Free Poker Online Guide to Poker Tells

When playing free poker online, players are trying to obtain as much information as possible. Since everyone's cards are dealt face down, the only two things you know for sure are your own cards and the community cards. This is where 'tells' come into play as good players are constantly analyzing every single part of your play and demeanour. Playing poker on line is obviously completely different to live play; however there are a few things to watch out for on line which I will come back to, but for now I am going to concentrate on live play. I have been playing poker in my local club and various casinos for a number of years now, and have picked up a few tells and ways of reading players.

I guess the only place to start is with the eyes. Nearly all beginners believe, mainly due to the explosion of poker on the TV, that they should be looking at everyone's eyes. If I sit down at a ten man table I am expecting six or seven of them to be wearing sunglasses. Personally even without sunglasses, I find it difficult to read tells from player's eyes, apart from the obvious where a player will raise their eyebrows directly after looking at their cards. My point here is that you should probably forget the eyes as they are likely to be hidden anyway.

Ok assuming like me you don't concentrate on your opponent's eyes as the main source of intellect. You will need to find more assuring ways of spotting the tell tale signs of what cards your opponents holds. The best signs I would look out for are all based on body language such as posture- slumped normally suggests bad cards and if you happen to notice a player suddenly sit up straight after viewing their cards this would be due to their increased interest at the excitement of what they might win!

Body language is difficult to control as quite often we are unaware of doing it ourselves. Good free poker players are aware of body language. As good players are aware of body language, this also means they are aware of their own body language. If a good player readjusts himself this has to be upon cautiously because they are aware of what they have just done.

Body language comes hand in hand with table talk. If I'm in a big game I always keep quiet. Good players are able to sense strength and weakness from your voice and tone. I've been sat at a table chatting to the person next to me and consequently lost a pot, because I was not paying complete attention on the action. Really good players are able to chat away whilst being 100% aware of what's going on. They will sometimes be playing a hand whilst casually chatting away to the person next to them. Before you know it they check raise you, then carry on chatting!! I am always wary of a good player playing a pot who doesn't seem interested in it. I often read this a show of strength.

Other well known tells include sweaty palms, looking at your cards then directly looking at your stack, licking your lips, and even a bulging vein in the neck. Along with body language and table talk another big tell is betting patterns, and this is where I come onto the internet. Everything I have mentioned so far is useless online. Betting patterns are the only pieces of information you can get from players in an online environment. A lot of newish players tend to play free poker by the manual, pocket aces bring a bet of 4x the big blind, KJ is 2x the big blind, and suited connectors bring a flat call. By watching players at your table for a short time you will be amazed at how they stick to these principles. Once you have established players betting to a pattern, clearly you are at a big advantage.

Just remember to be sure that the sign the opposing player is giving you is an actual sign. As with most things in life if something seems to obvious and too good to be true- it might be. As one art of poker is knowing how to spot players signs and another is spotting players faking their signs.