PokerOnline Tells – It’s All in the Timing
by Daragh Thomas
There are many advantages online poker enjoys over its offline equivalent, but one of the few drawbacks is the fact that it is much harder to make a read on a player. In a live setting you can sit back and scrutinise a player, inexperienced players often give away a lot about the strength of their hand simply by how comfortable, or otherwise, they appear. Even from more experienced players you can sometimes pick up a clue as to their holding. However online poker is a different beast. Players hide behind their computer, and whilst there they can be doing a victory dance with the nuts, or barely able to watch the screen fearing their bluff is about to be called, and you will be none the wiser.
There is one type of tell that is exclusive to the online arena though, and that’s the timing of someone’s action. Deciphering it is very much an art form and not a science, but I can give some pointers to help you make some better informed decisions. As with many other areas of poker though, there is no substitute for experience.
Some players write off timing tells as unreliable, as you can never be sure that the player is actually paying attention. However this can be quickly dismissed by two points. Firstly, once most players get in a hand, they will be usually be paying sufficient attention so that missed seconds can be accounted for. And secondly the most informative timing tells are when a player takes an action at an usually fast speed. In fact the quicker a response the more accurate a timing tell. If more than a couple of seconds pass, unless its a large decision (for example a decision to call most of a stack off preflop), then there is always the large possibility that the player is distracted elsewhere, usually at another table.
The simplest timing tell is deduced logically. When a player acts very quickly, its because he has little or no decision to make. I will give two examples of when this can help you make a good read on your opponent. Many bad players tend to be passive with their draws. So if you make a bet on the flop or turn, and it is instantly called by a player of this type, its because he has a draw. He is not in the habit of raising draws, so doesn’t consider raising. He is also not in the habit of paying any attention to the odds he is being offered, so folding too is out of the question. So a quick call on a drawy board is nearly always a draw.
Another second example is when a player bets out very quickly when a scare card comes. Against an aggressive player this means there is much higher chance than normal that he is bluffing. This is the type of tell that shouldn’t be acted on solely, but taken into consideration with other factors. A good example of this is a LAG raising pre–flop in position. He bets the flop and you call, with two hearts on the flop. You check the turn, which is another heart. A quick bet here is much more likely to be a bluff. Thats because a LAG here with nothing is desperate to win the pot. He doesn’t want to give up the pot by checking. Had he a real hand, like aces or even a flush, he would stop and consider the implications of the heart. A bet after a pause is much more likely to be a flush. In some cases, the worse the player, the longer a pause the more likely it is he has the nuts. He thinks that by pausing he is under representing his hand, not understanding that a long pause followed by a raise is a sign of strength.
These are two examples that occur regularly, and there are many more out there. However to become an expert at timing tells you need to know each one of your opponents very well. When you get to know a player well you will find that he has his own specific timing tells. Everyone has a natural rhythm to their thoughts. If you expend the time and effort to understand that rhythm, it can be invaluable. The same player will tend to think about the same type of decisions in roughly the same amount of time. The longer a decision the more routes his brain is following. Depending on the circumstances this can can lead you to know more about the strength of his hand, or what level of thought he is currently operating on. Again, its important to know your player and to be able to guess when he is just distracted, and its also important to use in it conjunction with skilled hand reading.
To do it properly you need to fully understand a player, and be conscious of what mood he is in. A tilting TAG will be rushed and panicked, and have very little in common with his play or timing earlier in the sessions. Similarly someone who has just won a big pot will often have their mood altered to the extent that their play and thinking becomes wildly different. If you know the motive for a player playing, you can better understand the cadences of their thought patters. Greedy or tilting players act fast!
At medium or high stakes, very good players will be aware of timing tells and be capable of sending reverse tells. However until you reach $5/$10 this is very much a non–issue.