Quote:
Originally Posted by AdamSchwartz
@Donnie_Peters How much weight does Zach give to timing tells in online poker? How relevant are poker tells these days? New players might argue not at all, whereas old players might disagree. Does a tell ever differ depending on game? For example, garnering one interpretation for hold'em but another for stud.
I honestly don't pretend to know much about behaviors in online poker. But I think that the most relevant bet-timing tells will still apply. The two most relevant timing behaviors to me are immediate calls and immediate bets. Online, these are the only kinds of bet-timing tells that can't be influenced by other factors (using the bathroom, playing other tables, etc.) When someone does something immediately or quickly, and they don't usually act that quickly, there is likely to be information there.
Immediate calls are much more meaningful than immediate bets. Immediate calls will tend to be weaker hands or draws, just because with stronger hands most players want to think about the situation a bit even if they decide to call. Players with strong hands don't want to lose a chance to maximize value, so they will tend to be more thoughtful.
Against aggressive players, immediate calls can make strong draws on certain boards very unlikely. For example, if an opponent calls immediately on a flop of 9h 8c 2h, it's very unlikely that the player has strong hearts or TJ. With both of those hands, most players who are somewhat capable and aggressive will tend to at least consider a raise, even if they end up calling.
Quick, significant bets are polarizing. And because 1) players will tend to think more with strong hands, in order to optimize value, and 2) players with strong hands tend to want to imply they have some sort of tough decision, immediate large bets will tend towards bluffs. This is not a strong general tendency, and I'm not advocating acting on it with no other information. But it's something to look for from specific players. Does a player tend to act more quickly when bluffing than when value-betting strong hands?
For decent online players, I don't think these will be large factors. As with live poker, these will be mostly useful versus not-very-good competition. But I will say I still see a lot of decent live players have these patterns, so they are worth looking for. Also, online players tend to act pretty fast in most situations, so I'm not sure how often these would come into play.
I don't really know much about other games honestly. Mainly have concentrated on Hold'em. I like 7-stud, but haven't played it in a long time. I think there are definitely different tells in different games. For example, in 7-stud and draw games, there are more possible tells related to looking at your hole cards (for example, putting them down quickly when someone's improved or staring at them when they haven't improved).
I don't think anyone would argue that tells don't play any role. There are plenty of strong online players, but I tend to think most of them have probably realized there are edges to be gained by paying attention to behavior. Though yeah, for sure tells and reads are not nearly put on a false pedestal as they used to be. But I think most people recognize they can add a boost to win rates while not being super-important.