Life is full of moments when you just have to fake it. Authenticity, honesty and sincerity all have their place in relationships and everyday interactions, but not, and we repeat NOT on the poker table. Poker is about subterfuge and a careful balancing of statistical strategy with the gaining of a psychological advantage via the creating of intended impressions designed to leverage an advantage of some kind.
With that in mind, we'd like to offer you four fundamental strategies. These strategies comprise the basics of good bluffing, and it's absolutely essential that you grasp these ideas before you start playing for any meaningfully high stakes.
1 - Bluff the right people
As you develop gambling maturity, you'll soon learn that you'll often need to often bluff certain players more than others depending on where the game is going. Now: this calls for a cautionary approach at times. The player with an impossibly large stack of chips will be more than able to call your bluff if he even gets a slight whiff that you're faking it. The real suckers are the ones with the medium stacked chips: not enough to adopt a carefree, laissez faire approach, but enough to keep you on your toes.
2 - Don't bluff for the sake of your own ego
You need to genuinely figure out whether a bluffing strategy is going to be useful to you when you decide to proceed with it. Don't bluff just because you can, and don't do it to show off. You'll end saving your big toe to lose your foot. In other words, bluffing for the sake of vanity can only but jeopardize your long-term gameplay.
3 - Don't bluff more often that you have to
Bluffing is something of an art, and like most forms of great art requires a certain subtlety for it to be truly effective. Think about some of the great songs you admire - there's a good chance that part of the beauty of these songs lies in that occasional but mind blowing guitar riff or piano solo, which when its time comes to shine seems to blow everything out of the water and nothing seems quite the same. It's a bit like that in poker: when you bluff at just the right time, in just the right quantity, and with true panache, you'll end up laughing all the way to the bank.
4 - Observe your opponents with the same intensity they do you
This is just crucial. Take note of how your opponents react to their hand, consider how they put the chips down the table (whether hurriedly, with a calm ease, seemingly disinterestedly, or enthusiastically), whether they placed them or slide them across the table, what they do with their feet, with their hands, how their eyes dart back and forth across the room (or, indeed, whether they're trying to maintain a focused gaze on a single object perhaps out of fear that a single, direct glance will give them away).
Poker forces you to ask these sorts of questions. Until you feel you've got a good grip on them, only stay in the game when the blinds are small and the betting portions within the ranges that you're comfortable with.
With that in mind, we'd like to offer you four fundamental strategies. These strategies comprise the basics of good bluffing, and it's absolutely essential that you grasp these ideas before you start playing for any meaningfully high stakes.
1 - Bluff the right people
As you develop gambling maturity, you'll soon learn that you'll often need to often bluff certain players more than others depending on where the game is going. Now: this calls for a cautionary approach at times. The player with an impossibly large stack of chips will be more than able to call your bluff if he even gets a slight whiff that you're faking it. The real suckers are the ones with the medium stacked chips: not enough to adopt a carefree, laissez faire approach, but enough to keep you on your toes.
2 - Don't bluff for the sake of your own ego
You need to genuinely figure out whether a bluffing strategy is going to be useful to you when you decide to proceed with it. Don't bluff just because you can, and don't do it to show off. You'll end saving your big toe to lose your foot. In other words, bluffing for the sake of vanity can only but jeopardize your long-term gameplay.
3 - Don't bluff more often that you have to
Bluffing is something of an art, and like most forms of great art requires a certain subtlety for it to be truly effective. Think about some of the great songs you admire - there's a good chance that part of the beauty of these songs lies in that occasional but mind blowing guitar riff or piano solo, which when its time comes to shine seems to blow everything out of the water and nothing seems quite the same. It's a bit like that in poker: when you bluff at just the right time, in just the right quantity, and with true panache, you'll end up laughing all the way to the bank.
4 - Observe your opponents with the same intensity they do you
This is just crucial. Take note of how your opponents react to their hand, consider how they put the chips down the table (whether hurriedly, with a calm ease, seemingly disinterestedly, or enthusiastically), whether they placed them or slide them across the table, what they do with their feet, with their hands, how their eyes dart back and forth across the room (or, indeed, whether they're trying to maintain a focused gaze on a single object perhaps out of fear that a single, direct glance will give them away).
Poker forces you to ask these sorts of questions. Until you feel you've got a good grip on them, only stay in the game when the blinds are small and the betting portions within the ranges that you're comfortable with.
No comments:
Post a Comment