Antonio Esfandiari - Reading Tells

Daniel Negreanu is one of the best poker players in the world. He is a fantastic hand reader, and he is also great at picking up tells from other players. But, as good as he is picking up on tells, he also has tells popping out of his wazoo. The main problem is, he likes to talk to much. Daniel's talking often leads to gaining information from his opponents. But its a two way street, and when your opponent is also excellent at making reads, such as Antonoi Esfandiari, Daniel runs the risk of giving away too much information when he opens his mouth, as you will see in the video above.

Without going into an advanced analysis, Esfandiari was relatively short stacked in the game, and after Daniel checked, Esfandiari's flop bet on the button looked like a rather standard positional continuation bet, so Negreanu put him all in with second pair. The problem was, Antonio waited patiently like an interrogator until his victim burst, spilling the beans that he didnt want a call with a blatant tell. Look at Daniel's face, and his body language, and listen to what he says. And then watch how fast Esfandiari calls. The audio and the video are all out of whack. But this offers us a chance to analyze the two elements separately. First watch it as a silent film, then listen to the audio only, then watch both. Good thing for Daniel not too many people will pin him to the wall with a jedi laser stare like Esfandiari. Watch Neagreanu melt down around 4:45-5:00.