Posted in Poker July 1st, 2009
Avoiding predictable play in poker tournaments.
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When playing in online poker tournaments, you’re eventually going to have to start mixing up your play so as to trap your opponents and capture their stack. Ideally you will make a few cheap plays that will leave your opponents thinking you are a weak player.
Forethought should always be taken however, because your adversaries in the early stages of online poker tournaments are willing to risk far more than you would expect.The game changes during the middle stages where more daring plays against risk-averse players can be very profitable and show long term EV.
Your goal here is create disarray in your opponents and that may take some experience to do correctly and cheaply. It’s not exactly a simple thing to do, but with some practice and commitment to your game you can start to make some good reads – even online.
So extra caution is needed, as well as a serious dedication to pot control in each hand that you are involved in. Other good players will be patiently anticipating for your mistakes if you lack emotional or pot size control, and they constantly put you in uncomfortable situations.
Emotional control and judgement will pave the way for improved play on your part – something you must do to quash being played against by intelligent sharks. For long term winning in poker tournaments, a lack of control will cost you money.
Building deception in a poker tournament can be easily attained by using this tactic. Take two or three hands at the beginning of the tournament and whenever you get them dealt to you, raise the pot. You can’t always do it, but if you are first in the pot then make believe it is better than it really is and play it that way.
Whatever hands you select at the start of the tournament, consider those your inventive hands and there you go – unpredictability. The added bonus here is that if your opponents are using poker software to track your style of play they are getting misinformation.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 7:05 pm and is filed under Poker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
