Poker is seen as a game of information with players trying to extract as must information on their opponents as possible in order to change their betting and playing style to their advantage.

You will see a lot of talking from a number of players in live poker tournameys and games, generally taking about anything poker related, trying to lead you into giving away additional information about the hand that you are holding.

One of the most renowned poker table talkers is no other than professional Mike ‘The Mouth’ Matusow of PokerStar.com, taking his nickname for the amount of talking and jeering that the player demonstrates during his game play.

Although Mike Matusow is a successful poker player, his playing style of using a tactic of talking constantly is something that he has practised over a number of years.

Talking at the poker table, especially as often as Matusow does, opens you up to revealing information about your hand to your opponents without you been aware that you have.

Think about this, if poker is a game of information and every time that you are talking at the poker table you are offering increasing amount of information to your opponents, does that not mean that they are in a better position then you are?

Do you want to give your opponents information to use against you? No.

So the best possible approach to this situation is to remain quiet at the tables, allowing the players around you to give away their hands during the jeering and conversations with players.

When you sit and watch a tournament on FullTiltPoker.com you will notice that there are a number of questions asked by players to their rivals that may seem to be standard questions and something that wouldn’t offer too much information out but the truth is that good players know how to take information from any response that is given.

Questions such as “How many chips do you have left?” could seem to only offer information about the number of chips that a player has but the reality is that a strong player should know how many chips they have in front of them so a player can decode from the fact that a player is having to count their chips to the fact that the player is inexperienced.

Take to the tables and keep your mouth shut and ears open, you can collect information from all of the loud opponents at the tables, giving you the upper hand.