i wish i didn't tell

This past week we have been having a small Texas Hold 'em tournament at my office. I don't have too much experience with the game, but I like to think I can carry my own. We had a practice game on Monday, three preliminary games on Tuesday through Thursday, and the final on Friday. Anyone who won a preliminary game on the Tuesday through Thursday games got a pass into the final round. If you won on Tuesday or Wednesday you could still play in the other rounds as a kind of spoiler. Games were timed out at 50 minutes.

In a strange irony I lead in the games on Monday through Wednesday for the majority of the game, but lost to the exact same person on the very last hand. Things did not seem to be going my way. I was relatively confident in my abilities to win Thursday's game, though, so long as the cards would cooperate.

After my Wednesday game there were whispers that I had a tell. I had something that would make it obvious to others whether I have a strong or weak hand. I tried to think of anything that I could be possibly giving away. It had to be an unconscious tell because I could think of no conscious ones that matched what I knew of my behavior.

After some investigation I found that a lot of unconscious tells have to do with where a person looks after they get their cards. Look too long at the cards that were flopped and that means you have a bad hand. Glance at your chips immediately after the flop and that means you have a good hand. I decided to reverse these and see if I could confuse my foes.

Throughout the game I purposefully threw tells that said I had exactly the opposite of what I actually had, but this was to no avail. No one even looked my way when the tells were supposed to be noticed, and at least one person still could somewhat predict the strength of my hand.

After I went out I asked what my tell was. I hesitate to say in the case that I cannot control it in the future, but when I bluff my eyes apparently dart around quicker than when I have a strong hand. Now that I have given away the secret to anyone who is planning to play cards with me in the future, I will simply need to learn how to defeat it. I figure if I don't force myself to train the tell away I'll always have it, and that won't be good if I want to milk some chips out of you with my full house.