Online poker games are played with very little in terms of information about your opponent. You get an avatar, a screen name and little else to start with. It is very difficult to get tells from a player you cannot see so you must look at what you can see in order to get information. The style of play is visible thanks to their betting patterns and the speed with which they make these decisions. Watching these things closely helps you get a handle on their playing style to the point of understanding their style and reading what hands they could hold. Poker players usually play in patterns so whilst what you can see may change (i.e. they may bet $14 – $18 in one spot), they will generally do the same thing repeatedly, like betting in a certain spot with certain cards.

Here are a few observations you may see at the online poker table that your online poker software will not tell you.

Long Pause, Then a Raise

Many articles say this is an obvious tell. The long raise suggests thinking by an opponent or uncertainty. Few players wait to act when playing online poker, most of the time it is so easy to click the button they just click it. Most of the time in this spot you will see a big hand from your opponent. Rather than working out if they can bluff you they will be working out the best move to extract chips from you in the hand. You will see a long pause then a fold most of the time in tough spots but if the raise is made you will need a big hand to continue.

Weird Betting Amounts

Some players think that marketing strategies work at the poker table. They like to bet $9 instead of $10 thinking it looks smaller, or $19.97 instead of $20! If you fall for this then please start looking more carefully at what your opponent is doing. Look at the bets in terms of chips and betting ranges and this should give you all the information you need. It does not necessarily mean a weak or a strong hand but shows a wish to trap and deceive. This may indicate a strong means weak, weak means strong player which you can easily exploit.

Small Bets Offering Pot Odds

If the pot is $100 the normal bet to make is between $50 and $100 dollars or half to the full pot bet. If your opponent bets $20, this is a tell, but what does it mean? It could mean weakness but most of the time an opponent will bet a larger, more standard amount to win the pot. I find that offering you 6/1 pot odds either means an overpair or strong hand and they want to build the pot bit by bit during the hand, therefore making this an online poker tell. If they make a similar bet on the turn then this suggests a continuation of their strategy. Often I will call down these small bets and find out whether it means a strong or weak hand for this particular player. Once you find out what the bets mean the future hands are usually played out the same way and you will know what to do.

There are many more online poker tells, but not enough room in this article, we will re-visit some more tells at a later date.

The key thing to remember is patterns. Your play will fall into patterns and the way to combat giving away these tells to good players is to do everything the same. The continuation bet which you should vary between a strong and weak hand should always be the same so your opponents cannot read your action. Checking the turn after a C-bet should be randomised between strong and weak hands and around the same size in terms of amount of chips bet. This creates your deception and makes you hard to read. Hopefully that results in players playing with you when you hold a good hand and folding their bad hands more often against you.

By Malcolm Clarke

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