Online Poker Tells

One of the main arguments between live and online players is the metagame. Tells are facial or body movements that are given off accidentally (or sometimes on purpose) and define the strength of a player’s hand. Live players say they are more skilled because in poker since they have to take physical tells into consideration while they play. Online, players do not have to do this since all the players are behind a computer screen.

Since online players are said not to have to deal with this, many consider online players to be inferior players. Live players are said to be much more instinctual, since they play hands based on the tells of their opponents, while online players are said to be robotic since they go by only numbers. This may be true, but believe it or not, online players give off tells as well. As the online poker game is evolving everyday, players have discovered online tells that players give off.

Timing Tell

This is possibly the biggest and most obvious tell an online player can give. Despite this, many players do not even think about this tell. It is mostly seen in Limit games, but it occurs in No Limit games as well. If a player has a hand, he clicks on the “bet” button almost instantly after the flop, turn or river. If he or she does not have a hand, they wait a few seconds (to try to make it out as if they are deciding whether to bet) and then they check. For some players, this tell is as obvious as anything, and gives away the absolute strength of his hand.

Betting Pattern

This tell only occurs in No Limit games since in Limit Games all of the bet sizes are predetermined. This tell is seen in how much money a player bets depending on his hand. For example, if a player has a hand as good as top pair with top kicker, he will bet the pot. If he is bluffing, he bets half the pot and if he is on a draw, he bets one third of the pot. Players are actually giving off the strength of their hands based on how much they bet. If a player can spot this tell in his opponent, playing them becomes very easy. It can become so easy, that looking at the actual cards becomes inferior to how much the opponent bets.