A very important characteristic in poker championships is conning your opponents by making them think you actually have a good hand, when the truth is it is most likely your hand is much worse than theirs. You may have heard this referred to as “Poker face”, an expressionless face to mislead your competitors into thinking something that could be a lie.

Having a good poker hand is most likely going make you feel more anxious, could possibly make your hands shake, and your pulse race. These are tell-tale signs that your poker competition may pick up on very quickly, especially if they are old friends. Be careful not to look at the pot if you hold some decent poker cards. This will show your competition that you are, in your mind, counting how much you will possibly win.

In the situation where you have a dreadful poker hand, try not to avoid looking at your opponents, don’t lower your head, and don’t be indecisive about your bet. When you can convince yourself that your set of cards is just as good, or superior than your fellow poker players; you will possibly convince them of this as well. Try not to forget to make this seem as normal as possible. Your signals and motions could be saying one point, while what you are saying are giving them a whole different idea.

One more vital point of Texas Hold Em is to be aware of your poker buddies’ “poker tells”. A “tell” is a look or appearance that may tell you something about their poker hand. One vital rule to never forget is when your opponent appears as if he has a good poker hand; he, in all probability, has a weak Texas Hold Em hand. From a different angle, if he behaves in a way that seem like he has a poor poker hand, he very likely is holding a strong poker hand.

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According to the 2006 WSOP winner, Jamie Gold, he wants to be recognized as the greatest bluffer in the game of poker. But if his last tournament is any clue, his wish may not come true any time soon.

The site is the 2007 Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic held at the Vegas Bellagio in 2007. Featuring $50 - $100 blinds and a $15,000 buy-in, Darrell Dicken is close to the end of his run. The seat 4 player has just raised his bet to $300, a pretty small increase with only one player taking the bait. “I put him as being weak,” Jamie said, “I was thinking about raising, but instead I just called with a 10-3 of hearts to see what would happen.”

Jamie thought that Brad Booth would make some kind of move, which he did. He re-raised to $1600 from the big blind. Gold thought that Booth had a passable hand, but he was in a great position to make a move taking into account the amount of dead money in the pot. Dicken folded, and the unknown in Seat 4 called Booth’s raise.

At this point there was more than $4000 in the pot, so Jamie raised the wager by $4000. His thought was, only if someone else had aces or kings there would be no chance they would make that call. Jamie’s plan was to make a substantial move on the flop, as long as no ace came up. The second part of his plan was to get Booth to fold, which he did. Booth folded with pocket queens.

Coming out of the flop there was an ace of ace-6-5, two clubs. The player in seat 4 checked and Jamie bet $2000. Jamie’s first thought was to make him think that he had clubs. Seat 4 laid down a $10,000 chip, but didn’t say anything thus changing his raise into a call. Jamie’s thought was that seat 4 in all likelihood had an ace, but you have to shield it in case he hits his set on the upcoming card.

A 2 of hearts showed up on the turn, and Jamie went ahead and folded to what he was thinking was a top pair kicker. Seat 4 showed a king-jack off suit. Seat 4 beat Gold by bluffing with a higher hand, he created a terrific poker play and kept the bluff going to the end of the poker tournament.

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