Body language is the key that separates the great from the average in poker.

At least, according to Mark Hubbard, a fourth-year biology student at Dalhousie University and the winner of the online University Poker Championship.

Mark, who plays casino poker as well as online poker, said he is a believer in deciphering body language, or “tells,” in his opponents.

Tells are the physical signs that a poker player gives that hint at the strength of the hand he has.

Hubbard, like many poker players, plays Texas hold ‘em.  

One of the most common variants of modern poker, Texas hold ‘em features two cards dealt facedown to each player, with each player making a mandatory bet at the start.

Between rounds of betting, five cards in total are laid face up in the centre of the table — the flop (three cards), the turn (one card), and the river (one card). Barring any trickery, the player with the highest hand wins.

According to Mark Hubbard, even your heartbeat can give you away.  

“If I have a strong hand, my heart rate tends to go up a little bit. . . so you can kind of hide that by having a hoodie or a jacket that covers your neck,” he said, referring to how a racing heartbeat can be visible to other players as a pulse in the neck.

Finding tells in his opponents and concealing his own is a major concern for Ryan Fisher, a first-year psychology student at Carleton. Fisher said he began playing poker at the age of 12, playing with his family and learning from them.

By 16 he was more serious, looking for places to play.

Now reading his opponents is natural to him, something he attributed to practice.

“When I first started playing I didn’t know anything about that kind of stuff,” he said. “When I first started none of that crossed my mind.”

Now he said he approaches it almost like a science.

“For example, when cards are dealt, I don’t look at my cards, what I do is I look at my opponents look at their cards and look at their reaction to their cards,” he said.

“As soon as the flop comes I don’t look at the flop — I’m literally staring at my opponent’s eyes, I look at his eyes and see what he does.”

Fisher said he hopes to pursue poker professionally after finishing a degree in psychology.

For the beginner, Fisher said the best thing to do to learn poker body language is to practice.

“[Body language isn’t] something you can’t pick up on the first time you play someone either — you have to be watching [your opponent] the first hour sometimes.”