Tells In Online Poker

Online poker makes the game both easier and more difficult. Everyone’s heard of the “poker face.” Maybe at some point in the future, online poker will consist of video conferencing, but currently, you can’t get a good read on your opponent. That’s the bad news. The good news is that he can’t read you either. You can hit a monster nut and start jumping up and down, alone at your computer, and nobody’s going to know.

This is where tells come in. When you play poker online, tells refer to little giveaways a player does that reveal what cards he might be holding. Instead of a player blinking excessively every time he’s dealt a good hand, he might bet a certain way. This is the most obvious tell on the block, when a timid player suddenly goes all-in. Any seasoned hold’em player will recognize this tell in a heartbeat.

Unfortunately, online poker tells aren’t all as easy to recognize as this. Tells are usually much subtler and depend on position, stack size, the current size of the pot and the current community cards. If this sounds like a lot to handle, just realize that tells can be immediately recognizable, it just may take some time to pin down exactly a player’s style of play.

This is a major argument for playing at the same table for several hours. You can even let a session play out, without playing yourself, so you can get a feel for how opponents place bets, and the overall feel of the table on the whole. After a while, you might see a pattern emerging. Player A often limps in until late position, Player B plays aggressively even in the blinds and Player C bluffs a lot.

It’s going to take a fair number of games to make all of these determinations. If you play online poker for several months, you’ll soon see repeats of many of the same players. This makes your job easier, you’ll have a good idea of who you’re up against. That said, these same players will try to mix up their game to throw you off. The best online poker players are seemingly erratic with no overall pattern to how they play the game.

The same should go with how you play the game yourself. Don’t make any obvious moves. One tactic is to bet the same amount every time, it’s more of a robotic style of play. The downside is that you can’t really capitalize on monster hands. Better yet, throw in some bluffs, and mix tight with loose play, so your opponents will always be guessing.