Online Poker Tells
Inducing Calls through
Reverse Timing Tells

Online Poker Tells - In a Super Turbo, you will occasionally want your opponent to call. Obvious examples are when you hold AA or KK preflop or a really big hand postlop.

Here's a good spot to do it and how to get it done:

Online Poker Tells - Example 1 - It's 6-handed, and you are dealt AA in the small blind. Two players limp, and now it's on you. You started the hand with only 4 big blinds, so the only reasonable play is to go all-in. Raising smaller is going to look too strong and might allow someone to call and then fold postflop with something like 55 on a KJ9 board for example, so all-in is the recommended line.

But you should wait several seconds before pulling the trigger. You want your opponents to think you are trying to decide whether or not your hand is strong enough to make a move. If you go all-in fairly promptly, your opponents are probably going to envision you having something like JJ-77 or AK-AT. This might allow them to get away from something like T9 or K6s.

But if you take several seconds to act, your perceived range is going to starting looking more like 66-22, A9-A2 or maybe a spazzy bluff. They'll probably be a little suspicious that you're hollywooding with AA or KK, but there'll be plenty of doubt since they often see other players ship it in with hands like A7 or KJ in that spot, and since players (especially ones that limp a lot) are usually looking for a reason to call rather than a reason to fold, widening their perception of your range down to Ax and 22 will often be enough to nudge them into a call. And you will have accomplished it by reversing an online poker tell simply by slowing down your timing.

If instead of AA, you held JJ in the example above, you should not try to induce a call, since winning the dead money already in the pot would practically double your stack. You would not want to draw a call from a hand like A5s or QT. If it were a winner-take-all SNG you would, but not when top three get paid like in a Super Turbo.

If it was early in the SNG and you had a deeper stack like 255 at 15/30, then with JJ you would want to induce calls from loose limpers holding A5s or QT, because winning the dead money (although good) would not be as good as getting all-in against a dominated hand. So you WOULD want to induce calls.

The only hand that you wouldn't want to induce a call from with the JJ would be KQ. You would prefer KQ fold. Of course you don't want AK/AQ/AA/KK/QQ to call either, but they're never folding no matter what. So if you occasionally induce a call from one of the rare hands that you're coinflipping with, then those are the breaks. You had the right plan.

Delaying a few seconds to feign weakness also works well in blind-vs-blind confrontations as well as when you're 3-handed or heads-up.

And you don't always need big pairs to want to induce calls. One interesting spot where this is true is when you're 3-handed and everyone is 8 or more big blinds deep. Here you should want to induce calls wiwhen you have hands like AK-AJ and pairs down to about 88 or 99.

Although you hate getting called by something you're barely ahead of like KT when you have AQ or 88, most of the hands you induce calls from in this spot are hands you dominate such as AQ vs Ace-little, KQ, QJs or your 88 getting called by A8-A2 (note: 77-22 were probably calling no matter what).

Even some strong king-high hands can occasionally be worth trying to get action on ...

Online Poker Tells - Example 2 - It's 3-handed with around 5BBs stacks, and you are in the small blind after the button hans folded. Here you can try to draw calls even when you hold KQ, KJ and KT, since any better hand will call no matter what, you should encourage calls from weaker hands which will typically be dominated kings, queens or jacks.

You should always be aware of what you're trying to accomplish.

Online Poker Tells Tip: Be careful not to induce calls you don't want. For example, if you and the big blind are only 4 BBs deep on the bubble and you hold A8 in the small blind, don't try to lure him into the pot. Even though you're thrilled to have such a big hand for the situation, there are not many hands you want to induce a call from (that wouldn't have called you anyway). Sure, it's a great spot to get all-in against A3 with your A8, but A3 would have called no matter what.

But if you induce a call from something like K7s or Q9, that's a disaster. You're way better off winning the blind money.

Another great way to get action on you big hands in a Super Turbo is by limping big pairs. Here's an article on limping aces. This is an extremely profitable play in Super Turbos.

Limping Aces

return from "online poker tells" to "Inducing Folds"