The Science of Poker Tells part three

Carrying on from part two then and this is an adaptation of the acting weak but actually is strong ploy only this time it is being executed in online poker games. Of course because you cannot physically see the players in online poker, it is perfectly possible that this player could be distracted by something at home or because they are multi-tabling. As I stated earlier, for any tell to be accurate either live or online then it has to be observed at least several times.

Screen name tells!

Believe it or not it is perfectly possible to garnish potential profitable information by simply looking at the names of your opponents and also where they are from. Most players do not put an awful lot of thought into this part of their game but it is perfectly possible to reveal an awful lot about yourself to savvy opponents by just blindly rushing in and choosing any old name.

I once played in a Limit Hold’em game online where there was a player that had a female name and was chatting in such a way as to make the entire table believe that they were in fact female. Of course in online play then there is no firm evidence to prove that the player concerned is anything other than what they appear to be at the outset.

But as time went on and I observed this poker player some more then conversations that they were having with other players at different times seemed to indicate very strongly that this player was lying about their gender.

So what does all of this mean? Well at the very least it indicates that this player for whatever reason is being deceptive and is lying at the outset and is also going out of their way to lie. By trying to get their opponents to think that they are female then this is an attempt to affect their opponents train of thought. In my book, any person who is capable of this must also be a contender to be lying when they are involved in a pot as well i:e bluffing.

Another attempt at deception is when players refrain from revealing where they are from. There could be viable reasons for doing this like someone who does not want to be approached by people who they may know or from their general area as many people feel the need to strike up conversations online with poker players who are geographically close to them.

Many players of course wish to remain anonymous for personal reasons like they do not want anyone to know that they play poker online and do not want to be pegged as some “degenerate gambler” by their friends and family.

A more sinister reason to conceal your whereabouts is if you are in fact colluding with other players and you do not want the other players cottoning onto you too quickly. Look out for part four of this series coming soon to Holdem Poker.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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