Online Tells

I'm wondering how many of you ever pick off online tells. I'm also wondering if this is more common than I have realized in past play, as I have just started to notice this pattern lately - primarily from a couple select weak/passive players. Anyway here is my story...

So there is your typical 25/4/1.5 passive limper type whos just limping along with all sorts of suited broadways and especially pocket pairs. He is in middle position and has just open limped, after the rest fold over to me, I pick up KK on the button and make a big raise because that limper is calling anything he's limped regarless of how many chips he has to fork up.

Anyway he calls and we're heads up. The flop comes dry as can be; J 7 5 rainbow. And all of a sudden I get this weird feeling as soon as he checks. He did it almost instantly which is unsual. Whatever, time to get some information. I bet out, he pauses, and then calls. Turn comes off as a brick, and then he makes a strange pause - it's hard to explain exactly but it wasn't 'natural'. It just wasn't 'in sync' with the rest of his typical check calls - I felt like I was about to get checkraised before it happened - but I bet anyway because afterall when the turn comes a brick and you have an overpair you bet right? (Although I am aware I maybe should have checked behind, I wanted to get value out of his possible top pair)

Sure enough he check min raises me just to rub it in, and I toss the kings, wondering If I should have maybe just check called a bet the size of what I would have made on the turn on the river as a bluff catcher or whatever. His akward timing plus the min raise made it the most poorly played set (probably) of all time.

Ok question now: If you feel you've spotted a timing tell, is it best just to check behind on the turn? Or is betting here really the best option. Should we bet the brick turn, or should we hope the tell holds true and check behind for some pot control. Anyone here ever adjust their plans for a hand if they feel they've spotted an online tell? Any other thoughts/comments etc?

Well if you feel like he's going to check raise you and you think you spotted something like what you said above then checking isnt a bad idea because if he does have something hes going to value bet it. I know its showing weakness and giving him a free card but why throw more money away when you have a read on him. ALWAYS go with your read.

If you playing at sites that have a bet pot button a lot of people hit that button trying to push you out of the pot. I'm not lying. i have flat out called with nothing when people bet the pot because i know they have a weak hand and i'm going to raise them off their hand on the turn. But this is only at sites that have a bet pot button. I never use the bet pot button for that very reason. I know it may sound a little crazy but why would they bet the pot if they want to keep me in the hand? If they had a really strong hand they are gonna slow it down even a little to keep me in the hand. a pot sized bet says get away from the pot, please fold. Now i don't flat out call everytime but when i get a READ on someone i follow through with it.

i wish you posted the actual hand history but the rainbow flop and smooth call indicates trips. But the minraise thing is strange. If he had trips i would think he would lead out and bet the turn because by then theres straights and flushes out there. But he minraises. I think it was a tester raise and maybe he wanted to see the river and hope you would check the river because he minraised the turn.

Tricky Hand..................

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Originally Posted by RoyalProdigy

Well if you feel like he's going to check raise you and you think you spotted something like what you said above then checking isnt a bad idea because if he does have something hes going to value bet it. I know its showing weakness and giving him a free card but why throw more money away when you have a read on him. ALWAYS go with your read.

If you playing at sites that have a bet pot button a lot of people hit that button trying to push you out of the pot. I'm not lying. i have flat out called with nothing when people bet the pot because i know they have a weak hand and i'm going to raise them off their hand on the turn. But this is only at sites that have a bet pot button. I never use the bet pot button for that very reason. I know it may sound a little crazy but why would they bet the pot if they want to keep me in the hand? If they had a really strong hand they are gonna slow it down even a little to keep me in the hand. a pot sized bet says get away from the pot, please fold. Now i don't flat out call everytime but when i get a READ on someone i follow through with it.

i wish you posted the actual hand history but the rainbow flop and smooth call indicates trips. But the minraise thing is strange. If he had trips i would think he would lead out and bet the turn because by then theres straights and flushes out there. But he minraises. I think it was a tester raise and maybe he wanted to see the river and hope you would check the river because he minraised the turn.

Tricky Hand..................

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He was pretty weak. His agg was 1 or 1.5 i believe, so he never really leads, only betting his hands - and mostly only in position. OOP I saw him check call down top pair okay kicker so I'm sure he's not c/r'ing with top pair.

I didn't post the hand history because I wanted to get more responses on how everyone 'deals' with possible online tells and how they might adjust in similar situations if they think they spot them. It felt like more of a hunch than anything, and his pausing could have been due to a distraction, so I'm not really sure how reliable these types of 'tells' are.

I'm pretty wary of so called timing tells. For every hand where someone's timing is odd for a reason to do with their cards, there will be ten hands where they're simply busy playing another table, making a cup of tea, taking a dump etc.

I find it far more useful to make decent notes on the tells that we can get from people's betting patterns. At the micro levels this can be extremely simple. For example there is a reg at my stakes who will raise pre flop and ALWAYS make a certain size c-bet when he misses the flop and a certain (different) size value bet when he hits. With this information I can afford to call his raises in position pre flop with a far wider range than usual as he will always tell me on the flop whether he's connected or not.

When you can start to put together a list of players who are exploitable in this way it makes extracting money from your sessions a lot easier.

I think this is a far more useful skill to try to develop.

Monsieur - you can't fake an instant call or an instant bet.
Instant bet they're either bluffing or have the nuts. Instant call is mostly medium strength hands. Instant fold is garbage :)

OK, fair point about people making a certain move instantly. I was more trying to make the point that one shouldn't *necessarily* read too much into people taking unexpected pauses or taking longer to play their cards than you expect them to.

This was a pretty good discussion about timing tells. Perhaps it can give you some insight.

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...timing%20tells

The whole situation was a weird combo of him insta checking, making odd pauses etc. Something just didn't feel right, and the c/r on the turn on top of all the abnormal pausing (from what his normal lines are) was enough evidence to easily lay down a pair here.

JR947: Thanks for the link

Some people give away such obvious timing tells its ridculous. And I dont think they can fake a tell, its not that easy for a beginner to do that.

I would say I base a ton of my reads off of timing-tells, they're very situational+board texture driven (i.e. a fast action isn't always strength or weakness).

This is why I'm so against playing more than 4-6 6max tables and 9 FR tables.

I play tiled 12-16 tables, i love when someone thinks they have a good timing tell against me. There are some - the obvious instant decisions of all multi-tablers who use check-boxes - but long decisions don't mean anything ;)

as for op, either check the turn behind, or call the min c-r.

It's just so ugly how NO ONE ever places in a 'proper' raise. I swear out of 25K hands at the micro's I've seen at the most 3-4 standard raises postflop. The rest are ALL min raises. I hate calling them becase I know I'm gonna spew into their obvious nuts, but I hate folding because it looks so weak. Maybe min raising isn't such a bad decision after all! (sarcasm)

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Originally Posted by Micro2Macro

It's just so ugly how NO ONE ever places in a 'proper' raise. I swear out of 25K hands at the micro's I've seen at the most 3-4 standard raises postflop. The rest are ALL min raises. I hate calling them becase I know I'm gonna spew into their obvious nuts, but I hate folding because it looks so weak. Maybe min raising isn't such a bad decision after all! (sarcasm)

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As the saying goes: Weak is strong. Strong is weak. Usually true for beginner players.

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Originally Posted by iopq

Instant call is mostly medium strength hands.

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I thought that mostly meant draw.

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Originally Posted by jackvance

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Originally Posted by iopq

Instant call is mostly medium strength hands.

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I thought that mostly meant draw.

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I think timing tells may be specific to different opponents. Example:

Player 'x' plays sets very quickly and almost instantly leads out betting, while on a draw he takes along time to count his outs...

Player 'y' quickly calls his draws without bother to count outs or compute pot odds and he hesitates when he has a made hand such as a set as he is trying to decide how to play it.

I just get as much info as I can, poker tracker is the shiznit brotha!

I have noticed something lately from many different players. When I raise and iso a player in position, when they insta-check the flop, they've flopped the goods. Now, you'd have to be paying attention to their play throughout the game to ensure they don't ALWAYS check to the raiser. Gotta couple tells with reads. But this is something I've noticed recently.