When playing poker live, ‘tells’ such as shaking hands, a dry gulp, the tone of a player’s voice, or even what they’re wearing, can all be used to decipher the strength of an opponent’s hand, or their overall skill level and experience. When it comes to online poker, though, the general perception is that due to the lack of physical tells, the only reads you can get are to do with betting patterns and the previous behaviour of your opponents, and that those tells are somewhat unreliable at best.

I don’t subscribe to that line of thinking at all. Having played hundreds of thousands of hands on the internet I’m convinced online tells exist, and that if you’re paying attention, you can cash in...TIMING TELLS

1 THE SPEED OF YOUR OPPONENT’S CALL
Your opponent calls your bet for one of a number of reasons: either he’s trapping, drawing, unsure if he’s ahead, or floating.