Poker Essays
How
to Be Unpredictable In no Limit Texas Holdem
From
Learn-Texas-Holdem.com
December 2007
In fixed-limit Texas Holdem, you can get away with
some level of predictability. You should vary your
play in any type of poker to make decisions more difficult
for your opponents. However, in fixed-limit games,
where your goal is typically to win one or two extra
bets when you have the best of it and save one or
two when you don't, some predictability is rarely
disastrous.
In
no-limit online
Texas Holdem it is another matter.
Dangers
of Predictability in No-Limit Texas Hold'em
Let's say that whenever you raise pre-flop and miss
the flop, you check. This is a very straightforward
way to play, and not much of a Texas Holdem strategy. If opponents catch on to this, they will bet
every time you check the flop and take the pot you
built up away. Conversely,
if you bet the flop because you hit it, they will
escape without paying you off.
Amateurs
may feel that the reverse is better, but in fact,
it is even worse. If opponents figure out that you
bet whenever you raise pre-flop and miss the flop
and check when you hit, they will simply raise your
flop bet and take the pot away from you that way,
or take a free card when you check.
You
may feel that opponents will not catch on to what
you are doing, but in fact this 'strong means weak,
weak means strong' method is a very low level of deception
in poker and poker players are trained to watch out
for it. In fact, savvy players may pick up on this
pattern faster than the straight-forward pattern.
Betting
the flop every time you have raised pre-flop is preferable
to either of these other two methods, although this
is not truly randomizing your play either.
How
to Be Unpredictable in No-Limit Texas Hold'em
One
way to be unpredictable in Texas Holdem
is to base your decisions on how you think a certain
player will react. If there's a player who never believes
anyone, this may be a player you want to value bet.
If you are facing a couple of tight opponents, you
have a better chance to bluff. While opponents may
pick up on this pattern, they do not necessarily know
what your assessment is of other players, so if you
make a move based on the fact that you are facing
two tight opponents and one loose one, other players
may not be aware of it.
Additionally,
you may decide in advance how often you will bet/call/fold
in a given situation. If you decide that in a certain
situation you will raise 80 percent of the time and
call 20 percent, you simply need a way to randomize
that decision. One way might be to use your watch.
For example, if the second hand is between one and
48 seconds you raise and if it is between 49 and 60
seconds you call. If you don't want to use a prop,
you can simply keep it in your mind how often you
have called or raised and act accordingly. If you
do this, it is better to space out your two out of
10. That is, for example, raise the first four times,
call the next, raise the next four, then call the
next, rather than raise eight times in a row and call
the next two. Even though this particular situation
won't happen ten times in a row, a savvy opponent
may notice that you always call in a certain situation
twice in a row. If you just remember to stay away
from any particular pattern whenever possible, you
should be all right.
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