Online Poker Tells

January 22, 2008

There are many online poker tells out there. Learning to recognize these online poker tells can help you out in the long run. It is very important to remember certain factors, such as connection speeds, when considering these online poker tells. But you will find that most of these ring true.

Long pause, followed by a raise (the nuts):
This is the most overused of the online poker tells. The irony is that by using this strategy, they are actually giving off their own tell. The player himself is screaming strength with this online poker tell, because people usually only do it when there is a big possible hand on the table, like a flush or straight. You place a bet, your opponent pauses for about 15 seconds and then raises you. If he were speaking to you he’d be saying: “Hmm… there’s a flush possibility on the table and you’ve bet into it. Man, I really have to think about this because you might have a really strong hand! Oh well, I think I’m beat, but I”guess” I’ll raise…”. Don’t fall for this. Sometimes, a player legitimately thinks you’re bluffing the river or whatever so he’s raising you back, but most of the time he’s got the nuts.
Instant / automatic raise (very strong / the nuts):
This raise happens so fast that it could only have come from the player having pre-selected the bet / raise buttom. Obviously, this player has a hand and is determined to bet it with everything he’s got.
Instant / automatic checking (aka: drawing, weak):
This is a pretty straight-forward tell, since most players won’t go to the trouble of clicking on auto-check in order to come back and check-raise you. So, when you’r e in a decently small field and it’s autochecked to you and lead out with a quick bet, you can often take down the pot right there and then.
[Heads][up][/][Shorthanded] Fast calls to your bet (marginal/medium hands):
Usually when someone is chasing you or has a marginal hand, they’ll call you down fast to try and scare you from betting the next round, as they’re trying to indicate they’re going to call you down to the river. So, with reverse psychology, you can see their strategy is to intimidate you from betting all the way to the river, since they want to see it for cheap. If they did have a strong back, they’d be raising you or check-raising you. In this situation, if you do have strength, you should most likely continue to bet. If you don’t have strength, this might be a bluffable situation.