Reading Your Opponents – Online Poker Tells

There are a couple of really good books out there dedicated to poker tells. Many other poker books at least take the time to breeze over the subject in a certain section or chapter for tells.

Of course, spotting tells in a live game is always easier than trying to read someone you can’t see (ie: online poker), but are there ways to read your online opponents?

Yes.

While playing live you can spot many of those live tells pretty easily. The shaky hands, the clenched jaw, the guy who practically leaps out of his seat; these are all pretty easy to spot. If you look deeper you may find more subtle differences in their body language and actions depending on their hand strength.

When playing online you are left without those really obvious tells, so in order to read your opponents, you must always be vigilant for the finer details.

For example: Let’s say an unknown player limps in UTG. You call from the button. Unsure of what this player may be holding, you decide it best to see the flop with your KJ and see how he plays it. The flop comes down K84 with 2 hearts. Your opponent quickly checks, and you bet about 2/3 the pot. He calls instantly.

The quick check followed by the insta-call is almost always a sign of someone on a draw. With that board, he’s not likely on a straight draw. What’s more likely is that he needs another heart to complete his flush. If the heart doesn’t fall on the turn, make him pay, at least 1/2 the pot to take his pot odds, and see what happens from there. If another heart does fall, it would be wise to check if he checks, as he’s likely looking for a check raise or at least hoping for a big bet on your part.

Another online tell is betting amounts, which when combined with your note keeping system, should play a major role in your online play. Many novice players tend to bet much heavier when they are bluffing and much smaller when they actually have a real hand (after all, they want you to call and pay them, they don’t want to scare you away). Other players will bet the pot on their draws and less than the pot when they have a real hand, much for the same reasoning. Other players will do the opposite, betting heavy with the real hands for maximum chip extraction while betting small on draws to give themselves the pot odds they need when players who aren’t aggressive enough just call instead of doing what a winning poker player does: RAISE!

A check-raise is another online tell of a very strong hand.

Another indicator of a players hand strength often lies in the amount of time they take to act. Quick checkers can usually be easily bet off of a pot. Often you’ll see a player flop trips and then think for a fairly long time before checking. Then you’ll see them bet out the turn. The reason for the long pause before the check on the flop was that this player was taking the time to consider the board texture, whether or not to bet, his own kicker, keeping other players in the hand, trapping, bet amounts, etc. If this player had missed the flop, he would have noticed that quickly and made a quick and easy check.

Now remember when practicing exploiting tells, that these tips are guidelines. Some players are tricky and will give off “false tells.” Other will consider what they want to see on the flop and how they will react to it ahead of time, giving them different reaction times. Other players are very good about mixing up their bet amounts online so as to avoiding being read.

What you want to look for are patterns of certain types of behaviors in players. The list of tells above are just a few of the most common ones, but if you keep a close eye on every play, even after you’ve folded, you begin to pick up on the little nuances of players and begin even spotting many tells that you hadn’t heard of or noticed before.

When you spot a player who excersizes these types of habits at the tables, exploit them for what they’re worth. Save your chips when your beat, and take theirs when you know that you can.