It’s a frustrating feeling.
You’ve joined a table, armed with your trusty gameplan and a flush of fresh optimism – but you soon find yourself being buffeted about like a beach ball in the surf, folding again and again to avoid a flurry of raises and reraises.
So here are a few poker strategy tricks that could end up giving you more control than Lewis Hamilton on snow tyres....
Pot power
Make the pot as big as you can when you have a great hand, and keep it small when you have one you’re unsure of.
You can start this off by raising agressively pre-flop if you have a strong hand. But always be prepared to adjust this raise amount depending on the playing styles of your opponents.
A raise of three or four times the big blind should suffice. However, if several players are playing aggressively and pre-flop raises are getting called and re-raised by too many opponents, manipulate the table by protecting your King pair with a super-high opening bet, rather than waiting to raise
Similarly, if the table is tight and good hands are winning small pots, manipulate your opponents by raising maybe only two or two-and-a-half times the big blind.
Hopefully that will persuade a couple more players to call and you'll get a bigger pot when you have a winning hand.
A fitting image
The way that others at the table perceive you is crucial to your ability to manipulate them. If they think you’re tight and cautious, they may respect your raises. If they think you’re loose, they may call you more often.
One manipulation poker strategy is to keep a low profile early in a game, folding all but the very best hands.
Sure, you’ll suffer a little as your starting stack gets blinded away, but if rope-a-dope is good enough for Muhammad Ali, it’s good enough for us!
Wait until you’re pretty sure your opponents have noticed you’re tight and then, out of nowhere, go on the attack – raising, reraising, stealing the now higher blinds. We lost low blinds early on, but now we’re more than making up for that.
They won’t know how to read you and will have to fear you have good hands when you’re bluffing.
But remember that they might think you a little timid – so be prepared to stand up to the odd reraise designed to test your mettle.
Time is on your side
When you’re playing online, you can’t see the nervous shuffling of the player who just raised you. But you can see how quickly or slowly they are making their decisions.
Turn this to your advantage by taking the same amount of time for every decision you make, giving opponents no way of learning anything about you. Find a decision time that is not too quick or slow, and stick to it whether you fold or bet.
At the same time, note the betting speeds of others – are they consistently brash and quick? Could you suddenly change your speed and rush them into a rash decision later in the game?
Watch everyone’s individual styles, whether you’re in the hand or not. It could give you info you need to control them later.
Three more manipulation tricks that can work…
You show me yours… Occasionally show a winning hand to your opponents. Prove you have the cards now and they may trust you later when you are on the steal.
Or show them you bluffed, to rile them and get more action for future hands. It may also induce them to show you the odd hand of their own.
The colour of money… Most online poker sites have colour-coded chips. If you’re betting and you want an opponent to fold, consider betting a tiny amount more if it means it’ll take you up to the next colour chip. It may only be a few cents more, but it will look more powerful on the table.
Cut the chat… In live games conversation can be crucial for gleaning info. But online chat can be an irritating distraction.
Concentrate instead on working opponents out from their betting and timing.
If you’re a regular on your site, take notes on players so that if you encounter them again you can manipulate them from the off. You’ll be the Fat (pocketed) Controller in no time!
For our next step on the poker journey, we're going to look at more strategy in Why aggressive poker is winning poker.
