There are multiple dimensions to becoming a high-quality poker player. It does not happen by chance or circumstance. Profitable poker players put in the time and energy to turn poker into a money maker.
Understanding common poker tells is one part of the equation to becoming a profitable player. However, there are a few differences between live and online poker tells.
We’ll touch on some of these differences, but spend the majority of our time focusing on the most common online poker tells that we’ve seen while playing at some of the best online poker sites.
What Is A Tell In Poker?
Tells in poker are based on an opponent’s behavior with regard to a change in demeanor, attitude, poise, or betting activity.
The goal is to pick up on these tells to discern the strength of their hand. Establishing the strength of hands at the poker table can be the difference between a winning and losing session.
This objective does not guarantee a winning session every time. However, the idea is to be right more times than you are wrong. Over time, these small advantages against your opponents can lead to profitability.
When people discuss poker tells, they are most often talking about live poker in a poker room. Seeing your opponents in person and noticing their body language can provide obvious poker tells.
This fits into how a player’s demeanor and attitude can reveal clues regarding their hand strength. However, watching a player’s body language is not possible in an online game.
Fortunately, there are other indicators that can be used to determine how strong or weak your opponent’s hand is.
Common Online Poker Tells
There are two important things to keep in mind when it comes to online poker tells: timing (snap call, raise, check, etc.) and bet size.
Pre-Flop Bet Size
There are courses and lessons based on how to play hands before the flop. It can set the tone for the rest of the game. Ensure that you are not making the strength of your hand obvious before the flop is even on the table.
Conversely, it can be used to your advantage if your opponents are not betting properly pre-flop. With respect to online poker tells, bad or beginning players have a tendency to raise immediately if they have a strong hand.
For example, in some cases, pocket pairs are an instant signal for some players to raise big. They do not give it much thought and snap raise without pausing for a second to think.
If you notice that certain players are only raising pre-flop with strong hole cards, then you’ve discovered a common poker tell.
Remember the player’s pre-flop betting pattern for future reference. They are willingly giving the strength of their hand away to the rest of the table.
There is a flip side to be aware of. If the player always bets big before the flop without folding, then they are just gambling, and hoping for the best without a strategy.
Typically, in low-stakes games, players will only make a big pre-flop bet if they have a strong hand.
Immediately Checking On The Flop, Turn, and River
Are you at a table where everyone checks all the way around as fast as they can?
They are all acting like they want to get the hand over with as fast as possible. We have all been there, especially in recreational poker games.
In this scenario, it is probable that no one is confident in their hand. Conservative recreational players often get into this habit. They get nervous about bluffing, even with a small raise.
These types of players likely have a weak hand. Do not be surprised if the table folds right away after there is a raise on the river.
If you can discover this conservative playing style at the table, be prepared to collect the blinds in the pot often. Your opponents are most likely going to fold just as quickly as they check.
Snap Calling and Raising
Snap calling and raising is the opposite of our previous online poker tell. Instead of having a weak hand, players with a strong hand can’t help themselves. They quickly snap call or raise. When we say “snap”, we mean right away or immediately.
These players have already made up their minds before the rest of the table has acted. They are confident that the nuts are in their possession and want to win as quickly as possible. Be cautious around these players, but it isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
There are players that are too overconfident in their poker hands without reading the board correctly. Misreading the situation is certainly plausible.
Just be cognizant about a player that snap calls or raises right away. They are likely sitting with a strong hand. This leads us to our next point regarding snap calling and raising.
Check And Then Snap Raise or Call On The Next Street
Let’s assume that everyone is checking through the game and you decide to bet. What if a player turns around and flips the script with a raise instead of folding? They were probably looking for someone to suck into their trap.
Expect this player to have a strong hand. The same applies to a player that makes snap calls right away.
Despite checking early, they were either bluffing or got the card they were looking for on the flop or turn. Your next move will depend on your hand.
Discovering online poker tells can only go so far. Being a well-rounded player is important at the poker table in live or online poker.
Betting Big After Tanking
These players think they are smart. And, against uneducated recreational players that never study, it can probably work. However, this will not work against smart players if they get into a habit of doing it.
What is this player doing exactly?
They usually want others at the table to believe a tough decision is being made. It isn’t until later on that their true intentions are revealed.
In other words, these players do not want to reveal that they have the nuts. Therefore, they go into tank mode and let the clock tick down until they’re forced to act. The “nuts” refers to having the best hand possible in that given moment.
In their mind, these players want you to believe they do not have the strongest hand (the nuts). In reality, it likely isn’t the case. They could very well have the nuts and don’t want opponents to fold.
It is important to differentiate between players that like to make snap decisions and tanks. The tankers are attempting to avoid making it look too obvious. Snap-calling players are not this patient.
This is why determining the playing style of each player at the table is crucial to having success.
Check After Tanking
Players that tank and check are likely doing the poker math in their heads before making a decision. They are uncertain about what they should do with their hand during the current street.
Waiting for the next street before committing to the pot is typically their modus operandi. Their next move should be the most telling sequence of the hand.
Open Limping Pre-Flop
The poker tell is that limpers are not the best poker players. Whenever these players are online, search them out because they do not know how to get the most value out of their hands.
Open limping generally exposes a weak or average hand. For example, rather than calling pre-flop, you should either raise or fold. In fact, it’s one of the biggest mistakes you can make pre-flop.
Finding the open limpers is a good tell to being a bad poker player. It is in your best interest to avoid open limping too often. On the other side, it is in your best interest to play against players that like to open limp frequently.
In the majority of hands, limping into the game by calling doesn’t do anything to improve your standing at the table. Low-stakes games see plenty of limpers online. Most inexperienced fish do not have any sort of pre-flop strategy.
They either only bet big with strong hole cards or check everything. There is a time and place for limping, but a regular pre-flop limper is somebody that hasn’t done their homework.
Tilting After Bad Beats
Here is another player that you should be on the lookout for online. Like bad sports bettors, gamblers that overreact and can’t control their emotions are long-time losers.
For everyone else at the table, tilters are a good thing. Following a bad beat, they’ll typically make reckless decisions. Nothing a tilting player will do is based on sound decision-making. Poker players that can’t control their emotions might as well try a new hobby. These unresponsible players choose to punt money away when they’re frustrated. The right move would be to take a break. Instead, they donate money to the rest of the players at the table.
Do your best to get to a table when he or she is online. There should be some juicy pots at this online poker table.
You can identify an online player going on tilt by the following:
- Aggressive betting following a bad beat
- Excessive ranting in the Chat Box
Practice Identifying Online Poker Tells at Ignition Casino
The best way to get better at identifying online poker tells is to play lots of hands. And, the best place to do that is at Ignition Casino.
Ignition Casino offers numerous poker tournaments and tables to sit at, where you can play for hours on end. There are plenty of opportunities to really practice identifying these online poker tells and evolving as a poker player.
Perhaps, the most exciting aspect of this online casino is the bonuses. Ignition Casino poker bonuses are the best in the industry.
They offer numerous types of bonuses including for bad beats, when you first deposit, reloads, using crypto, and more.
Take advantage of these bonuses to maximize your playing time and to ultimately take advantage of the players with obvious online poker tells.
