Online Poker Tells

If I had a penny for every time I’ve heard the saying “playing poker online just isn’t the same as playing live because you can’t pick up on the same poker tells as you can when you’re sat across the felt from someone” then it’s safe to say that I’d more likely be living on a beach somewhere planning on how to spoil myself with my amassed fortune.

The real question is, just because we can’t see our opponents sweat, stare us down, display nervous ticks and all other manors of indicative behavior, does this mean we’re playing blind? A big fat juicy no is the quick answer to that question. So what are we to look out for then if we can’t see our opponents I hear you cry? Below I’m going to talk about what I feel are the five most common online poker tells and then look at how we can take advantage of this information. Knowing how to spot online poker tells is very important if you are looking to make any significant amount of money at the tables.

Top Five Online Poker Tells

1. Less Than Full Stack- Now before I go any further, I want to start with a question and I want you to think about it before you continue to read on. Where does the money come from in a poker game? OK I’m sure you’ve come to your own conclusions and of course none of you cheated. The answer of course is the fish or weaker players at the table, the players that have to lose in the long run in order for us to make money.

A very quick way to spot the weaker players at the table without all sorts of complex poker software (which I do recommend using) is to find players that do not have a full stack. All good players know that they need to keep their poker chips topped up so that they are poised in readiness to maximize their value in a hand at any given time.

Armed with this info you can quickly track down ‘the fish’ and look to sit down immediately to their left so that you have position on them (the benefits of which are the subject for a whole separate article). One thing that I look for is a player that is maybe less than full stacked but not short stacked, so in a no limit, texas hold em game where the buy in is say $50, I’m on the lookout for players that have between $47 -$35 as opposed to $10-$15 which means that you can still extract a lot of value from this weaker player. This is just a quick rule of thumb, online poker tell, often you will find fish that are much deeper stacked for various reasons so by no means is a player deemed as ‘good’ just because they have over $50 in this case.
2. Timing Tells- Timing tells are exactly what they sound like. An indication of your opponents hand strength based on the time it takes them to make a decision. Take this poker tournament tip and pay attention to this while in a big tournament. Again this online poker tell is going to differ from player to player and it’s ultimately down to you to observe your opponents and put the pieces of the puzzle together.

Don’t panic. Here are a few examples to look out for that through my experience are very accurate. So if players end up playing differently, remember, it’s down to you to take notes on them so that you have more info to help you in future hands.

Snap Call After You Bet- As a rule, most players that call instantly after you’ve bet generally have a weakish calling hand that cannot take too much pressure. They tend to call quickly hoping that you take their instant action as a sign of strength and check a later street.

Stalling Before Checking- A lot of players that stall, time down, go into the tank, whatever you want to call it before they check are normally weak. They think that by timing down before checking that you’ll think they are strong and that you’ll take a pot control line by maybe checking back. The truth is that they really don’t want to pay to see the next card.

Stalling Before Betting- Often when a player thinks for a long time and again times down before betting , they are often sat on a fairly strong hand. The idea here is often to appear weak so that you will call the bet or maybe even raise them so beware.
3. Betting Patterns- I feel as if this subject is overall the most important in online poker tells and goes hand in hand with timing tells. Timing tells are generally a ‘betting pattern’ within themselves. The whole point is that playing poker is never an exact science and with each opponent comes, essentially, a new puzzle. As I’ve already hinted a couple of time in this article, you should be making notes on your opponents’ actions. Most online poker rooms have the facility to take notes on other players so take full advantage of this.

As human beings, we’re creatures of habit and most of us act impulsively. If you can spot the habits (betting patterns) of your opponent, then the easier it will be to pick off their bluffs and avoid their monster hands. You just have to watch for when they do something drastically different than what you have seen in the past.

Donk betting is a type of pattern that I see weaker players make a lot. A donk bet is when an out of position player bets into the preflop raiser instead of just checking. This is most often a good, but not great hand trying to find out where they are at in the hand. This is a great opportunity to raise the opponent with almost any two cards you have. Your opponent will often have a better hand than you, but it won’t be strong enough to withstand your raise and he will have to fold his 99 on a QT2 flop.
4. Posting on the Big Blind- Like the first example when we looked for behavior indicative of weaker players this is another online action that will help quickly start making a read on a player. Any player who aspires to be good and is working on their poker game knows not to sit and post their big blind out of turn. The few extra blinds you pay doing this will add up quite quickly if you are playing a good number of hands every month.

On the other hand, if your villain sits and posts right away, you can normally assume that is a ‘tell’ that they are a weaker player. It doesn’t exactly tell you how they play but in my experience, people that sit and post are quite often action junkies and like to just get involved. As a rule you’ll often find they’re loose players.
5. Tilted Players- I like to think that I’ve saved the best for last. I say the best for many reasons. Ego plays a huge part in poker. From day one, anyone that learns the rules of poker deems themselves the next big thing. Go on, think back to that time when you were convinced you would be the next Phil Ivey and make millions of dollars playing poker. A great cash game tip would be to look for these tilted players to help with building your bankroll.

What’s the point? How can you spot these players? What are the ‘tells’? Well if you see a player who really abuses the chat box then you may be onto a little gold mine. These are the guys that love to tell you how good they are and just berate everyone else at the table. The chances are that they did suffer a bad beat or two and they probably did get all of their money in good a few hands earlier but unlike the educated poker players of the world, they are just unable to understand or accept the variance that comes with playing the game.

When you see a player start to tilt you need to be careful. Most players that are tilted will be hyper aggressive and start to push all in a lot with bluffs or marginal hands. This means you should continue playing a tight game and when you find a big hand be willing to get all of your chips in the pot with it. If you start playing marginal hands, your tilted opponent will put you in a lot of tough situations forcing you to call or fold with weak made hands.

Sign Up and Spot Online Poker Tells

Remember, all of these tells are very situation dependent. You have to come to your own conclusions when you are playing at the poker table. One of the best ways to learn is to start playing. I would recommend playing at Full Tilt Poker if you want to work on your game. With their ability to keep good notes on your opponent and search all tables a player is at, you will be able to quickly spot the fish and then find them later on. You can read more information about the software and games running at our Full Tilt Poker Review. If you sign up using our TOPFIVEPOKER Full Tilt Poker REFERRAL CODE, you will receive a 100% up to $600 Full Tilt Poker deposit bonus.