MYSTIC
- Playing online poker can differ greatly
from playing poker on the pro circuit. While
on the pro circuit you can get to know the
opponents you encounter quite well, and
can study and adapt to their personal methods
of play.
In online poker, however, the players you
encounter will often differ greatly from
day to day as new players enter the game.
Many of
these players will lack skill at the game
of poker, backing up bad hands with good
money, while still others will be lurking
at tables waiting to take advantage of these
weaker players. You can take advantage of
this
phenomenon by taking the idiot approach.
The idiot approach can give you great results
when you're playing against the weak player
or the player who wants to prey upon the
weak. It involves putting good money behind
bad hands when starting play, then suddenly
switching gears to play a much more conservative
game - more conservative, perhaps, than
even your normal style of play. Basically
you want the good players to think that
you are a weak player, and the weak players
to gain confidence after they win a few
beefy pots.
This gambit will lose you money in the short
run, but the potential for strong gains
in the long run will be increased. If you
can throw in a bit of money on a weak hand
and play it until the hand is over, then
unless you've accidentally bluffed your
way to a win, your opponents will see your
pocket cards and will notice that you are
playing money on weak hands.
This could potentially persuade stronger
opponents to start putting chips behind
weaker hands, thinking that they've got
pretty good
bets against your hands considering that
you are playing weak poker. Meanwhile, the
weaker opponents will start playing bigger
money, thinking that they are on a lucky
streak or sitting at a good table due to
taking some early wins. At this point, however,
you will have tightened your game and will
only be playing your better hands.
This strategy is weak if you're playing
against excellent opponents who notice right
away that you have switched gears, or against
opponents who play based on their hands
and not based on the actions of the other
players at their table. It's also a bad
idea to gamble away too much money up front
using this tactic - don't throw away so
much money that getting those initial losses
back becomes an insurmountable chore.
But against a table full of random players,
a few badly placed bets here and there in
the early hands can win you some good money
on later deals.
Mystic
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