Here's what I have written down for an eventual HUSNG.com article so far:

Timing Tells in HUSNGs

by mersenneary

In many of my articles, I argue that most players spend too much of their study time contemplating the “sexy” aspects of poker, whether complicated lines in unusual spots or sick soulread tells that only true masters can spot, and not enough time on the basics. However, that doesn't mean that some of these more cool aspects of HUSNG aren't completely unworthy of studying. Timing tells are a good example of reads that won't turn you into a winning player from a losing player, but incorporating them well into your game will improve your winrate.

When talking about timing tells, it's important to start by understanding that these tells happen for a reason. It's not some mystical list of spots to memorize – you get information because of what the time of the decision suggests about how long they needed to think, and what your opponent wants to represent about the strength of his hand. From that framework, we can come up with some general rules about common situations:

1. Quicker calls generally indicate weaker hands that are not considering raising or folding, and are not trapping.

A couple things here. First of all, the basic live poker tell of “strong is weak, weak is strong” applies. Correctly or incorrectly, most players believe that waiting to call with marginal hands makes it seem like they were considering folding, and will cause opponents to put more pressure on them in future streets. Thus, they call more quickly, as if to say “don't try to bluff me on future streets, I have a hand that doesn't need to think twice about calling”. With trapping hands, most players will Hollywood a bit before calling, even online, as if to act like they were considering folding.

The second part of it is that when people have strong hands they might consider raising with, they'll typically do just that – consider raising. On a K74 flop, then, a quick check/call is much more likely to be a 7x or 4x type hand than a K8 type holding. In a 3-bet pot, when your opponent quickly calls a c-bet on a Q95cc flop, it means they didn't consider raising, which makes Qx much less likely (9x is probably the most likely hand in this scenario).

2. When your opponent makes an aggressive move quickly, it means they didn't need to think in order to make it.

After calling a c-bet on a K85cc flop and a turn 4c being checked through, your opponent quickly openjams a Ax river. This will almost always be a turned flush, with our opponent needing no time on the river to calculate that a jam would not be a significant error. Again, there's a reason for this tell – without a hand, people need to think about the river card and whether it's a good idea to make a bluff. It can sometimes be a spazzy move from an opponent who missed a draw, but when there are little to no missed draws in our opponent's range, these spots become very easy folds.

Many opponents, for example, will give up way too much information in their timing from 3bet jamming, snap-shoving Ax/pocket pair type hands that are easy, sure to be +EV jams, and taking some time to think about it before getting it in with more marginal hands that need fold equity to be good. I have also played against opponents who will do the opposite, and always pretend to think with their value hands but want to advertise that they had an easy decision with their bluffs, but this is more unusual. Regardless, once we identify either tendency, we can make money off of it.

3. When your opponent takes his time before making a significant bet in a spot where you are likely to have a bluffcatcher, it means they are generally stronger.

Put yourself in your opponent's shoes. You're on the river with a busted draw, trying to figure out whether to try to bluff – the only way you can win the hand. How often do you use a significant portion of the timebank and then decide to pull the trigger? For most people, the answer is “not often”.

That's because in the mind of most players at that moment, the longer you wait to put the bet in, the more information your opponent will have about you. He'll know that you didn't have an easy decision about whether to bet. He'll see through the computer screen and know just how badly you're already hoping for a fold. He'll snap and you'll feel like an idiot. The check button is so big and pretty – why not just give up, and live to fight another day?

Is this reasoning true? Probably not, especially considering my original claim, that when people do bet after timing down, it's usually stronger. But that's not what people do, and we can take advantage of that tendency.