As you know, it is only going to help your home poker game if you learn to read people. To begin with, start by playing against people you know well. You will be surprised at how differently they act at the poker table than they do in real life. For many people, this is done as a mechanism to fight against betraying their hands. Little do they know that by acting differently at the poker table that they are actually giving away quite a bit of information; it is your job to decipher that information.

Nervous behavior is oftentimes a result of having a good hand, but not always. This is where it gets tricky. Sometimes people will act differently when they have a strong hand, but when they have nothing, they act normal. This is all dependent upon the type of friend you are playing with. For some, the exact opposite is true—they will act naturally when they have a good hand, or at least they will try to act nonchalantly. If you don’t know the mannerisms of your opponents, it really doesn’t take long to pick up on the signals that amateurs give off. By being observant to a player or players over the course of several hands, you can easily figure out what type of hands they have just by their mannerisms. This, of course, only works on newbies and other weaker players. Don’t expect a professional to be easy to read at all. Most of the time, a professional will be misleading you with their (seemingly) nervous habits at the table when in fact they are only lying a trap for you.

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