From The Felt: Online Poker Tells
Monday, December 1, 2008 - John Greene
One of the reasons a lot of players are attracted to online poker is the fact that their normal “tells” are removed from the game entirely. Gone is that habit of tapping your temple like Le Chiffre in Casino Royale (and look at how he turned that to his advantage for a real poker lesson) or swallowing heavily when finding out you’ve got pocket rockets! This means you can bluff all you want and win, right?
Wrong. More people than you’d think can pick up on the fact that you ‘re bluffing because online poker tells stick out like a sore thumb to regulars at the tables, especially if they’ve played with you before. Here are three of the most common online poker tells and what can you do to take advantage of them or eliminate them from your online poker game?
Online Poker Tells: Autoplay
You may well be able to find out how strong a player’s cards are from their use of the software’s “Fold” “Raise Any” and “Call Any” check boxes. If a player consistently raises while playing, it’s not rocket science to determine that he’s holding a strong hand. The same goes for “Check,” where the player may have a week hand. If a player fells strongly enough about a hand to make their decision before seeing the players around them play, that’s a red flag and worth paying attention to. I recommend changing things up a bit and avoiding using these checkboxes, instead timing each play whenever possible to create a consistent, thoughtful profile that will leave other players guessing.
Online Poker Tells: Folding Cards
With online poker, it’s easy to just fold cards that you won’t want to play. These “trash hands” are the bane of the serious player and you can find out if someone is one by seeing how often they fold. You may not get a good picture in a single game, but over the course of three or four games, you’re going to get a good picture of them as a player. While I’d never recommend playing 3-5 off-suit, I have seen others do exactly that sort of thing to throw others off their scent. In one case,4-5 suited ended up with a straight flush and a won tournament!
Online Poker Tells: Beginner’s Mistakes
When people that aren’t experienced at the game begin to play poker online, they frequently chase cards and their gameplay can be an indication of how weak or strong their hand is. They’ve read a poker book that tells them to bet with a weak hand and act weak when they’ve got a strong one to lure people in and that’s all they will do at the table. Pay attention to players that don’t maximize their cards; if you see they’ve not taken advantage of Triple Aces while losing money when holding 6-9 offsuit, well…that’s somebody that should have money taken from them.
There’s lots of ways that you can make sure that your online poker tells are eliminated and I’ll cover some more next week.b
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Tags: online poker tells, poker tells
February 16th, 2009 at 4:12 am
il share a fishy tell : when a person keeps reloading his bankroll he is not only a bad player but is also ready to give you his money as he has some on his account. Dont lose your chance!