Identify Your Opponent to Maximize Value at the Texas Holdem Poker Table
There are many types of Texas Holdem Poker player, and, of course, many levels of experience between those players. Texas Holdem the card game is similar to pushing spaghetti around a plate – some will get more, others will get less and the house always takes a slice. The statistics of cards over time dictate that we all have the same opportunities. The key to maximizing our potential gains is to quickly identify your opponent type and skill level. If you can correctly identify your opponent then you will be able to alter your playing style to maximize your win, and just as significantly, minimize your loss. Let’s review the various playing styles that you will come across in an average Texas Holdem Poker cash game. Players will either be: • Rocks
• Tight Players
• Calling Stations
• Maniacs And within these styles you will find a range of aggression that goes from passive to aggressive. What follows are some strategic hints and tips to help you play against each form of poker player in an online environment. Rocks Rocks are the most common type of Texas Holdem Player. They are the easiest to beat and usually are inexperienced new players who think the game revolves around the cards that are dealt. It’s also the most natural playing style and so you will come across them regularly. These are the people you should look to play against. Controlled aggression is the way to proceed. Bet at these players when flops look ugly and they’ll most likely fold. If they re-raise you in return, step aside and let them take the hand, coming right back at them next round. A rock who has been sitting folding the last 20 hands, only to come out betting, is the easiest read of all. If you can’t see them coming then I’d suggest you take up a different game. Tight Players Tight players are usually battle hardened. The difference between a tight player and a rock is that they understand the need to come out more often, with the occasional bluff here and there. More importantly they usually use the time spent sitting out, to identify opponent characteristics in order to play their weaknesses. The best of all players sit in this category – Tight Aggressive No Limit Texas Holdem players need to be identified early on and avoided at all cost. Find one and you should re-examine your table selection (yes you should move table). Real life examples of this type of player would be Howard Lederer and Erick Lindgren. Calling Stations Calling stations present an interesting playing style and are the second most common type you’ll find in online poker. By definition fairly weak, these players rarely take the initiative and thereby have to rely on the luck of running up against an aggressive player while holding the nut or near nut hand. More often than not these people will lose because they are: 1) Playing their cards and not their opponent
2) Have no initiative
3) Regularly rely on card catching strategies It’s worth pointing out at this stage that card catching is a bad idea in almost any circumstances (except as part of a semi-bluff play). Maniacs Maniacs are a rare breed of player seldom seen in low limit or tournament Texas Holdem Poker games. They have no fear of losing, indeed it’ll look like they want to, and it is this that sets them apart from most players online today. Difficult to play against, these opponents rely on your fear of losing your stack to gain chips. Often seen with large chip stacks relative to the table, Maniacs will bet large regularly, and whatever hand you choose to play, it is likely that you will have to be prepared to go all-in with it. No card catching against these opponents – if you try you will be punished. The identification of Maniacs is easy, as is your assault on their playing style. Clearly the weakness these players have is that they are susceptible to large pocket pairs (AA, KK, QQ, even AK). The difficulty is that you will likely have to wait a good number of cards before you get to play such a hand. Maniacs are far from stupid (they often evolve in experience terms from Rocks or Calling Stations that have read Doyle Brunson’s Super System books and progressed from there. To hit them properly you have to either get lucky early on with the big pair or play enough cards so you are not identified as a waiting Rock (obviously you don’t want them to get out of your way when the time is right). If you beat an aggressive Maniac once, you’ll find they go on Tilt really easily, which provides further opportunity for the brave. I recall hitting one for $800 from $200 in 3 hands because he went all-in 3 times in a row with no cards at all. He incorrectly judged that I would fold rather than re-stake my entire winnings on each of the next 2 poker hands. Fortunately for me they were fairly solid starting hands in the circumstances but I can tell you it’s not easy going all-in pre-flop for $500 with just King Jack. I’d be mad to do that in any other circumstance but I felt I had a good read on the player type and his hand which turned out to be 92 unsuited didn’t stand up. Hopefully you’ll observe playing styles and look to pick off Rocks and Calling Stations. If you come up against a tight (particularly Tight Aggressive) player, with no other easy to beat players around, you should move on. I’ve been at many tables where the poor players have lost and left, the good ones remain, and one off those triggers the table’s break up by saying “no easy money here, the only winner will be the rake, lets move on.” If you’ve not had this said to you, or you’ve not made the statement yourself then consider that you may be a fish. Graham Easton is webmaster of http://www.texashold-empoker.com He has a track record in No-Limit Texas Holdem Poker Tournament play of 1 win, 4 second places and a 10th out of his last 20 large online tournaments in fields ranging from 300-1500 players. |
Other Football System Articles
Online Football Betting Secrets: Knowing When NOT To Bet Sports Betting on the NFL and college football is a national pastime. Every week millions of dollars are bet on the home town favorites with local bookies. People bet even more money with online sports book agencies. Even the major news services publish all the betting stats.If you're going to bet money on games, you might as well be as i ...Aggression and Violence in Sports For anyone living in the American society, it does not take a sociologist or a political scientist to call attention to which extend sports has permeated the American way of life. Newspapers devote an entire section of their daily editions to the coverage of sports such as golf , football, soccer, and more. Newsprint about sport surpasses even t ...Jacks-or-Better Video Poker Machines - Five Simple Tips to Win More Money If you are playing video poker, then Jacks-or-Better is a great machine to play and you can increase the odds of success dramatically by learning five simple tips.You don't need to spend a long time learning these tips; they're simple, quick, and easy to learn. Jacks-or-Better video poker is fun anyway, but even more so when you're winnin ...Poker Stars Review It’s important for players to review different poker rooms before deciding on a specific site. There are so many places to play on the Internet, and no two online poker rooms are alike. Taking the time to appraise multiple sites doesn’t take a great deal of time, but it could make a huge difference once you start playing. It’s important to know ...Sport Book Wagering Betting on sports online is very popular today. Online sports books offer the same betting options as Las Vegas and bettors can place their bets in online sports & race books via the internet or the phone.All kinds of bets are accepted like betting on basketball, the NBA , football, the NFL, US and international soccer, boxing, tennis, ...Why Is Poker So Popular? Every day it seems that in one form or another, the game of poker is slowly taking over the world. Televised poker tournaments have generated massive worldwide interest in the game. Casual players have become tournament champions and millionaires have been made overnight. The proliferation of new technologies has made it possible for players any ...PSL Power Rankings #7 What an absolutely insane first few weeks it’s been in the NFL. Seventeen teams, 17!!!, are still over .500. And it’s just crazy how one week a team (let’s say, the Giants) can look like total crap and then the following week come out and smoke a top-five team like the Falcons. Powerhouses like the Bengals losing to junk teams like the Buccan ...Pigskin Pickem Heats up in Sin City Las Vegas has begun serving up its usual smorgasbord of football contests and, as always, there are more selections from which to choose than the Bellagio buffet!The biggie, of course, is the Las Vegas Hilton SuperContest, which has been around for years and proclaims its winner to be the world's best handicapper.Canadian Tony Ricc ...Online Poker Leaves U.S. on the Sidelines Online poker is big business. With the game more popular than ever, thousands of people have flocked to the net to try their luck at hundreds of sites and helping to create a multi-billion dollar industry with no signs of slowing down.While Las Vegas and Atlantic City may have the market cornered on face-to-face poker action, billions of ...Why Use an Internet Sports Book to Make Wagers? Although I started using online sportsbooks almost ten years ago, I still maintained contact with a couple of local books for the express purpose of getting better lines with regard to the local or favorite teams of choice in my neck of the woods, the reasoning of course was so that if I saw "Value" in going against the the local or favorite tea ...You Don't Need More Traffic to Make More Money Every website owner has a somewhat unhealthy obsession with driving more traffic to their site. We all want more traffic, if for nothing else to be able to brag to others how many unique visitors we've received. Competition among web owners aside, actually doing something with that traffic is equally as important as getting it. Yet for some r ...Online Slots Tips - To Win Big While online slots are a game of chance, there are certain steps you can take to put the odds in favor and win big jackpots.Slots are simple, exciting and fun and if you learn the enclosed online slot tips you will have as much chance as winning the big jackpots as anyone else.The 8 online slot tips below to put the odds in your fa ...Poker - Classic Poker Movies There’s something about poker that’s hard to resist. As a pure contest of will and skill, the game has woven itself into our culture. From rough and tumble Old West saloons to the glitz and glamour of a Las Vegas casino, poker has captured our imaginations like no other game. The raw drama inherent in the game has provided a wealth of material f ...My Father's Lucky Betting System I was raised by my father. My father was a gambler. When I was 14 my father had an incredible lucky summer betting on baseball. He had worked out a system that won 90% of the time. I didn’t realize it at the time. When my father went on a hot streak he would become very quiet. I think he feared if he talked about it the spell would be broken and ...The NFL's Improved Schedule-Making Process The NFL's decision to expand to 32 teams and align into eight divisions of four teams each as of 2002 has removed much of the complication and inequity that used to plague its schedule-making process. Before the new system, some teams, even those in the same conference but a different division, would go a decade or more without playing each othe ...Horse Racing Betting Horse racing is known as the sport of kings and many people around the world enjoy horse racing betting. However, horse racing betting is much more than just picking the horse with the catchiest name or the best odds. If you’re serious about betting on the ponies it’s a good idea to consult with some of the expert odds makers who know why a part ...Top 10 Reasons for Visiting a Casino Over the course of a few weeks, I conducted a very brief survey, asking randomly chosen casino visitors one simple question. The question was, "Why did you visit this casino today?" Besides receiving an odd look every now and then, I managed to get a range of different reasons why people visit casinos.Reason #1: To gamble. Not suprisingly ...Inside the Boxscores Week 1 Part 1 Inside the Boxscores is a weekly feature from Matt Fargo that has been widely recognized as the best summation in college football. He takes an in-depth look at each game and pulls out the most pertinent information that will help you handicap games in the future. College football is filled with quirky plays, misleading scores and surprise endin ...#54 Oregon St. Beavers Preview Spring practices are in the books and fall camps will be here before you know it so that means getting an early jump on the 2006 NCAA football season. Knowing the teams now will save you time in August and Matt Fargo is here to help you get a grasp of what to expect this upcoming year. We go from worst to first in this 2006 College Football Prev ...Gambling Online – Why Systems Don't Work & How To Get The Best Odds! If you are gambling online and playing games of chance, then to make money you need to know the bets with the best odds of success and understand systems don’t work.If you want to know why systems don’t work in games of chance, read on and then find out how to play with maximum odds in your favor.So do you know the best bests in Ba ...A Trade War is brewing; Are We Paying Attention Incompetence is all too obvious at the trade shows of major industries in the United States. At the AAPEX Trade Show, it was apparent that the PTO needs to answer some of those Viagra Spam-emails; because they are absolutely Impotent to the piracy of patents, trademarks, concepts and innovations in our country. There was at least, and this is no ...The Eye on the Prize Looking for some cool new ways to motivate your drive-thru staff? These ideas can be adopted for dine-in as well, but since the mystery shops for the annual g3/QSR Drive-Thru Time Study are fast approaching, it’s time to gear up to challenge the leaders—the bar is already set quite high. Though incentives are a great add-on system to improve you ...Top 3 Most Wanted Features Of Online Poker Sites Interested in playing a round or two of online poker, are you? If so, be aware that playing poker is not like taking your chances in a slot machine. When playing poker – even though you’re online – you’re not just going against a machine and the cosmic powers alone. No, you’re going against live players yourself, only you can’t see them. And the ...Sports Betting 101- How to Bet on Hockey The most recent changes brought about in the hockey world centered around the NHL lock-out of the 2004-2005 season, the end result was a season without hockey and a flurry of new rules, most of the new rules were created and designed to bring more excitement to the game of hockey, however, these same rule changes also affected the way a gambler ...Online Casino Gaming In the 1990s a new form of gambling started to become popular across the globe.Online gambling also known as internet gambling, online casino gaming or cyberspacegambling. Online gambling becomes more and more popular each year. There are lots of online casinos and there will even be more in the future.Players can enjoy gambling fo ...Pelamis Ocean Wave Energy Generation; Can We Do Better? There is a new alternative energy company, which has designed a huge ocean wave hydroelectric machine. But it is nothing like any normal hydroelectric generation machine where water goes thru a pipe with a paddle connected to a shaft. The Pelamis is a large three-piece unit with each peace the size of football fields, which are hinged in threes ...Macklin's NBA Win Total Recommendations The start of the NBA regular season is just a week away (Tuesday, Nov 1) and season win totals have been out for a while. Depending on the out, season win totals range from a high of 57 1/2 on the defending World Champion San Antonio Spurs to a low of 19 1/2 on the second-year Charlotte Bobcats.Personally, I don't do a whole lot with any ...
|
