Online Poker Tells

In a live game there are a lot of player actions that we take into account when watching an opponent. These include such things as how quickly a player calls/raises, do they slide their chips in or splash the pot, etc.

In an online game are there any typical tells that we can use to our advantage?

It seems to me that a live table player basically has four weapons at their disposal.
1)Reads
2)Hand Analysis
3)Betting Strategy
4)Opponent Tells

Have we really lost the ability to use Tells to our advantage?

It has been my observation that when a villain check/bets quickly are usually on a draw or have a weaker made hand. The villain that thinks before betting almost always has a strong hand.

Also a villain that announces to the table his cards is usually telling the truth.

Are there any other things that we can use or should we stick to reads only?

I read this in a poker mag and thought you might like to read em too.

Exploiting strong players
Strong poker players are always looking for weaker ones to exploit. Using common online poker tells is one method they use to identify these weaker players. This is actually something that you can exploit. If you’re able to disguise yourself as a typical fish by displaying some common online poker tells you can make a lot of money. The perfect setting is a table where everyone has above max buy-in. All the regular faces are battling it out amongst themselves while waiting for the easy money to join the table and be spread around.

Make crazy moves
When you’ve sat down you should make some crazy, and losing, plays. However, your aim is not to put everybody on tilt with your erratic actions; you aim is to develop a poker tell. This is easy to do in a live game. This poker tell could involve the way you handle your chips or cards, or the way you speak, breath, or even stare. You are going to display this tell whenever you bluff at a pot, or whenever you are willing to fold to a raise. There are some common online poker tells in online poker, the size of your bet being a significant one. Some players only bet pot when they are bluffing, other's bet very close to half pot when bluffing and full pot when they think they are winning. In order to enhance this common online poker tell you should combine your betting with table talk and response time. Just make sure everybody at the tables knows (or think they know) exactly what you are doing.

Time to strike back
When someone has picked up on your “tell” you’re in a perfect position to strike back and make a lot of money. Keep up the looser act for a while by grumbling or writing about how everything is unfair and so on. Then keep playing the same game but without the bluffs. Your opponents will accept your slowdown based on your dialogue. When you next hit a big hand, go into it hard and display all the online poker tells you developed. If luck is with you, two players will have decent hands and fight for your chip stack. Both these players will be able to justify over betting because they will 'know' that your money is just dead money in the pot, and a reward for the winner of the veritable side pot. You on the other hand will be looking at tripling up and hopefully throwing the whole table into a spin when they find out the truth.

I think it was a recent interview with Vanessa Rousso in Bluff or Card Player in which she spoke about some common tells online (or maybe it was at another forum ). A few of the ones I see frequently that were also mentioned by her :

1. The insta-quick (pre-action box checked) check for a person on a draw
2. The insta-quick re-raise any for a person with a monster hand.
3. The slight pause then check for a weak or drawing hand

siight pause

very often i find that monster hands often uise this tactic
:icon_bigs

There aren't really any tells. You just have to watch the players for about the first 15-30 minutes to see if they are really agressive, or if they are passive. I try to bet faster, and bigger towards the guys that are agressive, and the same goes for the passive guys, just not as much.

Although jolubman's suggestions from that magazine do sound interesting, you would have to count on the table paying that much attention to you. Not all on-line players have there eyes glued to the monitor. When playing for real money of course they should be glued to the monitor, but the comforts of home are not always that comfortable. TV, kids, wifes, work, etc. have a way of preoccupying many players that are playing poker online.

As far as online tells go, for the most part anyone playing online for any period of time read of and know of the famous 6 or 7 online tells. We all know them and we all try the clever slick reversing move. Anyone falling for or given off these common tells would have to be rookies and found only in the basement of online poker for the most part. Other then the complete moron you and everyone else at the table notices after 5 or 6 hands, your past, and present observations as few as there may be are what you should bank on. The most reliable tell online and to some degree playing live is preflop value betting. Opponents are constantly putting a value on there pocket cards. Rookies constantly preflop value bet and experienced players fall back into preflop value betting if there stacks start getting short. I always look for this and find myself more right then wrong when predicting opponents pocket cards. If your unable to see many showdowns during a game, there is a basic rule of thumb you could go by. If an opponent holds (1) low pairs, suited connectors, high/low suited or not-will usually limp in. (2) medium pairs, AK, AQ ,AJ, usually bet three x the big blind. (3) J's, Q's, K's, five x the big blind. (4) AA two x the big blind.

Very interesting quads...

Loose or tight, passive or agressive during a particular game at a particular table are all I put much stock in unless it is with CC members whom I have played a lot of hands. Too many distractions available to online players to make too much of any tedencies IMO.

The only real online tells out there are the idiots. And everyone else at the table also regonizes him or her. Then we all got our tongues hanging out hoping we're the one that gets his chips, without him cracking us.