Advanced Poker Strategy
Nowadays, poker can now be enjoyed at the comfort of your own personal computer as well as your basement or apartment with friends or through ritzy, brick-and-mortar poker rooms such as the Bellagio Poker room. However, many new poker players get turned off by poker because of basic mistakes and erroneous judgments that all newbies like them make, which turns them into nothing more than fodder for the more experienced players out there.
If you want to stop being such a casual player and learn the true way to play poker, then keep on reading. This advanced poker strategy guide will help you correct erroneous habits and encourage better ones in their place. It’s about time you played poker the right way so that you can truly enjoy it to the fullest.
Trapping
Trying to discern your opponent’s hand in poker is akin to trying to beat a person during a marathon run of rock-paper-scissors. It’s a game that’s equal parts chance and skill, particularly the skill of reading what type of hand he’ll be playing next. It’s a competition of who can read the other better and who can bluff his way out of a bad hand more convincingly. Even if you’re just right thirty-five percent of the time, it’s a high enough percentage to earn you the win because you’ll be beating your opponent in the long run with that kind of ability.
At any rate, even if your foe is suspicious of your antics and thinks you’re not being honest, there’s still a way to use that suspicion to your advantage. More to the point, that’s the perfect time to trap him for his full tilt download money. Whenever you’re up against a particularly aggressive opponent that loves to steamroll you with bets, just sit back, relax, let him do his thing, and then counter him with raises and check-raises when you have a hand. A raise or check-raise on the turn that gets called on top of a river bet will win you 2BB just from that play and will possibly another 1BB from the flop and pre-flop. You can then fold on the flop on an un-raised pot four times in succession if you could execute a trap every seventh time.
Reading
Reading involves the talent to spot tells and working them to your advantage. It’s also all about cultivating your mental ability to discern patterns in your opponent’s behavior that are statistical anomalies you can exploit with extreme prejudice. By being able to execute good reads, you’ll be able to adapt to whatever playing style your opponent has, letting him think he has gained control of the pace of the game while you manipulate him to do exactly what you want him to do.
When reading on FullTilt.net, you need to pay careful attention to the different “tells” that your opponent has and the patterns that he employs when going about his poker game. Does he bet draws? Does he bet low pair? How often does he check-raises? Obviously, one action from the other player isn’t enough to figure out his whole playing strategy, so you’ll need to flop, raise, or call and see the turn in order to induce an action that clues you in on what sort of player he is. By adding a raise or calling a flop, you are able to see a more telling hint in regards to your opponent’s game play (i.e., he may check-bet, bet-call, bet-check, bet-bet, and so on).