Online Poker Tells are very common, as long as you know what to look for.� Let’s have a closer look at online poker tells in online games like Texas Holdem. These online poker tells differ quite a bit from traditional at home poker tells, as we’ll soon see. If you don’t know about these particular poker secrets and you play online poker, then you’re at a significant disadvantage vs. your competition. Chances are, experienced online poker players have been using these against you for quite some time without you ever even knowing it…
What is a “tell”? A traditional poker tell is any habit, behavior, or physical reaction that gives other players more information about your hand. In offline poker, a shaking, nervous hand is often an indication of a player with a strong hand. Another common poker tell would be looking down at my chips when I first see my pocket cards or the flop - a sign that I’m thinking about betting and have a good hand, so I’m seeing how many chips I have to work with.
Several of the online poker tells listed here are useful for both online and offline poker. However, since we lack the ability to read opponents physical expressions and reactions when playing online, the number and type online poker tells actually available to us are much more limited, and so the ones we do have available become that much more important to be aware of and recognize.
Caro’s Book of Online Poker Tells is the classic treatise on the subject. Most of the poker tells that work in offline games rely upon physical observations of how a player reacts or behaves, so these kinds of tells don’t help online since we can’t observe the player physically. So when playing online, there are other telltale signals that we can watch for that give us an edge.
According to a recent survey, the top three online poker tells are:
Online Poker Tells #1 - Quickness to respond - a very fast check can indicate a weak hand, quick bets on the turn or river can often indicate a strong hand.
Online Poker Tells #2 - Slowness to respond - a pause followed by a check can often indicate weakness, while a delay followed by a raise often indicates strength.
Online Poker Tells #3 -� Automatic play - a lazy approach to the auto buttons lets a player slip into a set pattern of play. Any breaks in this pattern are clear tells.
So, what can we actually use as online poker tells?
