Almost as soon as you start learning online poker strategy, you’re going to be hit with a barrage of information on tells and reading opponents.  And this info is extremely useful when you’re playing live poker since people can give out a lot of tells at the table.  Everything from physical tendencies to nervous twitches can reveal the strength of an opponent’s hand.

But in online poker, you can’t spot these live tendencies so it’s a lot tougher to read players.  Even with this being the case, there are plenty of people who would lead you to believe they can still read other online players.

They say to watch for the speed at which people make their calls; reacting slow reveals a strong hand because people want to fool you into thinking they had a tough decision, while reacting fast shows a weaker hand because they want you to think their hand is great and the call was easy.  In addition to this “nice” little tip, people also say to look at avatars, screen names, etc.

In reality though, trying to decipher tells in online poker can be a waste of time – especially if you play at the lower limits!  In fact, some players spend more time trying to strategize about the various psychological aspects of online poker when they should be focusing on more straightforward concepts.  After all, spending the entire game searching for that one little tell from a single player (who might leave the game soon anyways) isn’t as important as knowing your implied odds on a certain hand.

With this being said, you can still benefit from reading opponents and watching their betting tendencies.  In fact, doing so really pays off as you move up in stakes.  However, make sure you have all of the basic and intermediate strategy down before worrying so much about reading other players.

It always feels great to pull off a check-raise, doesn’t it?  But for every check-raise you successfully pull off, there will be plenty of times when your opponent simply checks and ruins your plans of capitalizing on a big hand.  The following scenario will illustrate how this scenario plays out sometimes.

Check-Raise gone Bad

Let’s say you’re in a game of $1/$2 Omaha and are holding Js-Ac-Ad-7h in the big blind.  Three players limp in before the dealer decides to make a small $5 raise right before the action gets to you.  With two aces, the small raise doesn’t scare you off, and you decide to call instead of folding pre-flop.  Two of the three limpers also decide to call the raise.

The flop comes up 4d-Ah-8s.  Now your fears of someone hitting a straight or a flush have been eased and you have the top hand with trips aces.  Of course, with three other players the hand, you are thinking about getting as much money as possible out of them.  So you decide to check, and the next two players check before the dealer throws out a $10 raise.

The turn comes up Ks, which puts both flush and straight draws on the board (however unlikely they may be at this point).  Looking to bait the dealer into a check-raise situation, you merely check again.  After the other two players check, the dealer only makes a $3 raise, and you go ahead with your re-raise of $10.

Your raise forces all three players to fold, including the dealer who were hoping would call.  And this definitely raises the question as to whether or not you benefited at all from the check-raise.  You only got an extra $3 out of the pot while forcing the other players to fold in a hand you obviously had control of.  A better move may have been to bet at the outset of the turn to see if anybody would’ve called and gone to the river.  While this might have been risky with draws on the board, it is unlikely that anyone would’ve called the flop raise with no flush or straight opportunities on the board.

There is no way to truly know what your opponent is holding during a poker game.  But with that being said, you can certainly make some very educated guesses as to what your opponents are holding.  In fact, the closer you can get with these guesses, the higher your profits will be in the long-run.  Seeing as how being able to put an opponent on a range is so important, here is a look at how to accomplish that task.

“Range” means exactly that

The most important thing to keep in mind when putting an opponent on a range is you’re only doing just that: putting an opponent on a range.  If an opponent is playing like they have K-K, you must assume that they could also have A-A, Q-Q, J-J, or A-K.  If your hand is close to this range, you could be involved in a coin flip.  But the key is to figure out if your hand is even close to the opponent’s range.

Example of putting an opponent on a range

Let’s say that there is a board of 8-4-Q-A-10, and there aren’t any realistic flush opportunities on the board.  Judging from the way your opponent has been betting, you think your opponent has either A-A or A-K.  Assuming your opponent goes all-in, this leaves you with a very tough decision because your trips queens win against top pair, yet lose against trips aces.

Luckily, you can easily assume you’re a winner in this situation because there are three aces left in the deck which means there are only 3 possible A-A combinations.  Likewise, there are twelve different A-K combinations left in the deck meaning you’re an 80% favorite to win this hand (12 A-K combinations/ 15 possible combinations).  Seeing as how you’re an 80% favorite, this is an easy call to make.