Online Poker Tells Articles | Poker

By: Richard Bleuze

Online Poker Tells

Poker tells is generally called the body language of poker.  However, online poker players have no bodies to betray their thoughts, but actions do.  It can be said that tells are simply the act of inadvertently betraying information.

A poker tell is generally any activity that reveals useful information to your opponents.  There are many poker tells that can be gathered on a poker player online and I will point a few of them out in this article.

1.  The Stall -  In the past, inexperienced players would stall before betting the river when they had a powerful hand, as if they were unsure of what to do.  However, now the stall is used just as often now by more experienced players as a reverse tell, to try and pretend to have strength.  Therefore, the stall is now fairly unreliable, but it still is a tell nonetheless. It is just harder to decipher what it means. 

Many experienced online poker players play as many as eight games at a time, slow play is more of a regular occurrence.  Thus, the value in observing a stall now occurs when a player breaks from their usual betting patterns.

It is very important for the online poker player to analyze betting patterns such as speed of bet, call or raise, sizing of bets in pot limit or no limit. 

2.  The Rant - Many online poker tells are the result of bad players telling you that they are about to play even worse than normal.  The most obvious of these announcements is known as the rant.  The thing to keep your eyes on an online poker game is to ID the loudmouths and bullies.  You can usually find these players via the chatbox where they CAN insult their opponents.

3.  Chat revoked - While not really a rant, a small number of online poker players list "chat revoked" or something similar as their location due to the cardroom blocking their chat privileges for some prior immature or rude chat outburst.  When you see "chat revoked" by a player, you should know you are dealing with an immature person.  Most "chat revoked" players have lost a pot in an ugly way, you KNOW they wish they could call their opponent an idiot or worse.  These players feel the need to rant or insult another player. 

4.  The Gloat - Generally, players who like to gloat after winning a pot are normally significant, long term, weak tight losers. A poker player who regularly wins does not need to draw attention to that fact.  However, a poker player who is seldom a significant winner and needs to draw attention to that fact will be insecure as well as weak playing.  Generally, gloaters are much easier to bluff after they begin to gloat, because they want to be seen as a winner.  Gloaters do not mind folding on the flop, or on the turn when an overcard hits, because gloaters can pretend they got sucked out on.  What gloaters hate to do is be beaten on the river by an opponent with a superior hand.  Generally, gloaters can go on mega-tilt if they start losing after gloating, but more often they tighten up and enjoy their moment.  They do not get them very often.

5.  The Whiner - This person does not mind whining in public.  Chatbox whining players are not likely to be on tilt when losing.

6.  The Rocket Scientist - Any player who sees fit to lecture about how to play, and then is blatantly wrong, falls in this category.  Generally speaking, these players almost never last very long and are often first-timers. 

Generally, online poker tells almost always give you information, just not the same information on every player in every situtation! 

Some online poker tells carry over from casino poker, like a player impatiently taking the blind out of position, or right before having to take the big blind the next hand.  On the other hand, some tells are pure creations of online poker, like using a statistics program to see an opponent's flop percentage.

When playing online poker, you might not see your opponents, but you can see what they DO.  How an online poker player acts will reveal their confidence, skills, backbone, maturity and level-headedness.  It may not be easy to decipher online poker tells but knowing this fact is what makes online poker tells all the more important.

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