Online Tells

 

Picking up on the tells that players give out is an integral weapon in the armoury of any great poker player and many articles (and even one very famous book) have been written on how to spot these fatal flaws in your opponents' play.

You would think that there is far less information you can glean about your adversaries when they’re playing online, instead of facing them across a real poker table and, of course, you’d be right. There are, however, some online giveaways which, if you can spot them, will give you a very real idea of the strength or intentions of your opponent.

Always remember that there may be some deception going on whenever you’re playing and that your opponent may be deliberately misleading you, by pretending to give off a tell. This is as big a possibility in online play as it is in a real bricks and mortar cardroom.

However, in low stakes online games you won’t go too far wrong by making note of the most common of all the giveaways.

Auto-Play Buttons

On all poker sites players have the option to determine their course of action before it is their turn to act. These are your Check/Fold, Check, Call, Call Any, Raise Any, etc, options. You can usually tell when this option has been used because of the lightening speed of their response after the player to their right has acted.

If a player's action is to Check in such a fashion you can probably deduce that their hand is quite weak. They may even have had the Check/Fold option ticked and would have folded if they'd been raised. Use this to your advantage on the next round of betting if the next card would appear to be of no benefit to your opponent.

If you are instantly raised in such a fashion then it's usually the case that your opponent has a very strong hand and was going to raise no matter what you did. Unless you yourself have a very strong hand then you'd be advised to proceed with caution from that point onwards.

The key thing here is to always observe your opponents and see what their patterns of play are. A player who appears to always be using the options boxes, especially the Check option, may well be playing on two or more tables at the same time and is not paying full attention. Often a simple raise will see them fold instantly.

 

Long Delay Followed by a Raise

This is the oldest of all of the attempted deceptions online and one you will come across time and time again while you play. A player at the table will appear to be agonising over a major decision and just as the clock runs down they come in with a raise or a big bet. You can almost guarantee that they have a very strong hand and all they've been doing is trying to make their opponents think they have a weak hand and are trying to steal the pot. Only call or bet back against this if you yourself have a very strong hand.

Long Delay Followed by a Check

This is another of the oldest and most established online tactics. The player making such a move is almost always on a drawing hand is trying to convince you that they have a strong hand so that you will be afraid to bet against them and thus allow them to get their next card for free.

 

Quick Check Followed by Instant Check-Raise

If this happens then the player is trapping their opponent, or at least thinks they are. They will almost always have a very strong hand.

 

The Very Quick Call

Either the player making the call has already ticked the Call Any auto-play option or they were already poised ready to make the call regardless of what you did. Either way it's usually a pretty sure sign that they're on a draw of some kind and need to see the next card in order to try and complete their hand.

 

Instant Bet After the Flop

This can often be a sign that a player has either hit the top pair off the flop or already has a pair which is higher than any card on the flop. Either that or they are trying hard to represent the best hand. Overall, this is usually the kind of bet that would like to win the pot there and then.

 

Waiting for the Big Blind

If you join a cash table at a time when you're not going straight into the Big Blind position you will be offered the chance to start playing straight away by paying a big blind. A player who takes this option, especially when it would be their big blind in a short while anyway, can often be identified as a loose type of player who can't wait to get involved in the action.

However, the player who chooses to wait for the Big Blind button to come around to them is usually a tighter player who doesn't want to risk more money at the table than is absolutely necessary.

Watch to see if their subsequent actions give them away as the kind of players that have been described here and play against them accordingly.

 

A Talkative Player Suddenly Goes Quiet

If a player has been using the chat-box non-stop and then suddenly goes very quiet while they're involved in a hand then it's a very possible sign that they've now got a good hand, or at least a very promising situation, and wants to concentrate fully on their next course of action.

 

Spotting The Whiner

Should there be a player at your table who uses the chat-box to whine or complain constantly, usually after every hand they lose, you can usually bet that they are long-time losing players and are used to letting everybody know about their bad luck. The same can be said of any player who quickly resorts to bad language and abuse.

A decent poker player doesn't need to let everyone know how good they are or how unlucky they've been and will usually shrug off even the cruellest of bad beats, knowing that these things happen in poker from time to time.

 

Final Thoughts

Again, remember that these recognised online tells are only guides to the behaviour of players online and their betting patterns. You can use them to your advantage as long as they play a part of your wider poker strategy. Never use anything provided here as an excuse to deviate away from your best game and usual standards.

There are many good players out there who will use these known tells to indulge in games of double-bluff, so always be careful about falling prey to that tactic.

 

More Texas Hold'em Lessons

01. TEXAS HOLD'EM STT STRATEGY	ANDROID POKER - HTC, Samsung, LG, SONY
02. DON'T CHASE LOSSES
03. ONLINE TELLS
04. PLAYING CONNECTORS
05. CONTINUATION BETS
06. PLAY YOUR OPPONENT
07. IMPLIED ODDS IN TEXAS HOLD'EM
08. POKER CHARACTERS
09. TEXAS HOLD'EM MTT STRATEGY TIPS
10. IMPORTANCE OF KEEPING POKER NOTES