Most often, a player knows exactly what he's going to do within five seconds. You'll see it on the World Poker Tour telecasts quite often, thanks to the hidden cameras. There was a hand at the World Poker Open tournament in which Dave "Devilfish" Ulliot made a play with the 52. The player he had raised moved all in, and David went into the tank (meaning he took a substantial amount of time pondering whether or not to call the bet)! Why did he do this? After all, he is an experienced pro, and knew full well that he wasn't going to call the all-in raise, so why waste all that time?

Well, there are a couple of possible answers to that question. He may have just wanted to save face in order to conceal the fact that he was raising with a trash hand, or, more likely, he was trying to make his opponent sweat a little bit. He wanted to make him nervous, and put him through three minutes of torment before finally releasing his hand. Many players in this situation would be so relieved that it's finally over that they subconsciously might think to themselves, "Hmm, I better think twice about making any moves against that guy in the future."

Well, that's just what the Devilfish wanted from him. He wanted to scare him. He wanted him to think that if he ever tried to bluff him, he would have to deal with a full five-minute stare-down. That's more than the average guy wants to deal with at the table, so many of them will begin playing in a straightforward manner from that point on - thus making it even easier on our pro to control the table.

Don't be paranoid of or obsessed with tells. That's not where your focus should lie. I remember a few years ago something that I thought was rather cute. There were a few aspiring pros in a $10-$20 game at the Mirage one night. They looked fresh and ready to play. For several hours I watched them. Their eyes were constantly fixated on the player who was next to act. They gave each and every player the stare-down - on every street, whether they were in the hand or not! I thought it was quite funny, actually. They were so obsessed with trying to figure out what people's tells were that they completely neglected what was actually going on in the hands - who bet, who raised, and so on. Instead of watching the action of the game and studying betting patterns, they spent all of their time trying to figure out if Grandma Betty actually had a nervous twitch, and whether or not her twitch revealed something about her hole cards! They clearly had a lot of passion and energy for the game, but they were wasting all of that energy exercising the wrong muscles.

Having said all this, I should probably point out that what you say, or what you do with your eyes and hands, can be giveaways to the strength of your holding. Great players watch almost everything, and many do have an innate ability to read body language. You don't ever want to dismiss tells from your poker repertoire, but you just might be better off putting less emphasis on their importance.

I have a simple rule when I'm being stared down: The tougher my opponent, the less I'll do. If I believe I'm up against an average or weak player, I may send out some false tells and basically try to manipulate his decision in my favor. I may even make a comment, it just depends on what I think I need to do to manipulate his mind. A great player can usually read through that act, though, so you don't want to give him anything. If you give him nothing and he still tells you he can "see through your soul," don't sweat it; I assure you it's just another scare tactic.

Daniel Negreanu is an instructor at PokerSchoolOnline. JOIN HERE