Poker tells
Since it is a universally accepted truth about poker that it is a post-flop betting game, the reads one can make on the opposition, are obviously very important. The more accurate reads you make, the easier the betting game becomes for you, and eventually the more money you will generate.
All right, so far we know why reading the opposition is important, now then, how exactly is it done?
Given human nature (which we're all naturally adept at reading) and the nature of the game of poker, there are certain "tells" one can observe in order to get a more or less accurate picture of what's going on in his/her opponents mind.
Real life poker offers a wealth of such poker reads, a few of which we shall study in this article:
Watching the facial expression of your opponents offers a nice insight into your opponent's emotional universe. People who first said "the face is a mirror of the soul" must've been on to something. We humans are all naturally programmed to convey our emotions through facial expressions. It's a part of our survival-system and we cannot really do anything to suppress this primal urge. Not even the best poker pros can truly learn to disguise their feeling, thus many of them wear caps and look downwards to avoid showing their face as much as possible.
The eyes are responsible for the most telltale messages the face sends out to our foes, and as such, that's where you should be looking for your most valuable clues.
In addition to the emotions reflected in one's eyes, be on the lookout for the following tells: some guy staring at his pocket cards for an unusually long time. This probably means he has a high pair or some other very nice starting hand there. Whenever they hit a pocket monster, people can't really help staring at it for a while.
Whenever somebody is getting ready to bluff, he/she is tempted to look left in order to see whether the players who have not yet acted are double checking their hole-cards or not.(usually if someone's double checking them, it means he's not quite sure what to do, so he is likely to fold). Looking for poker tells in the way the other guy is looking for poker tells might sound complicated, but hey, nobody ever said poker was a simple game.
Looking for exaggerated gestures. Poker players in particular and people in general like to go out of their way to make sure their opponents get the wrong message. You can capitalize on this need to act up. Whenever you notice that someone is really keen to advertise how weak his hand is, you can be almost 100% sure he's got a monster hiding in the pocket. Likewise, when you see a guy acting like he just flopped quad Aces, it's likely that he's trying to steal a pot on something like 7,2o.
While tells can be found every step of the way in live poker, the situation is quite different online. Here, since players do not sit face to face, all the above named tells are absolutely useless. There are however other clues, much more useful ones, like betting patterns, wait times, and player chat.
Despite the apparently reduced number of tells in online poker, players here can still be read better than in live poker. Most online poker rooms will allow you to just hang around any table without actually joining the game. You can hover there for hours, unseen and unnoticed, and watch the others play. Just as soon as you have the table "figured” and there's an open seat, you can join the fray.
I'd say there's no better way of reading the opposition than that. On top of it all, recently appeared online poker rooms have put such a great accent on the user interface, that it has pretty much become virtual reality-like. Pocket hands have to be checked the same way they are in real life. Opponents will see you double-check your hand when a four-card flush hits the board.
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