This is a guide to finding online poker tells. Relative to live poker, there are far fewer tells that you can pick up on to find out whether or not your opponent is bluffing. This is for the obvious reason that you are unable to physically see who you are playing against. However this can be positive for your game because you can focus on the tactical side of your game and learn how to play different situations with improved skill.

However there are a few things you can look out for whilst playing online:

Long Wait and Check:

This shows that your opponent is weak, because he wants to make you think that he is considering to make a move with his hand when really he wont be holding much at all. Consider raising when in position possibly if you don't even have much of a hand yourself.

Long Wait and Bet/Raise:

This is the opposite of what was mentioned above. This shows strength as your opponent wants to make you think he was deliberating a check, and is unsure of his hand, but is really holding something good. Just think, if you are holding a monster you wont want to bet so quick as to scare your opponents away would you? Be prepared to fold a decent hand in this situation.

Check/Call, Bet:

If you are in position, your opponent checks the flop, you bet - opponent calls, and then your opponent bets out a relatively small amount when the turn comes, you can nicely put your opponent on a certain basket of hands. He may well have either a draw or a mediocre hand like middle pair. What your opponent is trying to do is stop you making a large bet on the turn that he wont like to call, and attempting to show a little strength by betting and not calling. Try re-raising to prevent them from making their draw.

Instant Bet/Check: Almost every site will have action tabs that you can select before the action gets to you. This means that you will act instantaneously when it is your turn. It is not a wise idea to use these buttons for the following reasons:

When you see someone insta-check, it shows great weakness because they are so disinterested with the hand that they decide to check before the action gets to them. Therefore insta-betting/raising shows strength, as your opponent is happy to put more money into the pot before seeing what other players do before the action reaches him or her.

Time Out ? ?Sorry?:

Because of how easy it is to play poker online (in ease of use terms), many players will not have their full attention on the game. They will be involved in other activities such as talking on a messenger or browsing the net. This means that they occasionally will not realise it is their turn and time out, and then apologise for wasting time in the chat box. This means that due to their lack of focus, they will be playing basic poker ? raising with good hands and checking/folding bad hands. You can be confident that your opponent won't be pulling any moves on you to win the hand. So if they bet, make sure you have a good hand to call with or fold. If they check, try raising to win the pot. If they do call when you bet, they may be on a draw.

These are the most useful tells that I have been able to pick up on in my time of playing online poker. Obviously as you can see there is not a lot that you can go on apart from the time a player takes to act in deciding what kind of hand they have. But remember that you should not just rely on little ticks and tells to find out if your opponent is bluffing.

The more you play the more you will understand logistics of the game and be able to read people by their betting patterns. This is by far the best way to pick up on the strength of your opponent's hand.

Remember that the best tell of all is a player's betting pattern.

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