Online Tells and Giveaways

For years, I have been known strictly as a brick-and-mortar cash-game player. Just recently, I shifted my attention 100 percent to online play. I play regularly in small no-limit hold'em ring games, in order to work my way up to the biggest limits soon. The majority of my time, though, is spent in my favorite game – $10-$20 blinds pot-limit Omaha high – at two of the biggest sites. I have logged about 100,000 hands, so by no means can I call myself an experienced online player just yet. Despite this limited experience, a few things have struck me that could just be specific to these select games at these two sites, I don't know. What I do know is that I have found clear giveaways in these games regarding the general characteristics of players, based upon some seemingly simple thing, including the following:



The players' names



Coincidence or not, those who have their screen names written in capital letters are almost without exception quite aggressive. The majority of them are actually loose-aggressive, and a substantial number are absolute maniacs. On the other hand, players who have their screen names written in lowercase letters seem to be quite tight, and there are even a fairly high number of absolute nits. Obviously, there is not a 100 percent correlation (lowercase letters/tight players, capital letters/highly aggressive players), but there is at least some correlation between the two. So, those who agree with this and are smart would be well-advised to write their screen names differently, at least for these specific games; that is, choose capital letters if they are tight and lowercase letters if they are loose-aggressive. This way, they could lure people like me into making the wrong assumptions, at least until we have other more reliable information to base our decisions on.



The size of the buy-in



At one of these sites where I play, there's a minimum buy-in of $400 and a maximum buy-in of $2,000. Those players who regularly buy in for the minimum usually play a much tighter strategy than those who buy in for the maximum. There are exceptions, as there are indeed a few players who always buy in for the max, yet voluntarily enter a pot (VEP) much less than 18 percent of the time, and raise before the flop (PFR) less than 7 percent of the time. While some $400 buy-in players are somewhat weak-tight and are small-stakes players who are playing a bit scared, a fairly high percentage of them are small and sometimes even big winners. There are, of course, a few minimum buy-in "gamblers" who simply like to pump up the pot without it costing them that much, but there seems to be fewer players like this in the bigger games than in the smaller ones. The gamblers can often be found among the loose-aggressive big-stack players. However, the nature of pot-limit Omaha is such that good and highly aggressive big-stack players can have a VEP of 40 percent and a PFR of 18 percent, yet still be long-term winners. So, make sure that you don't mistake a good and highly aggressive player for a simple gambler just because you see him make big raises from the button with hands like the Q J 9 7 or the 8 7 6 4. If you do, you will underestimate his skill level – and if you are playing a big stack also, you may find that he will take your money more often than you will take his.



Check-raising



In general, the (few) good players who employ a minimum buy-in strategy use the check-raise more frequently than others, and their bets and (check-raises) are usually pot-sized. Quite clearly, these tight-aggressive players should be given very little action, because whenever they are involved, they are likely to be holding good or even premium hands. Big stacks, on the other hand, usually check-raise significantly less, because they are too busy building pots and stealing pots. If they also check-raise a high percentage of the time, their opponents would give them even less credit for a hand when betting out – knowing that the chances of them bluffing or semibluffing have gone up. (Please note that when playing a big stack in pot-limit Omaha, it is often correct to employ a somewhat loose-aggressive approach. A tight-aggressive approach with a VEP of less than 20 percent and a PFR of about 6 percent or 7 percent works very well when playing a short stack, but may be a bit too tight for big-stack play. It carries the danger of (a) becoming too predictable and too "cards-oriented," (b) not optimizing positional advantages enough, and © not exploiting opponents' specific weaknesses enough.)



Pace of betting



While in brick-and-mortar play a quick bet is often made with a weak hand and a slow bet often means a real powerhouse, online it seems to be different, especially for big-stack loose-aggressive players. In the games I play, I have noticed that a fairly high percentage of the very fast bets are made with monster hands. Very fast maximum preflop raises, especially, seem to indicate aces very often. While sometimes this may be because these players are simply using the "raise any" button, it seems that many good players don't like to act just "strong when weak," but also "strong when strong." Betting quickly when holding a premium hand seems to be an important part of this pattern.



Some final words


Of course, it is always important to look at someone's individual characteristics instead of relying on general ones that could be flat-out wrong for specific players. Still, without any other information to rely on, these four seemingly simple tells and giveaways could help you make a better decision in a hand, and you can continue to use them until you have more concrete and reliable data to base your decisions on.



Rolf Slotboom is a longtime professional, specializing in limit hold'em, pot-limit Omaha, and, more recently, no-limit hold'em ring games. He is the co-author of Hold'em on the Come, the author of the upcoming book Pot-Limit Omaha My Way, the commentator for the Eurosport EPT broadcasts, and the Card Player Europe bureau chief. He is the semiofficial 2005 Dutch Champion, and maintains his own site at http://www.rolfslotboom.com/.