Reading the silence

[elindauer]

I made a play in the party 15 game based on a sense of weakness in my opponents (see "getting LAGGY in the party 15"). I was tired and probably the play wasn't a good one, that's not the point. The question I'm posing here is, how much credit do you give to reads based on the amount of time it takes a player to act when playing on-line?

I personally give a decent amount of credit to action delays when I'm looking at borderline decisions. Granted, not the same kind of credibility I'd give at a live table, where I can see if the guy just got a phone call or not, but still, quite a bit. I've found that slightly longer than normal pauses often mean a weak made hand, legitimately trying to decide whether or not to continue. Really long pauses followed by raises are often monsters. Anyways, the point is, these pauses, I find, do offer insight into what your opponent is thinking, and I use them to my (perceived) advantage.

What do you think? Is it better to ignore this information? Have you found that you've given away bets or (yuck) pots when reading players this way? Or perhaps, do you use some of these as pure tells? Have you ever called / folded in non-borderline situations based on a read like this?

Thanks,
Eric

[7Dave]

I use it but not overuse it kind of. But a "think-a-few-seconds-then-call" on the flop followed by a raise on the turn "me don't like"...

/d

[mmcd]

I used that exact tell here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=896689&page=5&view=co llapsed&sb=5&o=14&fpart=1#896689

[Doubling12]

My favorite two are:

Strong, quick bet on the flop = hands with negative implied odds.

Bet on the river made with much less thinking than previous bets = whatever they were afraid of did not happen, or they just hit 2 pair or better (usually applies to person leading with AT and ace high flop, or something like that).

The second one has saved me quite a bit. People are reading you too - my advice is to play with your hand at your side, not on the mouse. Believe it or not, it cured a bout of LAGgy FPS I was going through a couple of months ago.

[Nightwish]

Be careful with this. I've been having a lot of trouble with my Party connection lately. It's stable, but just slow, so all of my decisions seem to take 3-4 seconds. The point I'm trying to make is you shouldn't read too much into these delasy.

[elindauer]

Sure, but it's easy to spot somebody who always seems to be slow. For most players, they act quickly, and then they have a pause after, say, you bet on the turn after a 3rd flush card arrives. That's not likely to be a connection issue, the guy is much more likely to be reacting to your bet.

Point taken though. Certainly you want to use information like this in borderline situations. Folding a big hand in a big pot because the guy thought forever then bet would not be prudent.


my 2 cents.
Eric