Don't Fear the Quick Bet

by Matt Lessinger

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Last month we discussed a common online tell: A player with a strong hand will often pause for a few seconds before betting. He wants to appear indecisive or confused, hoping that you will be more likely to pay him off.

This month we'll examine the flip side of that situation with another frequent online tell: A player with a weak hand will often bet quickly or even "auto-bet," hoping to convey strength. The same way that he wants to lure you into the pot by taking his time, he hopes that he can scare you off by acting instantly.

As Mike Caro says, "strong = weak."

In a B&M cardroom, a player might attempt to convey strength by firing his chips into the pot, or by aggressively announcing, "I bet!" in am effort to in timidate his opposition. Obviously, an online player cannot do those things. All he can do is try to use the speed of his bet as a form of in timidation.

The "auto-bet" option is a convenient feature offered by most sites. It is typically not available in no-limit and pot-limit, since you must specify your bet size. But in limit games, clicking "bet-in-turn" means you will automatically make a bet when the action reaches you, if everyone in front of you has checked.

Of course, if someone in front of you bets, the "bet-in-turn" box will be unchecked, and you can then act on your hand normally. For that reason, many players like to use the "bet-in-turn" option when they are bluffing or semi-bluffing. They want to make an attempt at stealing the pot if everyone shows weakness by checking, so they'll click the button, knowing that their bet will appear instantly if everyone checks to them. But, they can safely fold their weak hand if someone before them wakes up with a bet.

The auto-bet should seem especially suspicious when it comes from the player in last position. That is the prime bluffing spot anyway, but in the case of the auto-bet, it should catch your attention even more. That player is hoping you will equate quickness with strength. He wants you to believe that his hand is so strong that he didn't consider doing anything other than betting.

You, of course, should see right through that charade. Once you do, your job is to take maximum advantage of him. Check-raise him with marginal hands, or even with nothing! There's a good chance you'll pick up the pot right away, or else a follow-up bet might do the trick. But whatever you decide to do, you should not be in timidated by that quick bet. He knows that his quickness conveys strength, and he would not want to appear so strong if he truly had a big hand.

Opposites can be alike.

While the quick bet and long pause tells are essentially the opposite of one another, there are clearly some notable similarities:

  • Just like the long pause, the quick bet is a tell only if it contrasts with your opponent's normal tempo. In fact, any poker tell is meaningful only if it is not something your opponent typically does. So if he makes every bet with the same degree of quickness, there's no information to be gained. He is betting his strong and weak hands equally fast, so you should ignore his bet speed when you decide what action to take.
  • Just like the long pause, the quick bet becomes a less reliable tell if your opponent is in multiple games. Let's say he has a playable hand at more than one table. If he decides to bet one of them, he might click auto-bet on that table just so he can go and concentrate on his other table.

In addition, the typical multi-game player bluffs less frequently than a single-game player. Bluffing involves a higher degree of attention than the multi-game player can normally afford to give. He is more likely to play a straightforward brand of poker, so the quick bet is less likely to be a bluff than if it came from a single-game player.

As you might guess, it's a good idea to do a player search for each of your opponents. That way, you can easily find out if they are playing at other tables, and you can use that information accordingly.

  • As with any possible tell, you should take notes to determine its reliability. If you see someone auto-bet, you should then pay careful attention to his hand if it gets shown, even if you're not involved in the action. If his hand is weaker than average, as you might suspect, then you should see if it happens again. If it happens more than once, then chances are you've picked up a reliable tell, and you can make mention of it in that player's notes, by saying something like "auto-bet = weak." On the other hand, if he happens to show a strong hand, you should note that too, by saying, "auto-bet does not necessarily indicate weakness."

The main difference:

Generally speaking, the quick bet is a much more reliable tell than the long pause. As we discussed last month, someone could pause before betting for a lot of unrelated reasons. He could be playing at another table, his Internet connection could be slow, or he might be distracted by something at home. If any of those things is happening, then the long pause could be purely unintentional.

On the other hand, a quick bet is always intentional, and it's never an accident when a player auto-bets. Therefore, you don't have to worry about the possibility that you're reading too much into the fast bet. The player is doing it for a reason, and it's up to you to determine that reason. With the long pause, you might be giving a player credit for a big hand when he's simply a vic tim of a slow Internet connection.

Your "default" read.

You always want to gather as much information as possible about an opponent. You especially want to track his patterns so that you can make more informed decisions against him. But, if you're seeing an opponent for the first time, you are often forced to make educated guesses. And if a new opponent comes out with an auto-bet, more often than not, you can make the educated guess that his hand is weaker than his bet would lead you to believe. In the absence of any other information, it should serve you well as a default read.

Matt Lessinger's "Bet With Less" column appears in Card Player magazine. He can be reached at mlessinger@hotmail.com.

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