Poker

Sound Poker Play

I’ve always known that on a psychological level, poker was an infinitely
intricate game. No matter how many people tell you that it’s simple at its
core, one can’t help feeling overwhelmed when trying to consider all the
different aspects of this game.

For example: one thing you want to avoid at the table is to be read by your opponents. It is a natural reaction rookies have, after having lost money to predictable play, to try to confuse. At a closer analysis however, creating confusion to hide your intentions may not be the best way to go about it.

A confused enemy is a dangerous one. Fighting an enemy who is looking for you in all the wrong places should be and generally is much easier. That’s why a truly good Poker Player doesn’t place that much stress on creating confusion. Certainly, he doesn’t want his true colors laid out in plain view, but he wants his opponents to think they have him read. This counter-intelligence will lead to countless pots won, sometimes on undeserving hands, if one masters this skill. A good player manipulates his opponents, and in the same time pays attention to not letting his true intentions show.

There are countless weapons in the poker arsenal to achieve that, the only problem is, they’re all kind of difficult to use.

I’m talking about bluffing, check-raising, slow playing and semi-bluffing here. All of these are meant not only to disguise the real value of the hand our player is holding, but also to put opponents on track towards the wrong destination.

In some games, opponent manipulation will require players to advertise their plays. Advertising a play means to act aggressively on hands that do not present much value (7,8o) and then making sure people see it happening. There are a whole bunch of potential problems with this - apparently simple - course of action. First off: raising like a madman on 7,2o will certainly ring alarm bells in your opponent’s heads.

Next, advertising plays just for the sake of it, doesn’t make any sense. You have to do it in games, in which you’re bound to play on for a while. You’ll only reap the benefits of this strategy later on. Advertising your moves in the last few hands of a session is senseless. This makes it extremely difficult to pull such a move in online poker. In online poker cash-games, people come and go all the time. Those whom you’ve already misled may get up at the click of a mouse and be on their way, leaving their seats open for new players.

In tournaments, you’ll be often moved from one table to another, finding yourself in a completely new company time and time again.

Another issue about online poker is, that sometimes people just don’t give a damn about what you’re advertising. There are many fish playing, and even those who are experienced-enough are prone to sluggishness when it comes paying attention to their opponents.

Multi-tabling is also rather big in online poker, and advertising all sorts of plays to some guy who plays 10 tables in the same time, will certainly not yield any results whatsoever.

Truly good poker players adopt a different approach to the whole problem. They do not waste any energy trying to “act”, they just go on with their game. As soon as they realize they were read, they simply switch gears and take full advantage of the image the other players have created of them. Since the table image that they convey is not an artificial one but a downright genuine one, the problem of credibility is no longer an issue here. People who pay attention to what’s going on around them, will buy it.

The more difficult part is to realize when one’s been read, and to change approach accordingly.