How to Use the Chat Box to Win at Online Poker
Playing poker online can be fun and profitable. One way you can make online poker more fun and profitable is to incite and exploit other players through deft use of the chat box.
Nearly all online poker software now includes a chat function. This is the little box where you can interact with other players, post messages and view messages that other people post.
Believe it or not, you can make better poker money through using that little box better than the next guy. Here are a few keys to using the chat to win online poker pots:
Choice Words
Just like in real life, the amount of talk that comes out of your online mouth is often directly inverse to how much your talk means. "Silence is golden" became a tried-and-true expression because millions of people have gotten rich by keeping their mouths shut.
Similarly, when you're always tapping out messages in the chat box, other players may discount whatever you're saying and over time your words may mean less and less. You may want, then, to select your words carefully, to gain maximum psychological impact on your opponents.
If you chat that you're holding two aces and therefore everybody else might as well fold, and you haven't said anything for the last two hours, people are going to sit up and take note.
Whereas if you've been chat box bluffing all day, this claim will mean precisely nothing.
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Manhood Attacks
Using the chat box in online poker rooms is yet another lesson in situational thinking, which remains the number one concept in all of poker theory. Using chatting to win more money at online poker is all about seeing a ripe situation and then harvesting it with aggression.
One example of this is when you are new to an online poker room and one person has a way bigger chip stack than everyone else. Maybe it's time to do a little chatting.
Especially if this player is a male, is on a roll or maybe even already on tilt (posting victorious or self-glorifying messages and such), you as the new player may be looking at a perfect chance to try to slug the bully in the stomach with a well-chosen phrase, such as:
- "You got a lot of chips now but soon they are gonna be mine"
- "Lucky is not the same as good"
- "Nice hand, he ain't shit" (when someone else beats the chip leader at showdown)
Again, especially if this player is a male, you might be surprised how similar the online world is to the primitive world in terms of guys getting angry when you attack their manhoods.
You may want to run the player's stats through your poker tracker software before engaging such antics, though; long-term positive winners are almost always impervious to such assaults.
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Distraction and Deception
It is not necessary, however, to over-use or be too blunt with the chat box. Sometimes, especially games where one or two players also enjoy chatting, you can use the chat box as a distraction.
Most people can't walk and chew gum at the same time, but they think they can play three poker hands at once, at three different poker sites, and look at your chat messages?
Yes. Yes they do think they can do that.
But they can't.
In the online poker world, there are so many ADD-sufferers and habitual multi-tablers that any other distraction can serve as the straw that broke the camel's back. Get your opponents' minds at least partly off playing poker and onto chatting, and you have won a small edge.
Distraction can be a form of deception, and the chat box can be your means to cause it.
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