Royal Flush Poker

Reading a player online is always going to be slightly more complicated than in real life poker simply because you cannot see the person you are attempting to read. Regardless of this there are still some very strong indicators of an opponents strength to be found in their betting patterns. Being aware of how players around you are reacting to situations is very helpful to making your read of a player, if a player bluffs and shows their cards afterwards for instance, make a note. Similarly if a player is folding their hole cards almost every hand, be very careful if they raise into a pot, they are likely to have been waiting for a premium hand to get involved with.

The simple fact is that whether you are playing a live tournament or an online tournament, a player always raises for a reason. There is always a story behind every pattern of raising in a hand, the tough part of course is deciphering exactly why they are raising or calling, but you can read this just as well online as in a live game.

As well as studying your opponents betting patterns, if you put in tester bets and re raises, you induce reactions in your opponents betting pattern, this further supplements the ideas you are forming about the strength of their hand.

To summarise I would say that there are certainly more ways to read opponents in live poker, but it would be foolish to think that just because you cannot see your opponent, you cannot read the strength of their hand either.

There always ways which you must utilise to build a picture of where your hand stands, and you can do this with online play almost as well as with live play.