. Reality is perception, and appearance reality.
Sell Don't Tell-ABC "Always Be Closing".
Tells can give you a competitive advatage. HINTS or suggestions are better ways to describe the leaks in opponents (and your) game.-The universal hint in poker is called betting—jamming the pot when you have the best of it, and punishing opponents for their draws.

Betting is the language of poker; the more money behind your bet, the louder your voice! It's a slang that rolls up its sleeves and spits in the streets.

Poker is whatever you can get away with--either you bet with the best hand or you bluff with the worst. In the real world, If your girlfreind is cheating on you---you don't want to believe it.(Truth bias). So she bluffs you and gets away with it but then...one day her own Fear of being caught---detection apprehension---will be the non verbal (TELL) communication that speaks to your subconscious and allows you to divorce her! That is, if your left brain gets good at telling your right brain what to do.
Misleading Vividness-Learn The Lines
Bluffing is giving yourself permission to win, even if you do not have the best of it. When you show up to a game, you have to be script driven, and the lines are simple--I am going to win, NOT I should win , NOT I deserve to win. If you can pull off a feeling of acceptance, not even belief, you will have a reasonable amount of success in your bluffs. Be misleading not confusing in your bluffs.
Use position, psychology and bluffing to tip the scales. One thing for sure-POSITION makes every bluff easier. What is your RRR, your risk reward ratio? What are the CP's, calling patterns of your opponents? What are their BP's, betting patterns? The bluffing quest is in these questions.
You don't get a second chance to make a first impression on any given hand. Commit to a hand, and the prosperous termination of desired events--scooping up the pot. Bluffing really means I am against something but appear to be for it. Creating a false impression, disguising the "truth" is easier said than done. Overcompensating in either direction usually occurs---that's a bad bluff. Manipulating how confident you appear, a person who is bluffing will almost always overcompensate 100%, to convince or convey.

Body Languaging
The visable sign of your inner state is Body Language. The air is thick with non-verbal communication. Performance gestures- A bluff will either be performed or unconscious. The modesty lie is a good example of an unconscious bluff---when you win a big pot, or send someone home broke, that is the one lie that most of us can pull off with no regret ---playing small when we want to get up and scream, ,"Yea baby".

WYSIWYG

To be a great liar/bluffer , people around you have got to want to believe you. It is much easier in the real world because there is TMI, too much information in our daily lives so—we pull back and tend to accept everything at face value, calling a spade a spade, WYSIWYG, What you see is what you get.

In poker it is all about survival, so there is no filtering out the bad for the good. You want to be informed. There is such social pressure to handle the truth, to tell the truth, or even to be tactful, but when we bluff, we must go through a whole series of mental effort and consideration. It is natural to tell the truth, and unnatural not to.

First you have to come up with the correct response---the truth; Next,you have to figure out how to quash that response; Finally, you have to come up with the lie response. It is not only hard to do, it is hard to sustain. Don't do anything out of the ordinary. Don't freeze up. Don't talk, unless you think it will influence a fold. Remember, bluffing is never impossible.

Here are some good bluffs-By Sammy Farha and Chris Moneymaker


bluffing Game Theory Poker No limit holdem behavioral finance Truth bias