How to Spot Online Tells when playing poker

Its harder to spot a persons poker tells online. In this post I will discuss a number of poker tells which are common in only poker players. Being able to spot these online poker tells will help you to adapt your game to beat the other player.

Tight Aggressive

This is a very fashionable style of poker playing at the moment, and for good reason too. Tight aggressive players tend to play fewer hands but come out firing when they are in a hand, also they only tend to play when they have position. i.e. are one of the last players to act in a round of betting. It is also worth pointing out that alarm bells should be ringing when a player of this type raises or even limps from early position.

Loose Aggressive

These players can be quite difficult to play against. They tend to raise pre-flop on a regular basis regardless of their position and are not scared of betting on the flop, turn or river withouth having hit a hand. Reraising preflop when facing a raise against a player of this type can be quite effective.

Passive

Also known as limpers, you will barely notice this type of player as they will rarely if ever raise preflop and will tend to check and call as much as possible post flop. Alarm bells should start going off if a player of this type starts playing aggressively all of a sudden.

Calling Station

The type of player who always calls your bets, regardless of your bets or what is on the board. They rarely ever raise or play aggressively, and play with the philosophy that they are sure their hand will be made on the next card.

Raises with wide range.

Someone who raises more than 15% of the time can be classified as raising with a wide range. A well timed reraise is very effective against someone who raises with a wide range.

Continuation bettor

Someone who always bets on the flop regardless of whether or not they have hit anything, this is particularly evident when the player has made a raise pre-flop.

One bullet gun

This is similar to a Continuation bettor, where a player always tries to a bluff on the flop, but tends to play passively after that if he gets a caller.

Likes to reraise.

Someone who is either very observant of the other players, or someone that just likes to exert pressure on other players with plenty of reraises.

Likes chasing their straights/ flushes

similar to a calling station, be careful if a player exhibits tendencies of chasing cards, as you want to ensure you don’t give him the odds to carry on calling.

Small bets when weak, big bets when strong.

Fairly self explanatory, if someone is playing a straightforward game it is usually a good indication that the person is either a weak player or is distracted.

Slow player

Similar to the previous type, except a slow player is someone who fakes weakness to trap other players and extract as much value out of them as possible. You need to be very careful of this type of player, and make note when an opponent shows this style of play.

Conclusion

Being able to spot these online poker tells will help you play against these players online, and will also help your overall poker game as these playing styles are also used by players when playing poker the old fashioned way.