How to stop your hand shaking when playing poker
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Marcus Bateman /
16 March 2010 /
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Shuffling chips can help to stop your hands from shaking at vital moments.
It is not just through boredom that most poker players shuffle and play with chips constantly.
One of the most obvious and hard to disguise tells amongst live players is their hands shaking. This tell nearly always indicates strength contrary to what seems to be the intuitive explanation for such a tell - that someone is nervous and probably bluffing.
Your hands shake when you play poker through large amounts of adrenalin being released in your body - something you have very little control over on the face of it - but there are key ways to avoid this tell, and they can teach us a lot about good poker habits as well.
The most obvious and easy way to avoid your hands shaking is to play stakes where you feel fully comfortable making every play possible. If you are dealing with sums of money that are relatively small compared to your bankroll, each bet has very little pressure on it, and your body ceases to bother releasing the adrenaline, as the worry and tension of the bets is hugely reduced.
However, sometimes this is impossible in poker (such as when at the final table of a major tournament), and you have to try and simply cope with what's in front of you. In these situations it can really help to be moving your hands constantly.
It is not just through boredom that most poker players shuffle and play with chips constantly - by giving your muscles something to constantly do you both relieve the tension somewhat, as well as over riding the muscles shaking response to adrenalin through giving them something more important to do. A great example of this is in professional pool or snooker matches - frequently you will see a nervous player shake a little at the start of their visit to the table, only for this to leave after they have played a few shots and got their muscles moving.
Shaking hands can be a very damaging tell at a table of good players, as it will make the action on your big hands dry up, and it is crucial to avoid it. Stick within your limits, give your hands something to do with and just try and stay as relaxed and calm at the table as possible.
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