Whether you’re playing offline or online poker, you have to avoid becoming too predictable. Playing good, solid, tight-aggressive poker at a fairly loose table certainly has its advantages, however, over the long-run you may blow your cover, even online where people pay a lot less attention to the only available tell: betting patterns.
When you become too predictable, you’ll lose the EV+, and with it, soon every opportunity to make some money. This is why you need to avoid being read, while in the same time you should try to make an accurate read on your opponents.
The problem with keeping a fog of war on your operation though is that you don’t actually want your opponents confused. You want them to know what they want to do, and you want to give out all the wrong tells they can follow.
A confused opponent is one that has a 50% chance of doing something you don’t want him/her to do, and frankly, you should do a lot better than that odds-wise.
You have to deceive your opponents from time to time, and while leading them in the wrong direction try “feeding them a pill” every now and then, that confuses them just a little bit.
The thing that your start your game of deceit with, is the table image that you show. Usually, you want to appear the exact opposite of what you really plan to build you game-strategy around, but whatever image you broadcast make sure you’re aware of it.
Even if – due to the circumstances – you don’t cast the image you’d like to, if you know what the other players around the table consider you, you’ll be able to capitalize on it.
If they have you cataloged as a maniac, make sure you act like one when holding a monster. That way, if you’re lucky, several players will attempt to keep you honest, when the pot odds give you clear advantage.
Once you’re all set with the table image, there are other – more subtle – strategy moves you can use to confuse your opponents.
Once such move would be to raise on the flop on an open-ended straight or a 4-card flush. Call it semi-bluffing if you will. The semi-bluff is a great way to generate value, and in the same time confuse your opposition.
It is confusing by virtue of the fact that it is basically a bluff, but one that may easily turn into a solid play. Not having a thorough insight, it’ll be difficult for your opponent to tell whether it was a bluff indeed or a simple calculated maneuver.
It’ll generate value for you because: if you raise on the flop, the other players are likely to check on you, on the turn. That way, you’ll basically get a free card, and if your hand fails to improve. it’ll cost you less.
If it does improve, you’ll make more money.
Another good way to cause havoc in the ranks of the enemy, is to check-raise with a solid hand. Let’s say you flop a set of Ks, and you know you’re pretty much unbeatable, so you check instead of raising, when you know that a player in a late position will try to steal the pot on a bet if he sees everyone in front of him is passive.
That way, when the betting comes around to you, you raise him. The logic behind the move is the following: you’ll confuse and trap your opponents with it, and in the same time, you’ll make it much more expensive for drawing hands to see any more cards. That’ll make people fold possible flushes or straights (which could beat your trips) thus improving your odds, while squeezing more money out of the player you just check-raised.
It is my personal experience however, that whenever you check-raise someone, - provided the guy is not a complete rookie - huge alarm bells will start ringing, and people will be on to the fact that you’re holding something extremely strong.
It is generally known that few people are skilled enough to try to bluff on the check-raise, so – for good players – you’ll probably give away all they need to know about your hand.
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