5 Crucial Online Poker Tells You Need To Know
In this article, I’m going to touch up on the subject of some common online poker tells. Many people say they don’t like online poker because you can’t get a ‘read’ on your opponents, this however is false. You may not be able to look at their face into their eyes picking up tells however, there are a few small ones that can aid your online game a long way.
The Instant Bet/Check
In many online poker rooms there is a small tab box that appears when it’s not your turn to act. These boxes have titles such as, fold, call, raise and fold to any bet. Now in using these you could be giving away vital tells to your other players.
The instant check (most commonly used by the Big Blind) indicates that the player has no interest in their hand at all and no matter what everybody does in front of them, their either going to check, or no doubt fold to a raise. So generally you would put this player on a low hand.
On the flip side to this, there could be a quick raise (often used in limit hold ‘em). What this indicates is a strong hand, in that no matter what the players in front of them are doing their looking to raise the pot no matter what.
The ‘Stop Bet’ (Check/Call/Bet)
Most commonly used after the flop, this is when you are in position against a player who has checked the play to you. Following this you bet out into the pot with a decent sized bet (maybe half the pot to the size of the pot) and you are just flat called by your opponent. This should then send triggers to you that this player could have a hand such as a draw or maybe just middle pair etc.
Once the turn comes down onto the table, your opposition may throw out the ‘stop bet’ which is just a small bet in consideration to the size of the pot, this is when your opponent is trying to either get to the showdown cheap or see the river card cheap hoping that you wont raise or equally if they checked it to you that you wouldn’t of put a larger bet in so, what you want to be trying to do in this position is show strength as much as you can, and the best thing you can do is raise as much as your stack will allow you to try and get your opponent to fold your hand (if you want them to that is, obviously a smaller bet if you want to string them along a little longer).
When we say as much as your stack will allow you, we mean so that if you do get called down to the showdown it won’t put you out of the game.
The ‘Long’ Check
This is when a player is to act and lets the time run down a little before pressing check. ‘Usually’ what a lot of online players are trying to put across is that they have a good hand and they just don’t know what to bet, they’re looking to put negative thoughts into your head so that you wont bet into the pot. This tends to be a sign of weakness so try to be aggressive here and take the pot down with a bet or two. This is obviously not bullet proof because there could be a number of things your opponent is doing, they could be playing a few tables at once or they could be just coming back from the kitchen/bathroom, so play this with caution.
The Basic Poker Tell
This is a great tell to you use and I for one have done this playing online poker and no doubt given all sorts of tells away. This tell first comes apparent when a player is taking considerable amounts of time to make their decisions and sometimes ‘timing out’. What this usually broadcasts is that the player is doing other things Aswell as playing the poker at your table, this could be anything from multi-tabling to just browsing the internet.
What this should tell you is that this player is only going to play the basic moves in poker, for example, if they have a good hand they’ll bet, call and raise, but equally if they have a bad hand they’ll just check or fold it, its very rare a player like this will be looking to make moves on you so, bet into the pots if you are to act first and if they fold, great, but if they call or raise beware because its most probable that they will have a decent hand in the pocket.
Betting Patterns
This tell here is your ultimate key to online poker success, this is the tell that you want to master from all angles to be dominant in online poker. When your against players and they bet into a hand, try to put yourself in their situation, ‘What would I have in my hand to make that sort of play?’ that’s what you want to be looking to do, one of the most common sort of betting patterns is after the flop comes down and someone bets the size of the pot or just over, would be signaling top pair on the board, if the bet comes average to the size of the pot you could be putting them on middle pair or even bottom pair.
It’s all about putting yourself in their shoes and trying to figure out what hand you would have to have to make that play. In lower limit online poker this works an absolute treat and that’s why people can be successful. The top online poker players counteract this by mixing up their play, to try and keep your opponent guessing. If a player doesn’t mix their game up, their prime targets for reads.
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