Poker Strategy
Let's try to piece together the main ideas behind playing a hand of poker. We have said that you have to try to work out what everyone might hold, and then act accordingly. But how would you act if you did know what everyone's cards were? That's the first question we need to address.
Suppose you knew that your hand were strong compared to other hands at the table. What then? Hopefully you can see that, in this situation, you should be more inclined to bet big and stay in the hand rather than to fold. On the other hand, if you knew that your hand were relatively weak you should be inclined to bet small or fold.
Extending this idea to real games, where the cards are hidden, we call this approach playing for value. You evaluate the relative strength of your hand compared with the likely hands of your opponents and play in a way consistent with that value. Strong hands merit strong betting, and weak hands merit weak betting.
But it can't be that simple - and of course it isn't. If you bet big only with your strong hands, then people will know when you have a strong hand, and they'll steer clear of you on those occasions (by folding) so you can't get their money. And if you never bet when you're weak, then they'll know when you're weak and they can run over you by betting you out of the pot (in other words, bet big to make you fold). In short, it's all too easy for your opponents to read you if you play too predictably.
To prevent this, you have to mix things up a little.
- Sometimes you check (bet nothing), or merely call (match) someone else's bet, with a strong hand so that your opponents don't know you have a strong hand. This is called slowplaying or sandbagging.
- Sometimes you bet, or raise someone else's bet, with a relatively weak hand to pretend you have a stronger hand than you really do - in the hope of muscling people out of the pot by making them fold. This is called bluffing or stealing.
When you play in a way that isn't consistent with the value of your hand, for example by slowplaying or bluffing, you are deliberately trying to mislead your opponents so they evaluate your hand wrongly and make a mistake as a result. Making such a deceptive play is frequently referred to as making a move.
But hold on a minute. If you play deceptively too often you'll have abandoned the principle of playing for value. You'd be spending all your time not putting money in the pot when your hand is strong or, conversely, betting big when you don't actually have a good hand to show down. That doesn't seem quite right either - and indeed it isn't.
The fact of the matter is that the majority of the time you should simply play for value - just bet your hands according to their strength. Against weak opponents, that's pretty much all you have to do and you'll make money. There's no point running big bluffs against them because they'll probably call your bets anyway even if logic dictates that they shouldn't. There's no point making fancy moves, because in all probability they won't notice what you're doing and it'll all just go straight over their heads. Against weak players, you can just play the percentages, by which we mean simply play for value, and you will profit from their mistakes.
This surprises many inexperienced players, who think that the whole point of poker is to pull outrageous moves on their opponents, time after time. Whilst you will occasionally make use of full-blown deception, your bread and butter will be solid, value-based plays (if you want to make money, that is).
Once you start facing stronger opposition however, an exclusively value-based approach will become less effective. You're going to have to make some deceptive plays against better players or they'll be able to read you too easily. Even so, deceptive plays should be used relatively sparingly because, unless you're fortunate enough to have an exceptionally good feel for the game, it's too expensive to depart regularly from good old straightforward value-based play.
