Poker tells.

Poker Tells

A "tell" is an act or action by another player that gives you information as to the strength of their hand. When you hear about a poker player "having a read" on another player, what is being said is that the player has picked up on some signal or hint as to what the other player is holding.

Understandably, if you are able to "get a read" on your opponents, you will be more likely to know when to bet, call or fold at the right times. Over the course of a 4 or 5 hour session...even if you are only able to get one read per hour, the extra bets won and the extra bets not lost will add up to a significantly more profitable session. With that in mind, we've outlined just a few of the more common "tells" below.

When reviewing these tells, it's worth keeping a few things in mind:

A few people will fake tells to throw you off, just mark them in your notes.
YOU can fake tells to encourage the type of play you want from your opponents.
The opportunity to use tells online is limited.

Online Tells

Almost all online tells have to do with the timing in which your opponents act. Sometimes you will notice that people are acting very quickly, almost immediately, other time they act in a reasonable pace, and still other times they will take a very long time to act. These things, in combination with HOW MUCH people are betting can occasionally provide insight.

The Immediate Check or Fold

When a player checks instantaneously (or folds instantaneously) and does so a number of times, the chances are good that they are using the Check/Fold button. Players that use the Check/Fold button are generally tight players. They have made the decision before anyone else acts that they are not going to play their hand. In other words, whether they play their hand or not does not depend on how OTHER players are playing their hands...they decide only based on their own hand strength. So do not expect fancy moves from this player. A minimum bet will often scare them out if they have anything less than top pair. More importantly, however, is that when this player is NOT check/folding they probably have at LEAST top pair...so a bluff at this point is a probably a bad idea.

When a player (in No-limit and Pot-limit in particular) who is normally very aggressive checks instantly from early position, this could be a sign that they flopped a monster hand. If they are normally betting away at any flop, but are all of a sudden checking it quickly from early position, they may be looking for a check-raise opportunity. One way to find out is to put out a minimum bet and see what they do and play it from there.

The Immediate Bet

This tell is especially true in limit poker. When a player limps into a pot, and then fires away a bet or raise instantly, it's a good bet that they are using the buttons to choose to bet before the action even gets to them. They have probably flopped top pair or better and want to force the draws to pay the price to draw.

Occasionally, you will come across a person who lead bets their strong drawing hands in this manner. Put a note in their file that they lead bet their draws and play accordingly.

The LOOOOOOOONG ponder, and raise or all-in

Every once in a while, you will see a situation where one player makes a decent sized value bet on the river (a value bet is a bet designed to get a call from an opponent just to ensure that some money is made with a hand they believe is probably the winner), and the opponent thinks for a very long time...perhaps they even come close to using all of their allotted time limit to make the decision...and then move all-in! This play is often a ploy to encourage someone to call. One of two situations is usually true here. They are either on a complete bluff or have the stone cold nuts. Most times, they will have the nuts so beware.

Table Chatter

You might read about how to interpret table chatter. As a tell, whether a player is silent or chatty is not very reliable and we urge you to not make generalizations about others' play based on this.

Poker Tells In Live Play

There are many more potential tells that you can study and learn for use during play when you are face to face with your opponents. If you are interested in learning these tells, Caro's Book of Poker Tells is the definitive book on the subject.