Ok, ok, ok. I know the topic of tells in online poker has probably been done already on a gazillion poker websites, but after an involuntary hiatus from online poker (having a second kid will do that to a person), I have played a bit lately and sort of re-noticed things that I had taken for granted when I used to play more often. Thus, I feel like penning a quick article to detail the most common tells I have seen while playing poker across the series of tubes. Like any tell, live or online, remember that these are not 100% foolproof – players may purposely give off a fake tell or it may just be a coincidence that the perceived tell exists during a given hand.
Advance Action Buttons
We have all checked those little boxes to tell the poker software what to do when our turn comes and you know what? There is nothing wrong with that. Sometimes there is just no point in waiting until the action is on us to fold our deuce-seven. But if you see someone using the advance action buttons on a regular basis, as indicated by acting instantly, you may be able pick up some tells. Typically, those who use the check boxes to call have a decent starting hand, but one that will likely need some help on the flop, like a small pocket pair or two high cards (the former is more common). Players in the big blind who insta-check in an unraised pot usually have garbage and sometimes have a marginal hand.
Obviously, if someone insta-folds, they don’t have a hand they like. That’s not a tell. But you may be able to take advantage of someone sitting to your left whom you can tell checks the “fold” box ahead of time. Doing this means that he only uses the strength of his hole cards to determine his action; he is not a creative player. If he is in a blind, you may be able to frequently steal his chips by raising if everyone folds to you. If he has a weak hand, he will have already decided to fold and will not consider re-stealing. If he has something good, he’ll call or raise and you’ll already have a decent idea of where you stand.
Bet Timing
The “Timing Tell” is one of the oldest online tells in the book, and while most players know about it, it still exists in one form or another. For those new to the game, this tell takes into consideration how long it takes for a player to act in order to pick up a clue on the strength of his hand. From my experience the most reliable Timing Tell is the insta-call (pre-river without an all-in) when a reasonable draw is on the board. This usually means the player is on a draw. Why? Because he knows before he acts that he definitely wants to try to hit his card, but at the same time doesn’t feel strong enough to raise. Thus, it’s an easy decision to call, a decision that can be made quickly.
The other common tell I have seen is when someone takes a long time to “think” and then checks or calls a small bet. This player usually has a very strong hand and wants to make it look like he was thinking hard about whether or not he should fold.
Of course, taking a long time to act doesn’t necessarily mean anything. It could mean he has a slow connection, it could mean he had to step away from the computer, or it could mean he is distracted. If you see someone using most of the clock almost every time, it very likely means he is multi-tabling or distracted in some other way. As such, he a) isn’t going to be paying much attention to what’s going on, and b) will likely be playing A-B-C poker. This is the type of player you can make plays on, as he’s too busy to notice.
Table Captain
A Table Captain is someone who routinely criticizes other players for how they play. He thinks he plays perfect poker and as such, should never lose. A down session is never his fault – it is the fault of the fish who played poorly and got lucky. This type of player is normally quite bad, as he needs to put down other players to make himself feel good. One big exception: Phil Hellmuth.
I actually played in a Sit & Go against one of these guys last night. He went on a big run early, cracking A-A with 6-9. Of course, he was criticizing someone’s play during the hand and then criticized his victim’s play (as well as the three other players in the hand) after the hand. The guy with Aces did play the hand horribly, but that’s not the point. The Table Captain felt he was above reproach and that it was his job to let everyone know how it was. Of course, once he stopped doing well, he shut his mouth and was eventually eliminated out of the money.
Bizarre Bets
Most people tend to make bets that look “normal.” Three, four times the big blind, nice round numbers, that sort of thing. Then there are the players who make strange bets such as “messy” bets or overbets. By messy bets, I mean the kind of bets that require lots of different denomination chips, bets that are not nice, round numbers. For example, a normal bet in a given hand may be 75, but someone decides to make it 98. So, instead of three $25 chips, there are three $25 chips, two $10 chips, and three $1 chips. It creates an unnecessary pile of chips. This is usually a tell that means the player is weak and he is just trying to make his bet look bigger than it really is.
Then, of course, there are the massive overbets, like when someone goes all-in for $1,400 when the pot is only $100. This tell has actually gone through a metamorphosis over the years. It used to clearly mean that the player was weak and just wanted to force everybody out of the pot, but now it has gone to the next level. Now it more often means that the player is strong and wants to look like he is just trying to push everyone off their hands. Tricky, huh? Unless I have a great hand, I just stay away when these bozos try to pull off this move.
There are more online poker tells out there, but these are the few that I have been seeing the most often now that I have been playing more frequently. As I said earlier, these are not etched in stone – what you think is a tell could be nothing or it could be someone trying to trick you into thinking it’s a tell. But more often than not, these tells hold true.
If you see an opponent do one of these things, observe him for a while. See if he keeps doing it and see if you can fit the action with what I told you it means. If you can (or if you can reliably match it with a completely different underlying meaning), then take advantage next time you get the chance.
