Marcus Bateman / Marcus Bateman / 11 May 2009 / Leave a comment

This is a useful tell, as it nearly always indicates strength from your opponent. Due to human physiology, when we look down at a monster hand, the excitement of knowing that we are about to win a big pot releases huge quantities of adrenalin into our system. This causes our hands to shake slightly as we move chips.

Hand shaking is a truly great tell because the player basically has no control over it, and as a result is very difficult to disguise. You can't put sunglasses over your hands, or force your brain to stop releasing adrenalin, and as a result this can be a very reliable tell.

Many people misinterpret this shake as a sign of fear and weakness, and make marginal calls over and over again until they finally get sick of being shown monsters - do not do this. Shaking nearly always means extreme strength, and as a result can actually let you lay down some pretty big hands if you see it - hands which your opponent will probably not be able to lay down against you when the shoe is on the other foot, which soon adds up to a lot of extra profit.

Hand shaking is a truly great tell because the player basically has no control over it, and as a result is very difficult to disguise. You can't put sunglasses over your hands, or force your brain to stop releasing adrenalin, and as a result this can be a very reliable tell.

The main problem with shaking hands as a tell is the any player comfortably rolled and well experienced in a certain stake game will not feel much about winning or losing a buy in, and as a result their hands will not shake when they have big hands, simply because their brain has become perfectly comfortable winning or losing the amounts of money at that stake. As a result, against the players that you need tells against the most (the strong ones) hand shaking is not very useful, as it simply does not happen very much.

Despite this, shaking hands provides a great source of information against players who are weak, inexperienced or playing out side of their normal stake, and can help you save a lot of money if you have a strong hand and they come out firing.

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