Learning the most common poker tells is important if you want to succeed in playing and winning at poker. Fortunately, humans are pretty predictable and more similar than you might think, therefore many people share the same poker tells. Furthermore, learning to recognize poker tells in other people will make you more adept at hiding your own.

Unless you can see underneath the table without looking really obvious, you are going to have a hard time with someone who wiggles their feet or shakes their legs as poker tells. However, if you are paying attention, you may be able to notice their upper bodies moving a bit. Other, more common poker tells include playing or fidgeting with drinks, keys, glasses, or chips. If someone starts fidgeting with their chips, that could be a sure sign that they are trying to get away with something. Similarly, tapping fingers, biting nails, chewing on cheeks or lips, or other nervous gestures are dead giveaways.

One thing you will want to be aware of, however, is false tells. You need to make sure that the tell is actually a tell and the person you are targeting isn’t just nervous or fidgety all the time. In order to do this, you just need to pay attention to their body language and their hands. Perhaps they are normally fidgety but calm down when they are up to something, because they don’t want to give anything away. Poker tells are funny things, and sometimes, like in this instance, they can work in reverse.