Online Poker Tells: Reading Opponents Without Seeing Them

Patience in poker is a virtue, as it is in life. If you don’t play poker with patience and discipline, you’re certainly not winning as much as you could be, if you win at all.

A little bit of self-determination may be all it takes to regain your psychological poker smarts. I believe that your outlook on the game and your ability to make responsible decisions are just as important as the cards you hold and what position you’re in.

Online Tells Cheat Sheet

Here is every online tell covered in this guide at a glance. Each one is explained in detail below.

Discipline and patience in poker = success

Remember that you can’t control any of your opponents’ actions, but you have to control every one of your own actions. Your only action at the table is to make the best possible decisions given the information available to you. That’s it.

Poker’s pretty simple when you think about it that way. Just focus on making good decisions every time it is your turn to act. No one is immune from playing the occasional J-5 offsuit from under the gun, but try to practice self-discipline and keep this leak to a minimum.

Initially, you need patience in poker primarily in terms of your starting hands. Ideally, you should wait for the right opportunity with strong cards and seize it by raising your opponents and building a pot. Most often, you’ll need this patience when you’re in the middle of a run of cold cards.

Extra patience is needed when you connect big time with the board

However, you also need patience when you’ve hit a real monster hand. I often see players, especially online, who can’t wait to get all their chips in the pot after they’ve just hit their nut flush or straight.

Why give away your hand unless you’re trying to bluff your opponent out of the pot?

Of course, that is a great online bluff to take advantage of occasionally. Just know that betting or raising instantly can be a great tool to intimidate your opponents and gain control of the hand.

The reverse tell: slow down and hesitate with your monster hands

Let’s assume, however, that you aren’t bluffing and that you want action from your opponent. Have a little patience and take your time when you’re about to call or raise your opponent. What you’re trying to convey is weakness and hesitation.

Of course, online poker vets will be extremely wary of a delayed raise, which is why I advocate for a slow call on the flop in position with the intent of making your play on the turn.

When you have a very strong or unbeatable hand you should let your opponent feel like he’s taken control.

If you are in position and are acting after your opponent, immediately betting, calling, or raising will let your opponents know that you like have something substantial. This shouldn’t be your goal when you want action.

By “thinking” about your action for at least a few seconds, you’re implying that you have a close call to make.

If you’ve hit your hand on the flop and your opponent bets out, you should consider just calling his bet instead of raising. Why? If you’ve hit the nuts or close to it, you want your opponents to pay you off. You should string him out and allow him to improve his hand as opposed to raising him out of the pot on the flop.

Example hand with the hesitation reverse tell

To illustrate this point, let’s say that you limped in with Ah-6h from the button in a no-limit ring game. This isn’t a call that you would normally make, but you were feeling confident and 3 other limpers had come into the pot.

The flop and the nut flush

The big blind checks the hand down, and you see a flop of 4h, Jh, 9h giving you the nut flush!

Ah, if poker were as easy as imagination.

Since you’re on the button you have position on your 4 opponents and will get to act last in each betting round. Remember, position is power in Hold‘em and you’ve picked the best position to play your hand from.

You don’t want to scare anyone out of the pot with 3 suited cards on the board.

The big blind bets the pot, and everyone folds to you. First of all, there’s no reason to raise this hand as there are no conceivable threats to your flush right now. Don’t call right away, though!

Take your time and act a little bit. Try to give off a, “Shoot. I’ve got two pair but he could have a flush,” vibe. After you’ve given it a few seconds, just call.

Do you see the advantage in this play? He probably won’t put you on a made flush because of your hesitation, plus you’ve allowed him to take control.

The turn

The turn comes with another heart, this time with an 8. This is an excellent card for you, as your opponent could have also just made a lesser flush. Your opponent bets the pot again, which has grown quite large. At this point, if he has just a little bit more money you might as well put him all-in.

Hesitate and call again before making your play

However, if there is still a decent amount to be won, just hesitate and call again. Your opponent might be getting suspicious, but if he has the Q or K of hearts he’ll still probably be feeling pretty good at this point. The river comes with a deuce of spades, and he bets half of his remaining stack.

Hesitate one final time before you double his raise, putting him all-in. Hopefully, he actually has made another flush and will call your bet.

If he’s just been bluffing the whole time, he’ll probably fold but you’ve managed to gain a lot more out of him on the turn and river by letting him think he was ahead.

In the actual hand in question my opponent had a Qh-Kc.

Take your time and always go for maximum value

Again, you can extract many extra bets from your opponent by taking your time and looking like you’re hesitating when you have a great hand. After you do hesitate, think about just calling or check-calling rather than raising.

If you can’t see a possible better hand than yours, why drive your opponents out of the pot?

Keep in mind that this is the opposite strategy I recommend when you have a vulnerable hand like top pair, two pair, or a set with a draw on the board. In these situations, you should bet out to protect against possible draws.

Always keep in mind that cards will only get you so far. It is discipline and patience in poker which will really get you across the finish line.

Adopting sound poker fundamentals and playing a solid game will maximize your profits much more than wasting too much of your time searching for minute (or nonexistent) tells from your opponents.

With the overall horrendous level of play online, you can become a long-term winner simply by waiting for opportunities with premium hands and throwing your opponents enough rope to hang themselves with.

With that caution aside, I’ve encountered a number of fairly reliable online poker tells that I have incorporated into my game. I consider them reliable based on countless hours of play and witnessing the same correlating patterns time and time again.

Of course, you’ll occasionally fall for a reverse tell or realize after the fact that there really was no tell, but any pattern that seems to detectable 60-70% of the time gives you at least another piece of information to make the optimal play for the specific situation.

All Online Tells by Category

What are online poker tells?

Before I dive into specific tells, readers may wonder how online poker tells even exist. After all, isn’t a tell a physical tick or mannerism that gives away the hand strength?

While physical tells certainly play a factor in brick and mortar cardrooms, a tell is any pattern or action that inadvertently gives away information about a hand. In online poker, the only information that you receive from an opponent is the time he takes to bet, how much he bets, and any possible chat box activity.

Betting patterns and, to a lesser degree, betting time can also be significant tells if read properly for a specific opponent. Also, keep in mind that these tells apply mostly to no-limit games.

Instant check

Indications: The instant check online poker tell most likely means that your opponent has used the “Check/Fold” pre-action.

This occurs most often when the big blind has a trash hand and will fold to any raise. Your opponents may also use this beyond the flop in any position if they haven’t connected and are playing multiple tables.

If the check isn’t instant but extremely quick, it usually also indicates a weak hand from an impatient player ready to get to the next hand. While players often slowplay monster hands, they usually have to think about doing so for at least a second or two.

This certainly isn’t a foolproof tell, but is accurate enough to help you steal your fair share of small pots. Be wary of ragged flops after an instant check on the big blind; this is the type of flop that hits trash hands ready to fold preflop.

How to use to your advantage: Tend to bet out in position after an instant check from your opponent. Also, try using the “Check” and not “Check/Fold” when you have a big hand to throw off your opponents who also use this online poker tell.

I still remember an online hand against a known professional who used the instant check heads-up in position to induce a bet from me on the river when he had trip 6s and I had pocket Aces. Try it out occasionally as a reverse tell.

All-in overbet on the river

Indications: A move that has become more popular recently is the all-in overbet on the river.

This is mostly done to fool opponents into thinking that the player would never make such a huge bet if he really wanted to get paid off. Don’t fall for it unless you have some specific information on your opponent.

A popular use for the all-in overbet is from players with a full house when it’s likely their opponent also has a flush or if they’ve rivered an unlikely hand like a runner-runner flush. David Sklansky recommends this type of play in similar situations so you’ll find it increasingly popular at the tables.

How to use to your advantage: Rarely call such a gross overbet without the nuts. I would estimate that 80-90% of the time you see this type of hand go to showdown, the overbettor rather than the overcaller will win.

Knowledgeable opponents know this so you can occasionally use this move as a bluff if you’re confident that your opponent doesn’t have a huge hand. However, be aware that it’s a very high-risk and high-expense bluff that probably could have succeeded without such a huge bet.

Check-raising the minimum

Indications: This is certainly one of those online poker tells that requires your knowledge about the specific player.

The minimum check-raise is certainly a tell, but it’s one that narrows your opponent’s possible holdings to the two extremes. You’ll very rarely see this play with a medium-strength hand.

How to use to your advantage: Use your previous knowledge and/or notes on the player to decide which hand strength is more likely. Many players try this play if they feel your bet is fishy or seems like an obvious continuation bet.

I often call with a medium-to-strong hand when facing this play and see what happens on the turn. A player who check-raises the minimum and checks again on the turn indicates a failed bluff.

Donk betting (leading) the flop

Hand strength: Weak

Indications: Your opponent has a weak hand and wants to try and win a pot by preventing your continuation bet.

From my experience at online cash tables, donk bet on the flop usually indicates weakness. When a player from the blinds decides to lead into you after just calling preflop, more often than not he will be holding a weak hand and bets in hopes of you will go away. This is especially true at lower limits.

How to use to your advantage: Go ahead and raise these weak looking donk bets. High percentage of time you will end up picking the pot just as if you had c-bet, but with extra money added. Of course, stay wary of observant players who could turn this habit against you.

Ranting in the chat box over a bad beat

Ranting, swearing, and insulting opponents who beat them in a hand shows an obvious lack of emotional control. If these players stay in the game, they’re sitting ducks for losing another big hand due to their ego and/or desire to get even. This is a very reliable online poker tell.

How to use to your advantage: Your implied odds are huge against a tilting player. If you can hit a set against their overpair or spike some other unlikely hand, you’re probably going to get paid off. Tend to play your strong hands fast and don’t bother to slowplay.

Tilting players usually get involved in another big pot out of frustration so target them with hands that you want to play a big pot with. If you’re the player who put the last bad beat on them – even better! Many weak online players with weak personalities will make their #1 priority to get revenge on players they feel have wronged them.

Let them do it when you’ve got the nuts!

Posting blinds early from late position

I really don’t put any faith in this tell, especially at the $2/4 or lower stakes. With blinds that low, why not get in a few extra hands when you already have a positional advantage? If you feel like playing right away for a couple of extra bucks, does this automatically make you a loose player?

I don’t think so!

How to use to your advantage: If everyone folds to you in late position after posting the blinds prematurely, try throwing in a raise for a quick steal. You’ll look like you have a strong hand as you are putting extra money into the pot that you could have played for “free”. You also cultivate the table’s mistaken perception that you’re a loose player.

Posting blinds from early position with an odd buy-in

A buy-in of something like $134.05 probably means the player has bought in for everything left in his account. Posting the blinds a hand or two before they would have come around naturally shows extreme eagerness to get right back into the action.

How to use to your advantage: This type of player will tend to play loose and fast, hoping to catch a flop and double up quickly. Tend to put pressure on this player when you have positional advantage or feel that you have a card advantage.

Limp-calling a lot of hands

Indications: A bad player who doesn’t quite understand the game

You don’t win in poker by playing passively, period. You may have a good session here and there when the deck hits you in the face, but passive approach will cause you a lot of headache. If you notice a player who limp-calls a lot of hands when someone behind him raises, you can automatically assume he is pretty bad.

How to use to your advantage: Try to isolate this player by making somewhat larger raises so to isolate him and play him heads up in pots. This kind of a player will rarely cause you any troubles, as they will usually play aggressively when they have the goods and will end up just calling you down with weak holdings.

Taking an excessive amount of time to bet

Indications: One of the classic online poker tells is the extreme delay in making a bet or especially a raise.

While online players often react slowly due to the popularity of playing multiple tables, if a player breaks from his usual betting time by delaying and then making a big raise it usually indicates strength.

This is an old-fashioned case of “weak means strong“. The bettor appears to deliberate because he isn’t sure about his action but in reality, he is simply acting and waiting to pounce.

How to use to your advantage: Tend to shy away from delayed big bets. At the same time, you may use this method to pull off the occasional bluff against the opponents who also know this tell.

Check-raising the river

Hand strength: Usually nuts or virtual nuts. On occasion it will be an elaborate bluff

Indications: This is an online poker tell you can use in both live and online poker games with a high degree of certainty. Check-raise on the river is rarely a bluff.

You know that bad gut feeling you get when you get check-raised on the river holding a decent, but not nutted hand? It’s there for a reason, as more often than not, the raiser will show up with a nuts or very close to it. Unless you are playing in high stakes games against a bunch of tough pros, this is your signal to get out of the dodge.

How to use to your advantage: Just stay disciplined and don’t try to hero call here too often. You will just be throwing good money after bad.

Conclusions about online poker tells

While there are countless numbers of strategic elements you should incorporate into your game before bothering with tells, some of the scenarios outlined above can help you stay clear of obvious big hands or take away pots from seemingly weak ones.

While online poker players don’t have the luxury of watching out for trembling hands or nervous ticks, the key to online poker tells is watching out for deviations in betting time and reading betting patterns.

One of the largest disadvantages to online poker is the lack of physical tells you can pick up on your opponents.

At brick and mortar cardrooms, poker veterans can often gain insight into their opponent’s potential holdings by spotting subtle (or not so subtle) physical mannerisms like a quick look away from the flop or that the player to their left is ready to toss in his cards.

What you gain in convenience playing online poker you lose in body language that can be used to get a read on your opponent.

The few reliable online poker tells and how to use reverse tells

However, there are still a few somewhat reliable online poker tells that you can use while playing.

The main online “tell” is the time that it takes your opponent to bet.

Pre-selected folding/checking

If you see an instantaneous bet at a player’s turn to act, it usually means that he has used one of the pre-select buttons that are available in all online poker software interfaces.

Common pre-selects include “check/fold”, “check/call”, “raise any”, and “call/raise”. By clicking a pre-select button, the player tells the software to act for him as soon as it is his turn. If you click “check/fold” from the button after the flop is dealt, you’re telling the software to check if no one has bet and fold if someone has.

One common use of the “check/fold” pre-select is from the big blind when a player is holding a weak hand since he isn’t going to play if it is raised. You should be aware of this and you’ll see an instantaneous check when it is used.

The best spot to take advantage of this is from late position without many players in the hand.

If you’re checked to on the flop instantaneously go ahead and bet regardless of what’s on the board. Much more often than not, the big blind will give up the hand without a fight. Some players even leave the “check/fold” clicked on the flop so it can be a very easy steal. This is even more effective when a face card flops.

Using the check/call pre-select to confuse opponents

Savvy players can also use this to their advantage when they pick up a big hand from the big blind. While I don’t usually recommend slowplaying big hands online you should throw this move into the mix occasionally to show that you’re willing to change gears.

What you can do is click “check/call any” when you have a premium hand like pocket Aces or Kings from the big blind. If the pot isn’t raised, your opponents will think that you actually clicked the “check/fold” button.

Most of your opponents will assume that the blinds are always holding trash so you can throw them a loop on the flop when you lead out with a bet or check-raise them.

Instantaneous raises

While it is seldom used, you should also be aware of instantaneous raises as this usually indicates a strong hand. If you aren’t holding much I would recommend folding your mediocre hands to an instant raise.

You can also use this pre-select as a bluff once in a while to try and pick up the blinds and/or confuse your opponents. Of course, your opponents can do that, too.

Other online poker tells: multi-tabling

Another way to pick up potential tells is to see which of your opponents are playing multiple tables. If your software doesn’t have a “Find Player” feature just click around the tables at similar limits and look for their screen name.

If they’re at more than one table chances are they won’t have as much time or attention to devote to each individual hand. Of course, this isn’t always true but you might try playing aggressively heads-up against multi-table players.

Since they have to make quick decisions and get back to other tables they usually won’t bluff as much or make sophisticated plays as often.

How to not give away your own online tells

In a real cardroom, one way to eliminate given tells is to always in the same way using the same hand, the same method of stacking chips, etc.

Since online poker tells are mostly based on betting time, consistently wait the same amount of time before you check, bet, or raise. You might count to 2 or 3 before making an action every time.

Pre-select folds are fine and I recommend doing this to help speed up the game if it’s an easy throwaway. The most important aspects you should master in online poker is hand selection, position, and the right way to play after the flop.

However, once you feel comfortable with your actual gameplay consider using some of the above tells to maximize bluffing opportunities and pick up a potential clue on your opponent’s hand.

When poker makes an appearance in a film or dramatic television there is often quite a strong emphasis on physical tells, which is understandable as it’s much better subject matter for entertainment. It gives non-players the notion that it is an essential part of the game and the only way of gathering information on opponents.

In reality, not only do live players often fail to give off reliable tells but online poker tables, where the majority of hands are played today, lack any kind of physical presence.

Despite that seeming disadvantage of online play I would like to focus this article on using online-only tools such as player notes and statistical tracking software to give what are likely to be better “tells” than those classic physical mannerisms.

Taking notes on the only reliable “tell” in online poker

Aside from playing the game situation and the generic likelihood of your opponents holding certain hands in certain position making certain bets, paying attention to your opponents’ tendencies online is just about the only reliable thing you can do in online poker to judge what others are holding.

With online poker you have the ability to take notes, color code, and gain statistics on every player at the table.

Tracking software can store notes outside of the poker room’s software

Most modern poker software clients nowadays allow you to store notes on players, but if you use tracking software like Hold’Em Manager or Poker Tracker you also have the option of storing the notes in this application instead of the poker client.

If you also use the HUD feature of your tracking software then it is probably best to also use this software for note taking.

By doing this you can take additional notes when you are reviewing your sessions away from the tables and if you play on several different skins of the same poker network you will have access to the same notes across all skins.

How to take useful player notes

Keep notes on other players objective, useful, and concise, avoiding emotional or tilt-induced comments.

When you bring up a player’s note collection for later use in a hand you do not want to be looking at things like ‘Donk!’ or ‘Hit flush on me for chip lead in an MTT when he should have folded’.

While they might have vented some frustration at the time, they are now useless in terms of advice on how to play future hands. It’s much more useful to have notes like:

• “plays draws passively“
• “calls big bets with flush draw“
• “bets full pot on river with big hands out of position“

Using Shorthand to Take Notes

To increase the speed at which you can both take and read your notes you will want to use abbreviations for common verbiage.

For example, when I come across an opponent who likes to play his draws aggressively by betting out with them I will write DD in my notes for that player, which stands for “drives draws”. When I come across a player who will attack any sign of weakness by betting I will write POW which stands for “pounces on weakness”.

I’ve borrowed several of the abbreviations I use from a book called Killer Poker Online 2 by John Vorhaus, which has a whole section called “My Codes” that I happened to be reading when I first started taking player notes seriously.

You can borrow others’ abbreviations or come up with your own system but make sure you keep them simple and memorable to you personally. If necessary, keep a list of your abbreviations next to your computer until they become second nature.

Using question marks effectively

Another quick trick you may find useful is adding a question mark the first time you notice something then removing it once it’s confirmed.

For example, as mentioned above when you see a player who drives draws then you might write ‘DD?’ the first time you see it then simply remove the question mark the second or third time you see it.

This is particularly useful if you don’t have the luxury of HUD statistics to fall back on, which scours showdown card history for you and automatically gives you an opponent’s likely course of action.

A single action doesn’t warrant a permanent player note

To reiterate the last point, a single action by a poker player means very little and doesn’t warrant a permanent note.

There are so many reasons for a player to make a play once, twice, or even over an entire playing session yet would not define their typical playing style.

Players might play a garbage starting hand out of position or draw to a hand I know I shouldn’t once in a while out of restlessness, boredom, or, as is the case with winning players, if they feel they hold a skill advantage over the rest of the table.

Others could be on emotion-based tilt thanks to a bad beat or a fight with a family member that could skew your notes for an entire play session. You don’t want to be basing expensive decisions on those special circumstances.

Build up a long-term library of play against specific opponents before using notes as a basis for a decision.

If you haven’t done that yet, stick to your basic strategy that relies on starting cards, position, and the betting patterns of your opponent(s).

When to take notes on players

You should take notes when you are playing a hand and notice a particular pattern in your opponent(s’) play.

However, if you are not involved in a hand you can still pay attention to the action and take notes when appropriate. This is especially true of hands that go to showdown because as you will have see how they played while knowing what they were holding.

For example, you can see a player was betting all three streets with a flush draw, and make a preliminary note that he is willing to play draws aggressively. It’s free information without even having to be involved in the hand personally.

Obviously, you won’t be able to watch every hand if you’re playing multiple tables or doing something else between hands you’re involved in but if you only have one game open it’s a great way to stay focused and gather a feel for the rest of the table.

Use color coding on sites that support it

In addition to notes some sites allow you to color code or tag your opponents with certain images that appear next to their screen name. This can be extremely useful for quickly categorizing opponents into a few different player types such as maniac, calling station, TAG, LAG, fish, etc.

On some sites, this is made as simple as two clicks so you can easily color code people as soon as you have played a few hands with them or notice a clear pattern of play.

Not only does color coding allow you to quickly gauge the make up of a table which will speed up multi-tabling and decision making, but it also allows you to spot good (or bad) tables in the lobby and can be a factor in choosing the best games to play in, either gravitating towards those you have marked as inexperience or avoiding tables full of tough regulars you always see coming out ahead.

Color coding, as with player notes, is a long-term project and benefit as it will take running across those you have recorded in future playing sessions.

Building a library of player notes is a long-term project that varies on the size of the poker site

The time needed to reach that holy grail where you have notes and data on the majority of the table will vary highly by the number of players at the respective poker room.

At a smaller US poker room, like America’s Cardroom, you might be playing with the same 20 or 30 players every night on the $1/2 NL tables so gathering data on them is both quick and incredibly powerful.

On a busy international site you may never reach the point where 3 or 4 tablemates have played with you before but any reliable extra information is valuable.

Notes on anonymous tables

An extremely interesting development in recent years is the use of anonymous tables, which completely eliminate notes or statistics from the game.

Adopted first by Ignition Poker, players are no longer identified by their screen names at the tables. Instead, everyone is assigned a random number that changes every time they sit down.

It’s an ingenious way to cut down on veteran players while making beginners feel less intimidated since they can’t be followed around and targeted.

The aim is to have an overall softening of the games, making them less desirable to sharks who take notes and use HUD data to gain an advantage. If the sharks can’t use those tools, figures the poker room, they will move on to ones they can.

Largely, this has been effective as Ignition Poker continues to be one of the loosest poker rooms online.

Anonymous tables render player note useless

As someone who uses notes and players stats there’s simply no way to combat anonymous tables. The playing field is somewhat evened out in that everyone will simply have to rely on their playing skills as opposed to data gathering skills.

Player notes can give you a sizable advantage over lazier opponents

In summary, poker is a battle of information. How much you can get out of your opponents while limiting or disguising the information your opponents get from you is poker in an abstract nutshell.

Using a HUD, taking notes, and color coding your opponents will give you as much information as possible and potentially give you a sizable advantage over inattentive players. It’s one of the few aspects to online poker that can truly only be done online thanks to technology.

Saving you the cost of an enormous bluff or helping you value bet your way to a massive pot is worth the few moments of taking a note or learning a HUD program every time.

When playing online poker, recognizing betting patterns and trying to compare them with the hands your opponents have shown down is really the only way to get a realiable read on a player or what he’s holding in any given hand.

Another important mid-hand tool in no limit hold’em for inducing betting patterns and analyzing your position in a hand is to pay for information.

When you should be paying for information

Most often, you’ll be willing to pay for more information with a good, but not great, hand where the right decisions can either maximize your value bets when you have the best hand or minimize your losses when you’re beat.

You are “paying” for the information by making a bet or raise with the intention of narrowing down your opponent’s range of holdings by his reaction.

You can’t check or fold for information. If you check out of position and your opponent bets, this tells you very little about the strength of his hand. Perhaps he has a monster or perhaps he just senses weakness and is trying to take the pot away from you.

If you call an opponent’s bet you haven’t learned anything, either. You’ve merely learned that your opponent is willing to bet and he could be doing it for a wide range of reasons.

Information is only useful if you structure it properly

Once you’ve decided to pay for information, you need to make sure the information will be useful to you once you receive it. Just because you throw out a bet doesn’t mean that you can find out reliable information about your opponent’s hand.

You need to size the bet properly, use it in the right situations, and think critically about why your opponent reacts the way he does.

Let me try to display how this all goes together with a couple of examples:

Paying for information: Example 1

Let’s say that you’re playing a $1/2 no-limit Hold’em cash game and pick up A-K of hearts from the button. You’ve been playing for about an hour and have about $200 in front of you. Several other players have your stack covered.

A fairly straightforward and conservative player who has about $300 opens the pot from early position for $10.

What is the right move here?

Your three basic moves are to fold, call, or reraise. Obviously, you aren’t folding here with a premium hand and position on the raiser, so should you call or reraise? I’m not going to attempt to answer that definitively as it is largely situational and there is no true “correct” answer.

There is nothing “wrong” with calling and, in fact, it can be a good decision against a conservative player. If it was a loose-passive or loose-aggressive player raising you should tend to isolate him and build up a pot in position with a reraise.

Against a conservative player, I will just call with A-K suited in position about 30-40% of the time.

Try to pay for more information by re-raising

However, let’s look at how you can pay for more information by re-raising. Let’s say that you make a modest raise to $25 or $30. You’ve made a strong play and defined your hand.

Assuming everyone folds back around to the raiser, he’s most likely to do one of two things if he’s a conservative player:

1. Put in a third raise (or go all-in) with Aces or Kings
2. Call with anything less (unless he made an uncharacteristic play with trash).

His reaction here should give you golden information about his hand.

• If he puts you all-in you can safely fold the hand.
• If he just calls, you can probably deduce that he has a strong hand like pocket Jacks, Queens, or A-K as well and play accordingly on the flop.

Of course there are exceptions, but this is a perfect situation for gathering extra information with a bet.

Paying for information: Example 2

You’re in a $1/2 game and have K-J of diamonds on the button. Everyone, including you, has about an average stack of $200.

There are two limpers ahead of you from middle position and you just call as well with position. The small blinds folds and the big blinds checks. The flop brings a 9-K-2 of mixed suits.

The pot is about $10 and the earliest limper bets out $6 and the second limper folds.

How can you pay for information here?

In this situation you might want to raise. You don’t raise necessarily because you feel like you have the best hand. You very well may not with several players and a weak kicker.

However, raising here can save you money on the turn and river.

If you raise to about $15, you can pretty much decide if your hand is good at this point.

If you get re-raised you certainly are gone. If you get called you should probably fold to a decent bet on the turn or river. It’s unlikely that a hand worse than yours would bet out on future rounds unless it is a busted straight draw.

The conclusion is that by paying for information with $15 bet on the flop you either win the pot immediately or save money by calling future small bets.

If you call the $6 on the flop and then another, say, $12 on the turn, and $15 on the river praying that you somehow win in a showdown that adds up to $33. You can most likely find out that same information on the flop for less than half the price.

How paying some of your stack for more information can be a healthy strategy

As you can see from these two examples, it is preferable at time to pay for information even if it doesn’t win you the hand outright. If sized properly and made in the right situations, betting and raising can significantly narrow down the possible holdings of your opponent.

Also, betting and raising now can also save you money on later streets. Instead of just calling and leaving the pot control in your opponent’s hands, take back control and try to gain information by betting and/or raising.

I recently read a piece that Phil Gordon wrote for Full Tilt Poker on the subject of raising for the minimum in no-limit cash games. Phil is known for moderate tournament success, his Little Green Book, and hosting the insufferable Celebrity Poker Showdown.

While the article was short, it was one of his more poignant essays about a subject that is rarely discussed in classic poker strategy outlets.

What exactly are we talking about here? An example would be the following situation.

Pitfalls of the minimum reraise

You’re playing in a 9-handed $1/2 no-limit hold’em cash game and you make a standard raise to $8 with A-Q suited from middle position. Everyone folds around to the original limper who makes it $16 to go. This mostly happens in low-limit online cash games where players often misplay big pairs.

Almost every time you make a raise and get reraised the minimum amount preflop in one of these cash games, you’re facing a premium hand, namely pocket A-A or K-K. My goal here is to dissuade you from making such a play.

Let’s look at 3 fundamental problems with this play and how you can use this knowledge to exploit opponents who don’t know better…

1. A minimum raise preflop all but gives your hand away.

While you might think that this play disguises your hand and helps to build a pot, the truth is that you’ve given observant opponents powerful information about your holding. You’re forcing your opponents to think, “I’ve already put in a healthy raise. What cards would he make a minimum reraise with?”

Clearly, you aren’t trying to win the pot right now, which probably rules out hands like A-J, J-J, 10-10, or A-Q, in which most sensible opponents are happy to take down a pot without seeing a flop or just smooth call with.

You probably aren’t playing a small pocket pair like 8-8 or 4-4, since that would just be silly move. Your goal with these hands is to see a cheap flop and hit a set. If you were on a bluff with rags, you probably would have put in a manlier reraise to intimidate me.

A premium pocket pair is likely

This all leaves you with 3 possible premium pocker pairs: Q-Q, K-K, A-A. I don’t know about you, but with pocket Queens I’ll usually either just call to see if the flop brings overcards or reraise healthily to force out the tricksters and mediocre hands.

You’ve probably got pocket Kings or Aces. Sure, someone could be making a very unusual play and pulling a complete psychological false tell bluff over on you with the minimum raise, but most players are ignorant as to what this tactic means in the first place.

It’s probably an ineffective tool in the arsenal of a player who knows a thing or two about the transparent book of plays from the typical online poker player.

The fact is that this seemingly advanced play rarely keeps your hole cards a mystery.

2. A minimum reraise gives your opponents excellent pot odds to draw out on you

Poker players, especially the online variety, love to bemoan about how their opponents sucked out on their pocket Aces. While you’ll find plenty of bad players who will routinely go against the odds to do just that, a player who makes one of these minimum raises has nothing to complain about because he has given his opponent excellent odds to do it.

If I’ve got pocket 10-10 and raise to $10 in a $1/2 game and you reraise me from the button to $20 with A-A, you’re giving me over 3 to 1 pot odds on my call (it costs me $10 to play and the pot is already $33).

If, say, the big blind calls your $20 raise before play gets back to me, I’m now getting over 5 to 1 pot odds. That doesn’t even include the implied odds of getting all your money in the pot on the flop when I spike my third 10.

Raise less and it’s even more of a no-brainer for me. I would be more than unobservant if I didn’t call a raise like that with pretty much any hand. You’re simply giving too great of a price if you make the minimum reraise play.

3. You miss out on a great amount of value with the minimum reraise

When you make such a small raise, you aren’t building much greater of a pot. Since your goal, of course, is to make the most money with your premium hands, you should start before the flop when you definitely have the best hand. As we’ve established above, you’re almost giving away your hand with the minimum reraise.

If you reraise 3 times the initial raise or perhaps the size of the pot, your opponents will have less of an idea of what you have and you’ll be building a nice pot. Sure, you’re sending the signal that you have a big hand – but that could be something like Q-Q or A-K.

Your opponent will be more likely to blow off his chips when he hits a pair of Kings on the flop with Big Slick since he’s already committed a good chunk of his stack.

Hopefully we’ve all come to the conclusion that the minimum reraise is not the most effective use of the reraise option.

You’re giving away valuable information to experienced players (exactly the type of player that you want to fool), offering excellent pot odds to the initial raiser, and you usually won’t make as much money in the hand.

Alternative strategies to the minimum raise

If you’re looking to be ultra deceptive, you can try to smooth call a preflop raise with your pocket Aces (please note that I rarely recommend this for online play… or any play for that matter). If you’re going to take a risk, it’s much more effective at hiding the strength of your hand.

Regardless, I recommend a sizeable reraise with your premium pocket pair.

If everyone folds, you still won the pot and your Aces didn’t get cracked, RIGHT?!

Key Takeaways