Winning Online Poker Strategy

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Online Poker Tells

Since you cannot see your opponent's physical expressions, you are forced to rely on other signs that your online opponent may show.

1. Speed of Play

Each and every online poker room has a set time period that you have to respond, before you are either fold or are declared all in. Your opponent's speed of play can be a good tell. Generally, a fast bet is a sign of a weak hand and a delayed bet is a sign of a strong hand, because your opponent is calculating his strategy around what they perceive to be a strong hand. Keep a close eye on how long it takes your opponents to make their move and make a mental note of it. If you get the opportunity to see their cards at the end of the hand, see if you can determine their style of play.

Consider your own play and whether or not you display these tells in your speed of play. A good strategy is to try and take the same amount of time for each hand so that your opponents cannot make any conclusions from your speed of play.

2. Check Boxes/Auto Plays

If you have played online poker before, you will know that they use check boxes for certain actions like fold, raise any and call any. It is easy to tell when a player is using check boxes, because their actions will occur instantly. Use this tell to your advantage. If your opponent has checked the "raise any" box, it is obvious that they are holding a good hand. If your opponent uses the check box to simply "check", you can be pretty sure that their cards are weak. If your opponent uses a check box to "call any", then you can assume that they are on a draw hand they have not yet completed, but are definitely not ready to fold.

The fact that your opponent feels strongly enough about their hand to commit to a decision before even seeing your actions, is a very strong tell in my books.

3. Fold & Flop Percentage

Over the course of several hands, you should get a sense of whether the player folds a lot of weak hands, or if they are staying in most pots. If they fold a lot of hands, be careful of the hands they play - they are probably very strong cards. If they stay in most pots, you can probably take them out if you get strong cards.

4. Chat Box

The amount that a player chats can be an obvious tell. If a player who just won't shut up suddenly gets quiet, you can be sure that they have strong cards. They are using all their focus on playing their cards and getting the most out of the pot. If your opponent is betting big and suddenly becomes hostile in the chat box, they may be on a bluff and hoping that their show of confidence will bluff you out of the hand. Also watch the chat box for players who are on tilt. A player who is using a lot of abusive language is most likely emotionally unable to play decent poker until they calm down.

5. Waiting for the Big Blind

When you sit down at on online poker table, you'll usually be given the option of "waiting on the big blind" to get around to you, or you can post a blind and get in the game right away. This is always a good tell on how patient a player will be. If they are not patient enough to wait for the big blind, they may not be patient about waiting for decent starting hands. You can expect them to be a loose player. The opposite is apparent for players who will wait for the big blind. They are either cheap or patient. Both of these are good qualities to posses if you are an online poker player.

Calculating Pot Odds

You have to be able to calculate pot odds if you wish to succeed at online poker. Your goal should be to play the law of averages as opposed to blind luck, to determine whether calling a bet will be profitable.

You calculate pot odds by comparing the total number of unknown cards to how many outs (cards left in the deck that will complete your hand) you have, then you do some simple division.

For instance, if you have four cards of the same suit and need one more of that suit to make your flush, then there are 46 unknown cards - 52 minus your 2 pocket cards and the 4 cards on the board. In those 46 unknown cards, there are 9 that are the same suit as your flush draw. So there are 37 cards will not help you and 9 that will complete your hand.

Your pot odds are: 37/9 or 4.1 to 1 odds against making your draw.

A good online poker player will only call a bet in this instance, if there is 4 times that amount already in the pot. If you are playing a $5/$10 game then there would need to be at least $40 in the pot to justify your call of that $10 bet to see what the river is.

If you are on an inside straight draw, then you have only 4 outs, there are 46 unknown cards left in the deck. 42 of those cards are of no help to you and 4 of them will make you the winner. 42/4 = 10.5. You would need there to be over 10 times the amount of your call to be already in the pot to justify this call.

Calculating pot odds may seem pretty intimidating at first, but I assure you that it will become second nature after a while. Keep practicing it and you will be a better player because of it.