by only keeping track of those who did not fold, and don't worry about keeping track of amounts. Simply get a feel for whether the players bet strongly or weakly. During a showdown, note the hands each player had. Were they betting heavily with a weak hand? Was the hand possibly going to "make it?" (e.g., were they drawing to a flush, and just didn't make it? Was the flush even possible? Was it likely, or was it a long shot?)
This is not a skill learned in a day. You must play THOUSANDS of hands to master it. Gradually, you will build a feel for how players bet in response to what they have in their hands. Then focus on how they respond to other players. Did they come out betting heavily early in the game, then fade away and eventually fold to heavy raising, even if their hand looked like it improved? Did they instead re-raise or cap the betting?
The same mathematical strategies that apply to you can be of assistance here, especially in community card or stud games, which give you some information about what the other players have even before the showdown. In fact, it is during these games that poker psychology is most readily learned, because in draw games you never know what the player discarded.
Learn to classify your opponents, and adjust your strategy against how they play. For example, identify whether your opponents are loose or tight. If they are loose, they are likely to bet heavily or stay in for a long time with even a very weak hand, or on a long shot draw. Tight players, however, tend to fold at every breeze. Also categorize them in terms of passive or aggressive. When raised, do they tend to call or fold? Or do they re-raise?
Ultimately, no single strategy will ever teach you the art of poker psychology. You will either learn it over a long period of time playing many hands, or you will go broke trying!
Tell
In poker, a tell is a detectable change in a player's behavior that gives clues to that player's hand. Possible tells include leaning forward or back, placing chips with more or less force, fidgeting, changes in breathing or tone of voice, direction of gaze and actions with the cards, cigarettes, or drinks.
For example, a player with a weak hand, hoping to bluff, may throw his chips into the pot forcefully and with a direct gaze at a player he hopes to discourage from calling.
Tells may be common to a class of players or unique to a single player. A player gains an advantage if she observes another player's tell, particularly if that action is unconscious and reliable. However, better players may fake tells, hoping to lead their opponents into costly traps when they rely on the false information. So the observing, creating, and evaluating of tells can add another level to the play of poker.
Pot odds
In poker, one of the most important concepts of strategy is pot odds, which are defined as the ratio of the current size of the pot divided by the size of the next potential bet, from the point of view of the player about to make the bet. For example, if a player is facing a $5 raise by his opponent (and must therefore pay $5 to call the raise), and the total amount of money in the pot (including the uncalled raise) before his potential call is $30, then he is facing 6-to-1 pot odds for the call. If he is contemplating raising another $5 (making his potential bet $10), then he is facing 3-to-1 pot odds for the raise.
For every potential action (fold, call, raise) at every point in a game of poker, the correct strategy is influenced by the pot odds facing the player. For example, the lower the pot odds facing a call, the more likely it is that folding will be the correct play, and the higher the pot odds facing a call, the more likely it is that calling is the correct play (to take an extreme example, if you can call for $1 with a $1000 pot, there is essentially no hand that would be correct to fold, because you only have to win one time in a thousand in similar situations for the call to be profitable). Similarly, small pot odds favor bluffing, because they make it less correct for an opponent to call.
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