Online Poker
Tells
When you read most any poker book or strategy site,
there's a lot about "tells" - how to read
your opponent to determine the strength or weakness
of a player's hand. There's even books about nothing
but tells! How someone breathes, facial ticks, the
vein in their neck - all sorts of tells that will allow
a good poker player to eat a weak player's lunch day
after day. Well, there's one big problem with online
poker - there are NO tells! Or are there?
Actually there are. While there may not be as many,
and they may not be as obvious - there are certainly
online tells you can look for, and know to try not
to do yourself. Since I there's not much currently
written about online poker tells, I kind of just catch
them as I play more and more online poker. If you know
of some good online tells .
1. Position Raises
This is not really so much a tell, just a move. If
you are in the small or big blind - and everyone
folds - until the person just to your right finally
raises - don't necessarily assume he's got a great
hand. It's a good move often used to steal blinds.
To make sure - raise back.
2. Slow Play
While I don't see people do this as much with medium
- strong hands, I do often see them all of a sudden
start to think long and hard about placing their
bet - or raise. Unless this person is just a slow
player or experiencing connection troubles, it's
quite likely an acting job. Paying attention to people's
betting rhythms at all times will help with this
call.
3. Really Fast Play
Most online poker sites allow a person to pre-select
their next move rather than click when it's their
turn. You can check boxes like "check / fold", "fold",
"call anything", and "raise anything"... Basically
the way you can tell someone has used one of these
check box buttons rather than actually wait their
turn is it passes by them lightening fast. Basically
faster than most could humanly click the button.
There are two scenarios when someone has pre-checked
their next bet move you should watch for...
"check / fold" - basically when someone clicks this
they are saying, "unless I can play for free, I'm folding".
Go ahead and bet to thin them from the callers.
"raise anything" - if someone is using this button
they are either really loose AND lazy, or feel they
have the nuts. So - watch out for that. This one you
won't see nearly as often as the "check / fold" button.
4. Chatting about their hand
Drunk poker players are kings of thinking little sayings
like "finally, here we go", or "thank you dealer"...
and actually thinking it scares the other players
into believing they've got a hand. Well, I see players
do the same via chat online every so often, and just
like the others, they are generally full of #@$@#$. Online
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