The Ultimate Online Poker Tell

Playing poker online is much different than playing poker live. The number one difference is the fact that you do not have your opponents sitting face to face with you. The best tell you can get on a player in poker is from their body language. For that reason, it can be tough for many new online players to understand what to look for. Believe it or not, it is often easier to get a good tell on players online than in person.

Its in the way they Bet

Playing poker online is something I am very familiar with. In fact I am on a break right now from playing at 8 tables at the same time on Full Tilt, which is what inspired me to write this article. When I play poker online, it is unbelievable how many just simply bad players are on there. Here I am sitting here with a bunch of online players that each have $400 in front of them, and they don’t even know how to play–what exactly motivates these people to play poker with that much money, when they have no clue how to play?

Anyways, that leads to the point that is being brought up here. There are a few different tells that you will be able to pick up online. Playing a multi-table strategy, I do not have the time to really evaluate players and tendencies as much as I would like to. Still, there is one tell that enables me to make a lot of money playing poker online. It all comes down to the betting.

For example, I was playing at a $2/$4 No Limit Holdem game today. I was in late position with AK off suit. A guy in early position raised it up to $20 with one caller behind him. I followed with a call, and the flop ended up coming up 3,4,5 (offsuit). Both players ended up checking on the flop, and I followed with a check as well with my AK.

The turn brought up another 3–which made the board read 3-4-5-3. The player that originally raised lead out with a pot size bet of $66. The player after him ended up folding and the action was on me. Now I obviously have nothing and most players in my position would probably just fold. Well, I am thinking that there is $66 in the pot–so why would I want to just hand that over to this guy? So I proceeded to think some more about what he could have.

Basically, he could really only have a couple different things here. He raised before the flop, which would lead me to believe he has big cards or some kind of pocket pair. Otherwise, he could have just raised with garbage and got lucky. So next, I think about why or why not he would have any of those hand combinations. Let’s think about what could beat us that he might be holding:

-67
-53
-54
-55
-44
-over pair

Since he raised before the flop we are going to have to assume that out of the hands above, he is most likely to have an over pair or small pocket pair maybe. Well this is where it all starts to come together. If he had either of those, why would he check the flop then make a pot sized bet on the turn? It just doesn’t make any sense. If you have an over pair, you are going to want to bet and protect it. If you have a monster, you are not going to bet the pot on the turn. A pot sized bet on the turn is only made to scare people away.

If your opponent makes a bet that is clearly trying to scare you away–then chances are he could be scared away himself.

Why this matters to you?

Just by simply paying attention to the way your opponents bet and how they act, you can get the best tells on them. Do not just look at your cards and react to a big bet. You have to ask yourself why is this person doing that? Your goal is to figure out what your opponent is holding. The only way to really do that is by putting yourself in their position and using what you know about them. It was clear in the example above that my opponent was just trying to buy the pot. I doubled his bet, he called with hesitation. I immediately went all in on the river and he folded. I ended up winning a $130 pot, all because I paid attention to my opponent. I guess that is why they say to pay attention to your opponent not your hand.

You can tell more about your opponents in the way they bet than any other thing they could do, especially online. If you really want to be able to read your opponents while playing online poker, pay attention to their betting.