Paying Attention to Game Flow Online

If you’re accustomed to playing live poker, then you probably know how to spot some of the telltale signs of tilt. A player might start acting very quickly, throwing chips angrily into the pot, sighing, scowling, complaining, or rolling his eyes. With some people you can just feel the frustration pouring off of them.

It’s also a lot easier to keep up with the game flow when you’re playing live. You’re only playing one game, and there aren’t as many distractions as you’ll generally find at home on your computer. Thus, without even trying, you’ll usually have some idea of who’s recently lost a big pot, who’s up, who’s down, and who’s steaming.

What you may not realize is that these factors are nearly as significant in online poker, and while it can be trickier to keep up with the game flow, it’s still very feasible to do so. Just like in live poker, the speed with which a player acts often indicates something about his mindset. A player who suddenly starts acting much more quickly than he had been previously may well be steaming (possibly even from something that happened to him at another table) and in a hurry to play more hands so that he can get good cards and win a big pot.

Of course, the only way to realize something like this is to be paying enough attention to notice a sudden change in a player’s timing or a comment that he writes in the chat box. It may not always make sense to dedicate so much attention to one table of online poker. Missing tells like this is often a reasonable price to pay to be able to play more tables at once. When deep in a tournament, or playing a particularly large game, however, it pays to pay extra attention and pick up every little edge that you can.

Stacking a Steamer

During the recent World Championship of Online Poker on PokerStars, I routinely played fewer tables than usual so that I could focus on these once-a-year opportunities to play high stakes tournaments with hundreds (in some cases thousands) of players who rarely play such games. In a $500 rebuy event, I had the opportunity to extract quite a bit of value with a marginal hand thanks to some of the observations this extra attention yielded.

In the last orbit, I’d seen the player on my direct left play a hand badly and lose about a third of his stack. That hand may itself have been the result of tilt from something that happened on another table, or it may have caused him to start steaming itself. In any event, I resolved to keep an eye out for signs of tilty play from him.
He didn’t play another hand until the action folded to us in the blinds. The stakes were 60 and 120 with a 15 ante, and I opened to 300 with Q J. Villain made it 735 with 4014 behind, and I called. Even if he wasn’t steaming, his range in a blind battle ought to be plenty wide enough for me to call 435 more with a suited Q-J.

The flop was A J 9, and we both checked. I bet 999 into a pot of 1605 on a J turn, and he folded. What to make of that?

I doubt he expected me to fold to such a small raise preflop, and while he didn’t need a monster to raise me, I do think he believed he had the best hand. It must have been a particularly bad flop for him simply to check and give up. Starting with a pretty hand and then getting an awful flop can be a source of significant frustration. Since he didn’t get to see my hand, Villain might also have suspected that I stole the pot from him, another potentially tilting factor.

The very next hand, I raised to 240 with 7 5 on the button. Villain re-raised to 735 with 3264 behind. If I could put Villain on a very strong range heavily weighted towards pairs, I would have to fold. However, he seemed to be steaming and in any event willing to three-bet, at least against late position raisers, with less than premium hands. I’d have to proceed with caution, but if he was tilted, he was liable to make some significant postflop mistakes that could boost my implied odds, so I called.

The flop came A Q 5, and he very quickly checked. Remember that in our previous hand, his flop check resulted in a bet from me. It didn’t seem likely that he would just hand over another sizable pot to me without a fight, so I thought he had hit the ace and was trying to induce. Well, I wasn’t going to give him what he wanted. Happy to get free cards and/or show down my pair cheaply, I checked behind.

The turn was the 8, and he checked again. Still suspicious, I chose not to bet. Even if my fives were good, he was not likely to call with worse, so I didn’t have a lot to gain by betting.

The river was the 7, giving me two pair. Bottom two on the river with an ace on the board and flushes and straights possible is hardly a monster hand, but I was pretty sure it was good. My read was that Villain had paired the ace and had chosen to play it in a way that he hoped would induce me to bluff. Now I was finally ready to give him that “bluff” he’d been looking for. He bet 941 into the 1725 pot, and I put him all in for his last 2323. He quickly called with A-9, and I got his stack.

Had I not noticed his potentially tilt-inducing recent history, I probably would have folded to his three-bet, and I surely would have just called the river. It was only because I kept the events of the last orbit, including both a hand that he played with me and one in which I was not involved, in mind, that I knew to take two free cards against him and then go for a thin value shove on the river. ♠

Andrew Brokos is a professional poker player, writer and coach. He’s a member of Poker Stars Team Online and blogs about poker strategy on ThinkingPoker.net. Andrew is also interested in education reform and founded an after-school debate program for urban youth.