Jesse LeeWhoever said that less is more has certainly never heard of tactics in poker. A wide, varied and well-stocked arsenal of weapons is essential when it comes to fighting your opponents across the table.
If there is even the slightest hint that one of your rivals has figured out how you are playing the hand, you need to be able to change tactics immediately. You need not only plan B, but also plan C, D, E, F to maintain your advantage.
Conversely, if the guy to your right is messing with your game plan, you need several ways to upset him and then send him home.
Used correctly, these advanced tactics will send a clear message that you’re a player who knows exactly what he’s doing and can’t be taken lightly under any circumstances.
- Locked bets
- Small ball poker
- Squeeze play
- Mixing your play
- Controlling the pot
Blocking bets
How to use blocking bets
Take the initiative, be the aggressor and grind your opponents into the dust by betting and betting. That’s what a winning way in Texas Holdem looks like, right?
But it’s not always that easy, is it? Sometimes you have a mediocre hand at your disposal. You think it’s the best on the table, but you don’t want to risk a big bet. In this situation, the best form of attack is often defense. Welcome to the world of blocking bets.
Making a small bet can prevent your opponent from forcing you to make a bigger bet than you wanted to play, and also squeeze some extra value out of an opponent with a weak hand who wouldn’t make a big bet.
A big warning: these bets can be unprofitable against strong, aggressive opponents. Good players can see that a small bet on the river is a sign of weakness.
In general, you should be fine making blocking bets until you start playing against medium-limit players who are willing to take big risks. Your blocking bet should be smaller than your value bet (30% of the pot should get the job done).
When to use
In 1-on-1 pots, when you have an advantage throughout the hand and enter the river with a marginal holding. Avoid being forced into a big bet or folding with a blocking bet.
When you are in a reasonable draw. A defensive bet here can confuse your opponent and avoid being driven to the corner.
On the turn to prevent your opponent from getting on the river. Make this bet with a hand that can win the showdown, but you are not satisfied with playing a big pot with the
When not to use
- Against a player who has already exploited your weaknesses, who seems to be very observant or plays aggressively
- When you think you have the best hand and your opponent will check with an inferior hand
- When you think your opponent will make a small bet that you can check
Spotting another player’s blocking bet is a great chance to make money. The best players to bluff from a blocker bet hand are intermediate players with a solid no-limit game. They rarely make small (relative to the pot) bets, so when they do, it’s likely that it’s a blocker and you can make some money with a big bet, regardless of the cards you hold. However, this is a risky play, as you will have to make a big bet on the river to force your opponent to fold.
Poker with a small ball
Going all-in is risky and can eliminate you from a tournament if you make the wrong choice. Some pros prefer small ball poker to build their chip stack without risk.
When to play small ball
You can make a lot of money playing small ball in the early stages of a tournament. There are so many bad players in the early levels of a tournament that it makes sense to play as many pots as possible. But it’s not enough to know that your opponent is a bad player; you need to know what kind of bad player he is:
- A weak, tight player. When they lose the flop, you can go in with a continuation bet and come out with the pot. They will only put their chips in the pot if they have the goods, so there is almost no risk.
- Checking Station. This player will check you with almost any pair. Commit to as much of the pot as possible and look for excuses to play your position. Just remember not to bluff and value bet them to make that crucial mistake.
- Big pot guy. This player can’t stop raising you. Limp after the flop and take a position into a pot that is not worth stealing, but is worth holding. Such players are ideal for getting ripped off after the flop because they have no idea what to do from that point on.
In the middle and late stages of the tournament, remember that some players will be short-stacked and desperate. As you approach the bubble, you should have a good chance to play small ball against a player who really wants to get into the money. Against everyone else, be ready to adjust.
When not to play small ball
When you are sitting across the table from the big dogs and are ready to play with a decent hand. Play a lot, raise a lot and force them to put their money in before they want to.
The squeeze game
Fancy a squeeze game?
‘Fancy Play Syndrome’ is spreading like wildfire. Players are more likely to try to look clever and fool the rest of the table than win money. Sometimes, however, fancy play can have a devastating effect. The squeeze game is one of the best.
The object of the game is to “squeeze” another player out of the pot after that player has committed his chips. Raise and re-raise big and early with a weak hand to force everyone else to fold.
When to use the squeeze
- When the risk is worth it and you are sure it will work. You put a lot of chips on the table with a fatal hand.
- When you have a tight picture. This move won’t work if you can’t bluff a strong hand.
- Late stages of a multi-table tournament. This is the best time to use squeeze because the risk is too high in cash games and early phases of tournaments.
- When your opponents are neither experts nor beginners
- When the first player is doing open-raising with a lot of hands.
When you should not use squeeze
- When your opener is very tight. He probably has a strong hand and you will be in trouble if he checks.
- If the other player overbids. He probably also has a strong hand.
- When was the last time you made a similar move, even if you had a strong hand the first time.
Your raise must be big enough to deter the other player from checking. Squeeze play is a powerful technique if used correctly and can completely surprise your opponents. It is an excellent way to loosen up your game if you have a poor reputation. But use it carefully, or else it could be you who loses all your chips instead of your opponents.
Change your game
What are short-handed games?
Short-handed cash games are the most popular games on the Internet today.
With only six players, they are action games and you must become an action player if you want to succeed. You can’t just sit back and wait for good hands if you want to come out on top, especially as you leave lower stakes behind. You have to play aggressively with a wide range of hands.
How much money do you need to play with?
If you watch the players at the higher limits, you will see that players raise and re-raise each other pre-flop all the time. Often, they will bring in all their money on or after the flop – sometimes with rather questionable hands.
For this reason, your bankroll requirements are much higher, as the variance in these games can be huge.
If you plan to play medium to high stakes poker, you should already be thinking of your bankroll in terms of 30 buy-ins or more. If you regularly play six-handed games at stakes of $5/$10 or higher, then a reasonable bankroll should be around 50 buy-ins. This is because usually the most aggressive players win money. They do this by forcing their opponents to fold when they have a marginal hand, with an aggressive image that allows them to get paid off when they have a big hand. In the biggest online games, everyone knows this. So it becomes a battle of aggression, with each player trying to get the others to back down, allowing them to take control.
Starting positions
Matching connectors, face cards and medium pairs are all not premium hands that you should be raising loose, aggressive openers with for a while. This balances out situations where you raise with a big hand, such as aces or kings. You should also check these hands so that your opponents can guess where you are in a given hand.
You should almost never make an open-raise from any position. Raising to three or four times the big blind – with whatever hand you want to play – will give you a boost to win the pot by continuing to bet on the flop if you get checked. If you don’t get checked, you’ll still win the blinds without a showdown.
Similarly, you shouldn’t make a habit of passively limping behind another limper pre-flop. If they are in the habit of doing so, you should raise with any playable hand to about five times the big blind, in position to isolate them. Be prepared to continue betting on the flop if it is checked.
What happens next?
As we mentioned, most pots will be raised or re-raised before the flop. So standard practice is that the last raiser continues the bet. However, the higher limits you play, the more often you’ll see people reacting to this strategy by floating (checking with a weak hand in position in hopes of taking the pot later), bluff-raising or smooth-calling with any hand.
To counter this, you’ll need to mix your betting continuations with check-raises and check-folds to keep your opponents guessing. You should also float more against opponents who have shown they can fold in the face of turn aggression. As always in such games, the key is to play the players more than the cards you’re dealt.
The turn and river are interesting streets in single-raise pots, because with stacks of 100 big blinds, a player who raises pre-flop and bets close to the pot on each street will usually be able to get his stack all-in to the river. For this reason – and because continuation betting is so common – you must also bluff against stubborn opponents on the turn a decent percentage of the time (especially when the board changes or when you have outs).
You also need to make an all-in bluff on the river often enough to offset situations where you bet a big hand and put your opponent in front of a difficult decision. If you follow this general strategy and play aggressively on all streets with a well-balanced frequency, you will be a dangerous opponent.
Controlling the pot
Cash floating around in cash games means everyone is a little crazy and you need to change your game. There are a few simple things you can do to limit how much you risk and what you expose yourself to.
Control yourself
Control yourself, protect your stack. If your hand is not very strong, check and call instead of raising and stacking. It’s not always the place to raise in hopes of forcing your opponents out of the game. Everyone cares about their money, so they will fold if the risk is too great or outbid you if they feel confident. Play to extract value from other players when your hands are decent by evaluating their play and adjusting accordingly.
Master of camouflage
Representing your hand against opponents who are able to guess what you have and guess what you think they have requires a mastery of camouflage. Limping late in the game and then raising is masking a good hand in order to extract value from the other players. Playing small pairs in the same way creates a set and can fool some players. Check-raising on the turn will confuse a thinking opponent and force many of the better hands to fold, leaving you with the pot.
Watch out for other players who are trying to control the pot: you can punch them out of their comfort zone and force them to fold, taking over the pot.