Poker tells have been called the body language of
poker, but tells have never been just about body language. Online
players have no bodies to betray their thoughts, but actions do. Tells
are simply the act of inadvertently betraying information. You don't
need to be seen, or even have a body for that.
A tell can be any activity that that reveals useful
information to your opponents. I first wrote about online poker tells around
the turn of the century, the caveman days of online poker. One of the tells I mentioned
then was The Stall. Back then, when players played at two tables at a time at
most, The Stall was one of the most comically obvious, predictable and
exploitable actions online. Inexperienced players would stall before betting
the river when they had a powerful hand, as if they were unsure of what to do.
Many years later now, The Stall is used just as often now by more experienced
players as a reverse tell, to try and pretend to have strength. This makes The
Stall now fairly unreliable, but it still is a tell nonetheless. It is just
harder to decipher what it means.
Also, now that some players play as many as eight
games at a time, slow play is more of a regular occurrence. The value in
observing a Stall now occurs when a player breaks from their usual betting
patterns. For instance, if a player has been playing crisply -- apparently with
a good connection and only playing one game -- but then suddenly goes into a
Stall, this will almost always mean something. On the other hand, if a player
who has been playing slowly suddenly is making bets promptly as soon as it is
his turn, this means something also. It will not have the same meaning in all
cases, but simply being aware that an opponent has altered their normal
behavior will almost always be helpful in that it should wave a caution flag in
front of your eyes.
Analyzing betting patterns is an enormous part of
playing winning online poker: speed of bet, call or raise, sizing of bets in
pot limit or no limit. A large percentage of online players now are regulars.
They play a lot, which means they get into rhythms or habits. Their standard
rhythms are exploitable, but any deviations from the norm represent the key
moments to focus on. You don't want to call someone's all-in bet when they
deviate because they have the nuts, but you do want to call when they deviate
because they have a busted draw in a key pot... and you don't want to be
clueless about the very fact that they have deviated!
The Rant. Many online poker tells are the result of
bad players telling you that they are about to play even worse than normal. How
nice of them. The most obvious of these announcements is The Rant. Flawed
players go on tilt in all sorts of poker games, and online is no exception. The
thing about online is loudmouths and bullies can't glare at, roll their
eyes or do some other belittling physical action. But via the chatbox they CAN
insult their opponents. They can't say "change the deck" but they can
rant about software being rigged against their genius-level play.
Boiling it down to the basics, a player who goes on a
rant about stupid opponents or rigged software might just as well paint
themselves purple with ten inch letters: "I am on tilt". Besides
obviously horrible opponents, ranters are THE players to target in any game,
even more so than obvious multi-tablers. You want to play against people on
tilt, but you also want to be sure you don't take them off tilt by playing a
weak hand at them that helps them to calm down. Go ahead and goad abusive
players in the chatbox. These are almost always players who think they are far
better than they are, and play considerably worse when losing than when
winning. They will often make the game. Treasure the ranters. To a large
degree, winning poker is about defeating people who act stupidly. Ranters are
at the top of the list.
Chat revoked. While not a subset of the rant, a small
number of online 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 one of these players who
needs to tell you that their chat is revoked, you know you are dealing with an
immature person. They are also more likely to tilt (though not necessarily,
they could have had chat revoked for racist or misogynist talk). If most chat
revoked players lose a pot in an ugly way, you KNOW they wish they could call
their opponent an idiot or worse. The WANT to rant. They WANT to insult. They
want to exacerbate the tilt impulses they are feeling. You can even push them
further by saying something like "nice hand" to the winner. You
should be able to see the steam coming out of the chat revoked player's icon.
The Gloat. While not universally true, players who
like to gloat after winning a pot are normally significant, longterm,
weak-tight losers. Someone who regularly wins doesn't need to draw attention to
that fact. Someone who is seldom a significant winner and needs to draw
attention to that fact will be insecure as well as weak-playing. Gloaters are
much easier to bluff after they begin to gloat, because they hate to now seem
like a loser. They don't mind folding on the flop, or on the turn when an
overcard hits, because they can pretend they got sucked out on. What they hate
to do is be beaten on the river by an opponent with a superior hand. Gloaters
can go on mega-tilt if they start losing after gloating, but more often they
tighten up and enjoy their moment. They don't get them very often.
The Whiner. Chatbox-whining players are different than
the above. People who whine in public, to a group of strangers who couldn't
care less, are very likely used to whining. In other words, a whiner is not
likely to be on tilt when losing. A variation of The Whiner is The Challenger
who whines "let's play head-up" any time someone beats him two hands
in a row, or three of so ugly hands in an hour. Both these types are serious,
long-term losers.
The Rocket Scientist. Any player who sees fit to lecture
about how to play, and then is blatantly wrong, is a short term target. These
players almost never last very long, are often first-timers and are seldom
exploitable over time.
Online tells almost always give you information, but
don't confuse "it means something" with "it means the same thing
in every situation." Using the "in turn" betting buttons is a
good example. Using the auto-check almost always means weakness, but the
auto-bet and auto-raise buttons can have very different meanings depending on
the street where the betting occurs. Auto-raise before the flop is surely
always a sign of real strength (unless a player is a maniac or obviously
tilting). Auto-raise on the flop will more often be a sign of false strength,
where someone is trying to protect a marginal hand.
Some 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. Other tells are pure creations of online poker,
though perhaps not tells per se, like using a statistics program to see an
opponent's flop percentage.
When playing online you can't see your opponents, but
you can see what they DO. Just like in the rest of life, what people actually
do is what matters. How they act reveals their confidence, skills, backbone,
maturity and level-headedness. The betting actions and chat behavior of
opponents offers a goldmine of information that you can use against them. It
may not be easy to decipher online tells but that is the very fact that makes
them all the more important.
