[chaosrain @ Jul 25th 2007 3:16PM]

You have to understand that the "professional" players who don sweatshirts and sunglasses are acknowledging that even they are not fully aware of their tells or cannot fully control them. I suspect that stopping a tell is much like squeezing a wet bar of soap...once you stop a certain tell, another just pops up in its place. Unless you're a zen master and can control every physical manifestation of your emotions, you're going to leak tells like a sieve.

I would agree that a player who does not hide from his competitors is likely much better at the bluffing and tell-hiding aspects of good poker, but that's only part of the battle. Knowing the odds of your fellow players making a hand that beats yours is another important component and you can't play as a team. So if you're only good at the odds side of things and stink at hiding your tells, you physically hide them and ante up. I'm sure some of the "pros" are poor at the odds side of things and rely on bluffing and tells more than others. It's all about the skillset of the player.