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Does any one know of some articles or ebooks on what to look for for online poker tells. I look at betting habbits mostly and I quiet using lengnth in calls made do to it is too hard to figure out if it is the internet or them thinking Please let me know if you know of any.
Don
I don't remember seeing a catalogue of online tells and how to interpret them. I think you're doing the best and most reliable thing anyway - look for lines they take with nut hands, lines they never take with nut hands, find out if they have bet sizing tells so small bets are weak hands - or small bets are nut hands that they want calls rather than folds on etc.
There is some element of timing tells also - but this is perilous ground. Someone may take a long time to respond because they are playing many tables, their girlfriend is talking to them, they are looking at a forum, listening to music etc etc. Sometimes a delay can be taken to be meaningful if you are otherwise convinced the person is concentrating on the poker table. Perhaps it is more meaningful to consider what instant actions mean - if he insta-bets or insta-checks or insta-raises - this is premeditated. And you can probably determine if a premeditated action for a person is often a bluff or a strong hand being bet for value - or that he's just given up on the hand and is waiting to fold so he can move on to the next.
I realise this is just common sense and not particularly helpful - I just don't think there's a real depth of tells that's worth getting excited over. Bet sizing and habits are probably the most reliable ones.
Amusingly I sometimes deliberately make a delayed action when I want calls. I don't think it's taken to be a read and understood as weakness as much as I think people are just concentrating on the hand and getting impatient and making curious calls to see what kind of hand gave me a tough decision. Subjectively I feel that I often get my calls when I delay my bets or raises if they are not otherwise alarming, but whether this is a real or imagined effect is not something that can be stated with any degree of certainty. I might do this once per two hours per table or so, so I don't think it's completely transparent.
A lot of these types of tells are both dependent on opponent and on the opponents level of thinking. You easily get to a point where you know that the opponent thinks any overbet is a value bet - and then you can overbet as a bluff. If you are in the other position in that situation you might know that your opponent knows overbets are taken to be value bets and is likely to attempt one as a bluff and when he does you check out if your hand has bluff catcher value and estimate whether his chance to bluff is high enough that you will be able to call his bluff profitably.
The key is to get into your opponents head and first find out how he will subconsciously give off tells indicating the strength of his hand. Then you need to understand how he reads you and manipulate the outputs you send to make sure he reads you wrong. Then you need to take into account that he might be know you read weak bets as weakness and be actively trying to foil you by going opposite.
This becomes very important when you play headsup - at the lowest level people probably don't reflect much on these things and you can get quite far just by determining what their 'autopilot' delays, insta-actions, small bets, big bets, overbets, shoves, check-raises etc tend to mean.
dont bother reading books on online tells, they wont help, youll only ever learn online poker tells through experience and playing alot, then it becomes second nature.
yeah tells online are hard. Timing you almost have to throw out the window as there are to many things that could cause delays.
Some of the only ones that I give any strength to are these.
1. If you are in a hand with 1 other player and you take a little time and check and the other players check is lightning quick. This is a good indication that he has the check or check/fold button marked and he has nothing. I will almost always fire at least a small bet out and alot of times it is a lightning fold. And I do it quick before he has time to re-evalute things when the next card comes out.
2. When a hand is played and I am first to act and a player is just calling my bets and we get to the river and he doubles my river bet it almost always means he has a very good hand and is getting what he can out of it. The same for a hand where there has been betting and the river bet seems pretty small in relationship to the pot. This is usually again a value bet or the guy is trying to get you to come over the top.
These are by no means always true but it is something I look for. Especially the 1st one. Mainly just pay attention to the bets, if something seems weird then procede with caution. LOL
Worry more about hand reading than "tells". You can pick some things up from playing alot but more importantly put people on ranges and see what hands they could be holding in relation to the betting/calling action. Take notes too when you do notice things so you can take advantage of it later.
The biggest online tell I see is the person who disconnects constantly... they are on dial up and too cheap for a decent internet connection, thus the tell there is they are likely playing above their bankroll.
Ok... does that even make sense as a tell?
There is some discussion of exactly this here:
http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...ls-t73162.html
Perhaps you guys could chime in?
{moved from BC}
Aside from the things already mentioned by others, I also find that one of the things to look for online is whether or not the person exibits a pattern as far as how many streets they will pay to see, i often find i can categorize players in this way as we.. ie player A... tendency to see flops, but often or always folds post flop, player B... will see most hands to the turn... keep in mind that in order to gain this kind of info on a player and put it into a pattern you cannot be playing weak after the flop, they have to see a price for every card. (not difficult for me since i like to make em pay for every street if i stay in the hand)