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In the domain of poker tells, Mike Caro’s 1984 Book of Poker Tells: The Body Language of Poker popularized the idea that behavior will abide by a weak-means-strong and strong-means-weak rule. The idea is that the fully adversarial and competitive environment created by poker (or any such game-like environment) creates an incentive for players to display behaviors intended to fool opponents: to act in ways perceived as weak when one holds a strong hand, and to act in ways perceived as strong when one holds a weak hand.
This idea is often repeated and has a lot of logic to it. But the reality is a lot more complex.
Here are some key takeaways about the weak-means-strong/strong-means-weak poker tells concept:
- Weak-seeming behavior from bettors often indicates a strong hand. Pained expressions, hesitation, or timid chip placement tend to indicate strong hands, with more subtle versions of these behaviors found in experienced players.
- Often, strong-seeming behavior from bettors does represent strength. Bettors with strong hands may smile, laugh, taunt, stare at an opponent, or openly claim strength simply because they feel relaxed and feel an impulse to engage more with their “enemy.
- “Weak” behavior from a bettor is easier to interpret than is strong-seeming behavior. This is because “weak” behavior tends to show up from value-bettors, while “strong” behavior can easily show up from both bluffers and value-bettors. The more physically loose and irritating the behavior is, though, the more likely it will be a strong hand.
- Distinguish bettors from players who are checking, calling, or waiting to act. Ostentatious displays of strength—such as staring or forceful calls—tend to make weakness more likely amongst non-aggressors.
Weak-means-strong behaviors
Let’s start with what is right about the idea. It’s true that many common and reliable poker tells are, at their heart, about this idea. For example, players betting strong hands will sometimes have various behaviors that could be described as uncertain- and anxious-seeming: furrowed brows, pursed lips, momentary passing moments of looking pained, hesitative and uncertain chip gathering and placements, and so on. These weak-means-strong types of tells are some of the most important tells to be aware of. Such behaviors can be seen amongst highly amateur players, and they even show up sometimes in highly experienced players, with just much more subtlety (although physically loose behaviors are more common for these players than the more obvious anxious/uncertain weak-means-strong behaviors).
Strong-means-weak behaviors
But let’s think about strong-means-weak behaviors. This is where things get much more messy. First, let’s think about what might qualify as a “strong” behavior. That might be things like smiling, laughing, having a confident posture, or even verbally stating or implying that one has a strong hand.
The complicating factor here is that people betting strong hands feel relaxed, and sometimes feel joyful, and relaxed and joyful people can have a wide range of behavior: they might just as soon decide to behave in weak-seeming ways as strong-seeming ways.
For example, consider a player betting the nuts on the river: it’s easy to imagine them choosing to act in weak ways, so as to, unconsciously or consciously, communicate a weak hand (looking back and forth at opponent in a thoughtful way, hesitating and pausing before gathering a bet, timidly putting out the bet). But it’s also easy to imagine them deciding to sort of taunt and lord it over their opponent, by staring at them with a smile, and saying something like, “I’ve got you.” For one thing, it’s fun to engage with an “enemy” when you know you’ve got them right where you want them; for another, the fully-adversarial landscape of poker means that they know their “enemy” can’t trust what they say and do, and will often assign the opposite meaning to more direct communications related to hand strength.
And this is what we find in the wild. Players betting strong hands often engage in what could be called “strong” behaviors.
Strong-often-means-strong
This is why, in my books and videos, I say that the truth is more like: strong-can-mean-weak-but-strong-often-just-means-strong. I’ll include an excerpt from my book Verbal Poker Tells on this point. It’s about verbal statements but the same principles that apply to verbal statements apply to nonverbal behavior:
Strong-hand statements
Strong-hand statements are not as easy to interpret as weak-hand statements. This is because strong-hand statements are often heard from players with all sorts of hands, both strong and weak.
Players with weak hands have an obvious motivation to express strength about their hands. One example: a player bluffing the river may say, “I’ll give you a break; I got you this time.” Another example: a player waiting-to-act on the river, who has a single pair and who doesn’t want his opponent to bet, may say something like, “Two pair any good?” This use of language isn’t surprising.
But you can also find many players with strong hands making strong-hand statements. For example, it’s fairly common to see someone make a big bet on the river with the nuts and exclaim something like “You can’t call this! I’ve got the nuts!” Or a player with 6♣ 5♦ on a J♥ 5♠ 5♥ flop shoves all-in while saying, “Call that if you don’t like money.” Players with strong hands, because they’re more relaxed, are capable of all types of behavior, both verbal and nonverbal. The verbal behavior of players betting strong hands can include goading behavior or attempts at reverse psychology, both of which can take the form of strong-hand statements.
Confusion about “strong” eye contact
One specific area where there is a lot of misunderstanding about this is eye contact and staring from bettors. In many poker tells resources, a bettor staring at an opponent is often described as a “strong” behavior and therefore interpreted as “weak” in the usual strong-means-weak theory. But this is a mistake. Staring is more often an indicator of relaxation, simply because bluffers, in general, do not like to engage with opponents in that way; they would be afraid that such engagement might lead to more scrutiny and agitation, and that it might even provoke, to quote Caro again, a “spite call.” Such staring is more often an indicator that the bettor is so relaxed that they feel okay engaging with their opponent in such a way.
Now, of course, this can go either way. Some players are more likely to stare when bluffing, and come across as more weak/subdued when betting a strong hand. And of course many players are well balanced. I’m just talking general tendencies overall.
Takeaways
The practical takeaways from these points, as they apply to bettors, are:
- Weak-seeming behavior from a bettor is easier to interpret than is strong-seeming behavior. This is because weak-seeming behavior will rarely show up from bluffers, while strong-seeming behavior is easily capable of showing up from bluffers and value-bettors.
- The more goading or irritating a “strong” display is, the more likely it is to represent a strong hand (for more on why, see Anger/irritation).
- The more physically loose and dynamic a “strong” display is, the more likely it is to represent a strong hand, because bluffers tend to be quite restrained and stoic in their behavior.
Non-aggressor and waiting-for-action behaviors
I’ve been focused on behaviors from bettors here. The one area where strong-means-weak will tend to apply pretty well is from players who are not bettors: those who are the non-aggressor in the hand, or who are waiting-to-act. Things like staring and forceful calls, and other ostentatious behavior, will tend to weaken a player’s range. For more on this, see Eye-related tells.
Zachary Elwood is the author of the Reading Poker Tells trilogy of books, which has been translated into eight languages and sold more than 48,000 copies. See more frequently asked poker tells questions.