Spotting Online Poker Tells

What are poker tells? Tells are often described as a twich of the nose, a crease on the forehead or a physical clue of some kind that alerts you to what your opponent is holding. You'll often hear poker greats talking about reading their opponent's hand based solely on a tell that they picked up on. That's great and all when you're playing in a real poker room, but when you're playing poker online, it becomes a whole different story trying to spot online tells.

Debunking the Myth of Physical Tells

The first thing that I'm going to do however, is take a little bit of the mysticism out of tells. In reality, even though players will have physical cues or ticks when they play poker, it's often not as straight-forward as the professionals would have you think.

For example, if a player is blinking rapidly, you might be certain that it's a tell - but does it mean they have a strong hand or a weak hand? On the other hand, maybe it means their contacts are drying out as well or they're sensitive to smoke. Physical tells are often unreliable because of this. That said, there are certain 'general' phyiscal tells that apply to a decent amount people, which will be covered later in this article.

Online Tells, the Art of Observing Unseen Opponents

If physical tells are hard enough, then you must be asking how on Earth are you supposed to spot online tells? The answer is actually a little surprising. Since you can't actually see your opponent when playing internet poker, the only information that you have to go on is: the speed of their action (check, bet or raise), the significance of their action (big bet vs small bet) and how it compares to their past patterns.

For this article, we're going to focus on direct online tells that you can observe, which is primarily the speed of your opponents' action and their bet size. Pattern recognition, the biggest tell of all, is complicated enough that it will have to be addressed in it's own article (coming soon). For now though, there's still a lot of information you can gleam from observing your opponent through your computer screen.

General Online Tells to Look For

Here is a listing of general online poker tells that you will often see. The concept that you should keep in mind when deciphering tells is to remember the following:

The golden rule of tells is that a strong opponent will try to act weak, while a weak opponent will try to act strong.

Long pause, followed by a raise (very strong):
This has to be the cornerstone tell of most players. The irony is that by using this strategy, they are actually giving off their own tell. The whole logic behind this play screams strength, because people usually only do it when there is a big possible hand on the table, like a flush or straight. You bet, your opponent pauses for about 10-15 seconds and then raises you. In English, he might as well be saying: "Hmm... there's a flush possibility on the table and you've bet into it. Man, I really have to think about this because you might have a really strong hand! Oh well, I think I'm beat, but I *guess* I'll raise...". Don't fall for this. Sometimes, a player legitimately thinks you're bluffing the river or whatever so he's raising you back, but most of the time he's got a big hand.

Instant automatic raise (usually very strong):
By automatic raise, I mean a raise that is so fast that it can only happen when a user has checked the 'bet/raise all' button. While occasionally this is used by maniacs and bluffers, most of the time it's used by a player who is so sure of his hand that he is willing to bet or raise regardless of the action. This usually means that you want to tread carefully and consider folding or check-calling this down. It should always raise a big warning sign at the very least.

Instant automatic check (weak or folding hand):
This is a pretty straight-forward tell, as almost every player uses the auto-check button only when they are willing to fold their hand. Sometimes players will be willing to call after auto-checking, but it's incredibly rare to see someone check-raise with the auto-check button. So, when you're in a small field and it's auto-checked to you, you can often take down the pot right then and there.

Odd number bet, such as betting $9.95 instead of $10 (neutral hand)
This comes up quite often on the internet no limit games, where players are able to bet with fractions of a dollar. When a player does this, you shouldn't look into it either way. Some players do this routinely to throw off their opponents, others do this to make their bet size look bigger and scarier (induce folds), while others try to get you to call when doing this.

Opponent quickly calls your bet (moderate to semi-weak hand)
Usually when someone is chasing you or has a marginal hand, they'll make a fast call to look as if they're not scared of your bet. With reverse psychology, you can figure out that this is an intimidation ploy, because if they did have a strong hand, they'd be raising your bet instead of flat calling. In this situation, you can often continue to bet as normal. That said, some players on tilt or experienced players will often make quick calls, as they really do intend on calling to the river.

Size of the Bet Often Equates Strength

Classic example of overbet at a bet at PartyPoker.com

One of the reasons that no limit hold'em is considered the marquee game of poker, is because there's a lot more information and risk to deal with. One critical piece of information, is how much your opponent bets. As such, in no limit games, you'll often want to pay attention to not only how fast your opponent is betting, but how much they are betting. The following are again, general tells that you might find useful.

Very small bets (weak hand, sometimes monster):
An example of this tell would be a pot that is currently worth $10. There are 4 players on the flop and it's checked to the button, who bets out a measly $2. More often than not, this should indicate a weak hand, as the size of this bet doesn't protect the bettor's hand from being outdrawn.

Quite often though, you'll see these small bets pick up the pot, as the person who bets is usually in good position to make this bet. If you are looking to improve your game, you should sometimes consider a check-raise in this situation. If you timed your play correctly, your opponent will have nothing and will be forced to fold, awarding you the pot.

Warning: Many players will often do this on purpose to try and 'sucker' other players into the pot. I've actually use this strategy with good success against other solid players, who notice such 'tricks'. So if you decide to pull this off, be sure that you've targetted the right opponent so that you are not walking into a trap.

Massive all-in bets vs size of pot (monster or bluff)
This play is usually reserved for weak players or very aggressive players. For many weak players, they will wait until they have a monster hand, then push all-in, hoping someone will call them. It may not matter that the pot is $5 and they're betting $100 - they just know they have a good hand and are hoping someone is stupid enough to call.

On the other hand, the all-in is also a signal of a bluff if the bet is too large for the pot. The reason for this logic, is that when a player has a monster hand, they are usually more interested in stringing a player along to extract the most value, rather than shoving their chips in and hoping someone calls.

This is a hard tell to decipher, because the results are on the two exact opposite ends of the spectrum- you're either up against a monster or an outright bluff. The only way to figure out where you're at, is to have paid attention to your opponent up to the point where they made this bet. Are they trying to make you fold with this bet, or are they looking to take all your chips? Are they the type to expect you to call your chips here, or are they the type to think you'll fold to this bet? It's a difficult question to answer, but answering it right is what makes you a strong player.

Recognizing Betting Patterns in Opponent Behavior

Pattern recognition is one of the key strengths that you'll need in poker, although it is rarely discussed in books. It requires a good memory and the ability to walk forward and backward through current and present hands that have played out. The reason it's so crucial, is that once you can identify your opponent's poker patterns, you will be able to recognize when they are doing something out of the norm. This means you have a much better chance of avoiding their monsters or catching them on a bluff.

This topic will require a whole new article, but for the time being, here's a quick point to take notes on. When a person does anything that is unnatural to them, it causes stress. Stress is the coping mechanism for dealing with a situation that the person is not used to. In order to deal with stress, the person usually needs to be in a more confident position than normal, in order to handl the stress.

In English, what this means in poker is that when your opponent does something that is unnatural to their regular patterns, more often than not, it means they have a strong hand. Weak hands take much more guts and effort to bluff and see through, which is why most players aren't good at bluffing or rarely do it. This leads to our second conclusion that most of the time you are raised, you're probably against a better hand. Not a golden rule, but just food for thought.

Example of Tell Patterns in Player Chat

There will always be people chatting it up in a poker game, even via internet poker. From my personal observation, most solid players don't do a lot of talking when online, as they are too busy multi-tabling. That said, you can often hear many of the top players doing a lot of talking in real life, but that is because they are in their own league and are trying to wrestle information from you by overwhelming you with their own chitter. Daniel Negreanu and Mike Matusow are two examples of these types of players.

Going on our previous topic of patterns, a major tell that is often correct, is when you notice an otherwise quiet player suddenly start talking. They don't have to say much more than "I'm bluffing" or "I guess I'll bet" to be considered. First, this is a change in pattern, which as you know now, usually means strength. Moreso from a psychological viewpoint a player who is bluffing is scared and under stress. In this situation, a person will find it harder to hold a conversation and talk if they were actually bluffing.

So, when a shy, quiet guy is able to talk, the psychological viewpoint is that they have suddenly become relaxed enough to talk to the table. They would be relaxed unless they were confident and not worried. That should spell out one thing to you, which is a big hand. Not always, but careful observation should really help pick this one out.

How to Prevent Giving Away Tells

Lastly, poker would be easy if it were merely about spotting what other people are doing wrong, but you could be giving off all sorts of signs to your opponents at the table without knowing it. A good idea is to always give yourself the same amount of time before making an action. When the action is to you, make two mental counts and then select your action. If you're going to fold, then it's probably ok to simply auto-fold if it's pre-flop. What you want to do is simply not let anyone onto your game at all.

The other way to not give out tells is to simply be unpredictable. Never do the same thing twice and vary up your game. This is commonly known as 'changing gears', which is a tactic that all solid poker players use, especially in tournaments. Working on changing your strategy between being aggressive and conservative during a game will be the best way to throw your opponents off from picking up any tells on you.

Conclusion of Online Tells

As you can see, you don't actually have to visually see another player in order to guess what is going on their head. While their character on your screen might not twitch or eat Oreo cookies when they have a big hand (that's a reference to the movie Rounders), they'll often do other things that'll be big enough tells for you to pick up on.

It takes time to develop your own tells intuition to how players behave on the internet, so don't worry if you make a lot of mistakes early on. Once you get a good library of experience behind you, you'll be able to figure out better than 50% when people are lying and when they are not. That, will make you a winner at poker.

If you want to practice picking up tells, practice at PokerRoom.com, which offers free play games as well as low limit games for the beginning poker player.