Poker Articles

The talent level in the larger online MTTs these days is amazing.  To keep up, we need to take advantage of all the little edges we can find.  One thing to constantly ask yourself is: who are these people?  (I ask myself this question using a Jerry Seinfeld voice – “I mean who… are these people?”  But you can just use your own internal voice.  Or use Salma Hayek’s voice.  Or Elmo’s.  Or whatever.)  Do you recognize any of them?  What kind of stats do you have on them?  Did they mention in the chat box that they qualified?  You need to profile each opponent as much as you can, and then use that information/profile to give yourself maximum advantage. 

As a general rule, if your opponent(s) on a particular hand are novices, play a more straightforward game.  For example, you should avoid fancy plays like the plague against unsophisticated opponents.  Also, don’t assume that a huge bet or raise for value will not get called.  Especially very early in a tournament, you can get astonishing value with a big hand from a weak opponent, so take it.  About the only bluffs that seem to work somewhat reliably for me are small pot bluffs, like betting a flop of 992 with nothing against two limpers.  One of my favorite plays from limit is to bet a Kxx board into limpers with nothing, but even that is a mistake early in an MTT because a limper will call you with 2nd or 3rd pair or worse every time.  So stick to your knitting, and play solid poker early on against bad opponents. 

What I want to talk about are some things that might (let me stress “might” – top players have seen it all and can often go “up a level” on you) work on the better players.

(1) Coaxing a fold.  I don’t talk much during the hands.  I’ve played a lot with chatty guys like NSXT2, and I think it can be very effective, but it’s just not me.  On the other hand, every once in a while, you might want to say something very targeted.   Say you shove in with king high from the cutoff when you are short-stacked at a full final table.  The small blind starts to think about it; you do not want him to call.  I recently found myself in this situation, and I typed in the chat box, “everybody gotta die sometime...” (quoting Tom Berenger in Platoon, fyi).  I did this because both the small blind and the big blind were thinking players, smart and solid, but also capable of laying down a decent hand.  I figured they would assume I was using “gallows humor,” because I actually had a big hand and wanted a call.  In effect, I used “reverse reverse” psychology.  It worked!  The small blind actually typed, “I was on the fence, but when you wrote that, I knew you had a big hand.”  And then the big blind said, “Yeah, ME TOO!”  You gotta love that result.  Now maybe I will have to reverse my “reverse tell” as a result of this article, but I think it’s a great example of using psychology and factoring in sophistication.

(2) Coaxing a call.  How can you get someone to call when you think they are inclined to fold?  Mike Caro says when you want a call, do SOMETHING!  Knock your drink over, knock your chips over, pretend to fall out of your chair.  Why?  Because human nature inclines people to call, and people are looking for any excuse.  So they will read your apparent nervousness or clumsiness as a reason to call.  I haven’t played enough live to know if this is correct.  But my guess is that he is onto something. 

How do we translate that to online play?  Well, your only weapon after you bet is the chat box.  With an unsophisticated opponent, maybe you should say something, anything.  If he is very green, maybe some straightforward b.s. will work, like “Please don’t call.” 

If he is somewhat sophisticated, maybe we go up one level.  My suggestion is something obvious, like, “I wonder what I will buy with my winnings?”  That says to the somewhat-sophisticated player, “I am pretending to be cocky because I want you to fold,” which, hopefully, might induce a call.  But I don’t see that working on a top player.  So what might induce a call from a very sophisticated player?  Let’s go up another level: “I have no chance.” Or “You call, you win.”  Let me disclaim my explanation by saying I have not tried this (as I said before, I have tried – successfully – to induce a fold).  But my reasoning would be this: He knows I am creative and fairly advanced at poker.  He knows I know he is sophisticated at poker.  If you represent weakness, it may confuse him – wouldn’t you (as a clever fellow) represent strength if you wanted a call, since you know he is too smart to fall for straight reverse psychology?  So yes, I am half-heartedly advocating reverse-reverse-reverse psychology here.  You get my point.

(3) Varying your bet size.  You can unquestionably get into trouble in this area, but you can sometimes use bet size to manipulate smarter players.  An obvious example is something like this: it folds to you in the cutoff, and you have AA.   (It turns out that AA is one of the better starting hands in limit, pot limit, and also no limit hold ‘em.)  The small blind and big blind are both sophisticated players.  You’d like some action.  What do you do?  Why not raise to 4x or 4.5x instead of your standard 3x (or whatever)?  This is another form of reverse psychology.  The novice player is frightened by the large raise, but the edge-seeking, sophisticated player may think “I can resteal here with my KQ because if he had a huge hand, he would not raise so much.”  Obviously, if players catch on to you, you can go up another level.  Say you get caught making this over-raise (a good thing!); next time, raise to something like 2.2x with AA from the same position.  The same goes for all of these concepts – as the competition catches on, you can always go up another level based on what you know he knows about what you know he knows about you.   You know?

-- Steely