Online Poker Calculator

Your online poker calculator is probably the best internet poker tool on the planet, but as well as it’s many great features it also has a big drawback that none of us can ignore. That drawback is that the poker calculator application is basically just a brainless poker calculator. It tells you to hit or stand based purely on the cards that you have and what the other player(s) are holding. Thus if you don’t really know what your opponent is holding it will be much more difficult to determine if you are ahead or behind in the hand.

In a follow up to How to Read Your Poker Calculator, I’ll talk about a few of the more common tells, why they occur, and how to avoid them.

1. The “Check” tell

This is the most common and the one that sets a lot of players up for trouble. Essentially what the check does is to stop your opponent from making a move and/or betrying. If your opponent check allows a free card they may take it as a sign of weakness. So you can see how checking can be a powerful tell, but you have to be careful as well.

If your opponent is coming out or is playing very weak hands, they may be planning a check raise. If you have a strong hand you can do a check raise of your own, pretending to do a check raise (especially on forums). This would give you the image of a strong player who can take the pot back from your opponents.

2. The “Wait” tell

If your opponent acts strong, but his hands are scared, they may be scared of losing a big pot. Your opponent may be fishing for a call, or hoping you will fold, or anything in fact. Your opponent’s actions are oftenoseous at this time.

If you have a good hand, you can confidence yourself to take the pot. If you don’t have a good hand, and your opponent bets first, you can raise him. He may not want to call, but if he does call, you can guarantee that he won’t be coming back from a losing hand.

3. The “Fast Check” tell

Here you can see that the player is trying to hide a big hand. They might be unsure of exactly what to do, and are playing it “by Vodka138“. You’ll see a player who gave a fast check before the flop, and then sat back in their chairs and indicated they had a good hand.

The instant bet wins any poker hand, unless if your opponent called a bet on the flop, it’ll still take them a second to get over the hand. This is a great tell to observe.

Typically, these players don’t want to create the impression that they are new to the game, so I won’t say anything negative about those players. I’ve had great success against them, so I wouldn’t worry too much, and the best off-line players that I know are aware of how to work with deception and know when to lay down a big hand.

Master this area and you will be masters of online poker.