You can even change your table image when you’re at a table with stronger players. Sometimes people put you on a style after they’ve watched you play a roll or two. Sometimes you can get an edge by capitalising on an opponent’s biases or misjudgments by changing your table image.
Poker odds and positional understanding are important, but what makes you more profitable is your grasp of the psychological games going on – how players think and interact.
Identify Your Opponent’s Weaknesses
Improve your poker results by learning how to read your opponents and find their weaknesses. Addressing them will allow you to gain an edge on your opponents and improve your playing chances. Other times, they might be completely hidden; one player might be a wall when it comes to corner shots, but helpless in the middle (the zone between the forehand and backhand strokes). Finding a way to capitalise on this weakness couldn’t be more straightforward: essentially, a direct shot at his playing elbow will most likely find its way in. Scrutinise their betting style and the reasons why they’re making certain decisions; if you keep track of this, you’ll be surprised at how it can open up opportunities to exploit their playing style against them!
Know Your Limits
The game is limit poker, and if you are not used to playing limit poker, don’t get all crazy and start playing aggressive NL-style poker. And before you know it, you’re the Fish. Sometimes it’s useful to think things over at the poker table before taking a decision (for instance, when you have a weak hand and are tempted to bluff). Still, your inaction can give an advantage to the opponents, so if you think you have a strong hand, it would be better to act right away. This can also help prevent overbetting on your opponents’ hands and overbluffing in general, as well as unconscious tells to your opponents that your hand is weak when it isn’t. Bankroll management by not losing big blinds in the beginning of every hand is a skill in itself, learning when and how to spread your chips and size of bets. Smaller bet sizes increase your instinctive reassurance, and those lost small blinds can be recovered and turned into bigger bets later, when your improved hand is ready to strike.
Take Your Time
It is a complex combination of art and science — it takes luck but you need to study your opponents to spot weaknesses in their strategy to gain the upper hand and give yourself an improved edge. Pay very close attention to how your opponents play, and what sort of tendencies they have, especially if they play differently depending on what stage of a hand they’re in, and depending on what stack sizes exist. Every single action that either player performs (fold, call or raise) reveals something. Don’t be in too big a hurry to enter pots, but when you do it should be with strong hands so you don’t make bad mistakes and lose a lotYou need to mix up your play and keep opponents guessing before you go all-in!
Mix It Up
For instance, at a poker table, you have to use the dynamics of the table to the fullest, including, as we have just seen: knowing what hands your opponents could have and responding accordingly; bluffing, for example, works really well when all the cards on the board can give your opponent either a possible flush or a straight (but he is not willing to call your big bets). On the other hand, bluff sparingly and strategically, or else you might be outplayed by an opponent with five aces in his hand, who can beat you even with a pair of kings. Additionally, study in detail the tells or body language as well as the betting habits of opponents to identify who is bluffing and who is holding strong hands; avoid the one with lowered eyes, target instead the one looking at you with composure. If you want to excel at the poker table, build your expertise to read your opponents.
Keep Your Eye on the Game
We have all heard the saying, ‘where there’s smoke there’s fire.’ Coupled with the old poker saying ‘play the player, not the hand’, one can be convinced that, indeed, the purpose of a ‘tell’ is to anticipate and capitalise on a person’s melting down. After all, every professional gambling establishment trains their customer service and ‘host’ staffers to spot these ticks and winks in order to assign you a higher limit. The contemporary corollary being ‘You should pump your money into the whale’! Sounds reasonable, but something is not right. While this politics of reading someone may have some validity, to accept this premise too readily is to risk picking your own pocket! Is that what ‘bluffing’ really is? Far from it! Instead of making bad plays, play good poker as often as possible, and only against those opponents who insist on playing bad poker. Play against their bad styles the way they play against good styles – that is, as leverage. Poker is a game of narratives, and your every action offers your opponents a bit of information to help them develop their image of you and your hand. Through judicious lying (bluffing), for example, affect their image of you. But don’t overdo it; it’s generally best saved for small pots, where you’ve already established your image, otherwise you’re giving your opponents information about how strong you are.