Poker and the Ante-tale Part 2

If you read part one then you know that an ante-tale is a consciously displayed tale that you are using to lead the other players to a specific conclusion about your feelings or upcoming actions.  If you can make the other players think you are very confident it will worry them a little.  If you can make them think that you are about ready to throw in the towel and walk they might throw you a pot so you don’t leave.  This, they think, will allow them to milk you for more money.  Thus, the ante-tale can raise your game to a totally new level, but as I mentioned before you need to standardize every part of the game that you can.

When you are consciously taking the actions that you have already decided to take and have been taking regularly during the game the other players will note, consciously or subconsciously, what you are doing and make inferences from that.  This is a much underutilized art in the world of poker.  Many, if not most pros use ante-tales at one level or another but many of them do not do it consciously.  Decide to consciously know what you are going to do in any particular instant and be utterly consistent about it and then you can send exceedingly strong ante-tales when you decide to.

What is a good simple strategy for doing this?  For me, I like to appear cool, collected and organized.  So, I stack and move my chips in a very specific way.  I handle my cards in a very specific manner.  I try to take a tiny sip of water on every third hand.  My list goes on, but one thing that anyone watching me knows is that I am calm and controlled looking (in a very serious aside, regular practice in meditation, yoga or martial arts is highly valuable for learning to control your actions precisely).  So, even if my opponent is not at all skilled in reading poker tales they know that if I am acting agitated or excited something is up.  This can lead to some very nice mistakes on my opponent’s part.  This is a very simple strategy and has served many poker experts very well. 

What is too much and what is over the top?  The answer to that is very contextual.  What kind of players are at the table with you?  Are there some serious amateurs there?  Are they mostly schlock players who seem anxious to give me their money?  I am good with that and I will do all I can to help them succeed at it.

What I can tell you is that it is very easy to be an excellent poker if you work at it and that it is very hard to be an excellent poker play if you don’t work at it.  Get a notebook.  Decide on your money management strategy and study your own tales.  Create your standardization strategy.  Be deliberate, get cheap experience and learn something about it every day.  Sooner than you think, you will be a power to be reckoned with in your own group.