When playing poker online, one of the biggest "online poker tells" you can observe are your opponents betting patterns.  This article will discuss a very small specific "accidental tell" that you may observe online, and hopefully use it to your advantage. 

In online poker rooms, you have the ability to pre-select your planned action through a checkbox, before it is actually your turn to act.  This on its own can be a "tell" on your opponent, because their "pre-selected" action happens instantly when it is their turn to act.  The "accidental tell" happens when their action is not a pre-selected action, suggesting that maybe they performed an action by mistake, giving you a little information on if this person even wants to be in the hand.  This is hard to describe with words, so let me go into an example:

On Full Tilt Poker, before the action gets to you, you can click a checkbox indicating that you want to "Check/Fold" or just "Call" (or "check" if they're in the BB).  Obviously since online poker is software technology running on blazing broadband networks, the "actions" can happen quickly and catch people off-guard. 

Say an opponent wants to just limp in and "call" the blind.  They can pre-select the "call" checkbox, and when the action gets to him, the software automatically limps him in.  But, just as he's about to select the checkbox, you put in a good size raise, and now that checkbox he was about to select turns into a "Call" button that he accidentally (instantly) clicks.  You can recognize this betting pattern based on the speed of his response.  The action is typically fast in online poker, but when almost an instant "call" happens, this can suggest he hit that button by accident.  Especially if you put in a good size raise, typically someone would give it at least a full second of thought before calling.

If you happen to be heads-up with this person, you can potentially have a "tell" suggesting he may have a marginal hand that he originally just wanted to play with a cheap flop.  Use that to your advantage.  A typical continuation bet here may easily pick up the pot uncontested.

Likewise, you yourself should be careful using those "pre-action" checkboxes.  You may accidentally call an ALL-IN SHOVE with your 9-3 offsuit!  Good luck on the felt.

This article "Poker Betting Patterns - The Accidental Call or Raise" was originally published on Ezinearticles.com by J. Vito.

From beginner to experience poker players, the Full Tilt Poker Academy is another great (and free) educational, yet entertaining resource for you to learn to play poker, fix the leaks in your game and develop additional styles and strategies. 

Full Tilt Poker has the biggest names in poker!  These same professional poker players are essentially your "teachers" at the Academy.  Educational content is delivered through the following methods: Lessons, Sit-n-Learns, Challenges, Sessions and Podcasts. 

"Lessons" are online videos presented by one of the Pros discussing many different topics, which are organized by "Level" of difficulty.  This is the core of the educational content you get out of the FTP Academy.  You are sure to find many topics of interest regarding the games of poker, and the online videos are of high-quality and produced very nicely.

Many of the poker lessons have interactive "Sit-n-Learns", which are essentially quizzes that review the lesson you just took.  These are aimed to help you review and better learn poker concepts in the associated Lesson.  You also earn a "grade" on the quiz, based on not only choosing the correct answer, but how fast you answer them.  High scores may qualify you to play in restricted Freeroll Tournaments available only on Full Tilt Poker. 

"Challenges" are aimed to make youapplycertain skills you learned in the Lessons.  They give you objectives to accomplish on actual real money tables, and as you accomplish those objectives, you get credit for them in your "My Academy" account.  As you earn more Academy Credits, you move up in "Membership Levels" within the Academy, giving you access to higher level Lessons.  You can also spend these credits at the FTPA Store for a variety of poker related products and big prizes. 

Finally, the "Sessions" and "Podcasts" channels allow the FTP Pros to share actual game experiences and real hands, commenting on their thoughts as the hands play out.  These areas of the Academy is another nice way for you to learn how to "think and play like a pro". 

In order to access the Full Tilt Poker Academy (FTPA), you need to have a Player ID with Full Tilt, which means you would need to download and install the Full Tilt Poker software application.  But if you are reading this because you're interested in learning and improving your poker game, chances are you already have a Full Tilt Poker account or you would want one anyways.  And it's free!  So get your poker education on, have fun and good luck on the felt!

This article "Learn to Play Poker Online - Learn from the Pros at Full Tilt Poker Academy" was originally published on Ezinearticles.com by J. Vito.

With Texas Hold 'Em Poker's growing popularity and the myriad of books and resources available on the game it can be difficult for new poker players to know where to start their poker education.  If you're a new poker player, I highly recommend reading these books to start learning and improving your game.


Poker: The Real Deal - by Phil Gordon

This is an awesome book for beginner players new to Texas Hold 'Em poker.  Phil Gordon does an excellent job in making this book fun and easy to read, providing entertaining content as well as an introduction to strategy and analysis of the game without using too much technical terminology.  He takes you through the history, rules and basics of Texas Hold 'Em Poker, in addition to sample hands and math percentages, helping you quickly improve your game.  I highly recommend this as a first book for a new poker player.

Harrington on Hold 'em Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments, Vol. 1: Strategic Play - by Dan Harrington

For the ambitious beginner (and quite frankly for advanced experience players too) this is probably one of the best books in learning more about different styles (conservative to aggressive) and strategies of tournament poker.  As the title suggests, this book is focused on No-Limit Texas Hold 'Em Tournament Poker play.  The book is packed with not only great educational content, but also provides example "problems and challenges" to make you think and work through the content of each chapter. I have gone through this book 3 times in the 18 months, and as I gain more experience and see more hands, the content of this book continues to provide value and education. Beginners new to the game will have a great jump start on learning and improving their game.