Mad Man Poker

I’ve already talked about becoming predictable in some of my other posts, but it is past due time to give this subject a place of its own.

Becoming predictable is the downfall for every poker player. Not only does it mean that you severely damage your bluffing opportunities, it also means that your hands in which you do hit big will hardly become paid off. No extra value in dead hands and very little in live ones. That adds up to becoming a losing player in the end.

Of course, there is no real strategy to become unpredictable, but there is, however, a strategy in avoiding routine.

I’ve already briefly suggested (in the heads up post) that you design game plans per hand before the hand is even played out. Sticking to the plan then will automatically mean that your opponents have no chance in reading you.

Easier said then done, I know, so I’m going to put you onto your way.

First of all, assess your hand. What category is your hand in?
Is it pure and utter junk? I’d rather you throw it away right now, of course, but OK, in some cases there is something to be said for playing any hand when the position, your image and the other players’ tells all scream out for you to play.
This is the easy kind, there can only be one game plan here. You are trying to steal and will leave at the slightest sign of opposition. Should you be called and happen to catch a monster when the cards come down, we’re in another category. As long as you are trying to steal, this hand is over either before or right after the first played street in the hand (the flop in community games, third street in stud or the (first) draw in drawing games).

Are you carrying a monster in your opening hand? Good, there’s 2 ways you can go here.
The slowplay, in which case you can only have the plan to go for the kill once an opponent starts showing real aggression, or the fastplay.
When slowplaying, realise that you need close to, or even no less than the stone cold nuts. Since you delay trying to get value in the early rounds, you need to exponentially get more value out of the later rounds, meaning the other guy needs a pretty good hand too. This all seems very clear when you read it here, but in too many cases you see players slowplay their top pair top kicker, to finally get action in a later betting round and then be amazed when someone pulled two pair or a set on them. One pair is weak in almost every form of poker. One pair is what you pick up small to medium pots with. You do not slowplay one pair. Not only will you run into better hands far too often, you also limit your own bluffing possibilities. If people notice that you are willing to play high on 1 pair, they will be less eager to believe you have a big hand when you do bluff big.

Predictability is oddly enough something that hangs closely together with physical tells. A lot of times people will not be able to tell exactly why they did or did not believe you, but often enough it has something to do with subconsciously giving off tells that predict a certain action. When someone’s subconscious was expecting something to happen, people will be far more at ease when it actually does happen, even if they aren’t really aware of it. In this comfort zone they will be far more at ease to make quite amazing calls with threatened pair or ignoring straights and flushes on boards that scream for the draw. Most of the time they will put it on instinct, but in reality more often than not, they could predict a certain action and were relaxed enough to call, knowing they had the best hand.

It also works the other way around when your monsters don’t get paid off, because your opponent had this gut feeling that you had it or “didn’t feel like risking a lot of chips”. If you get a lot of this, start assessing what tells you could be giving off that make you so predictable.
Avoiding this could be the hardest thing you ever have to do. Pushing back your own tells is something even top professionals sometimes don’t succeed in.

But there are a few things you can do.

First of all, start a lot of opposing actions in the exact same way. Do you check raise a lot? Then start using check fold as well in quite some situations.

Do you often chase draws, then attack drawy boards when they complete in any way, even if you don’t have it. Not only will you pick up pots that others didn’t hit, it will help with draws you did hit, because people will gradually start doubting if you have made your hand.

But most importantly, find 1 general way of betting.

Too often do I see people bet carefully on draws and monstrously on made hands. It’s not too hard to predict what is going to happen when you know your opponent’s hand, is it!

Find yourself a comfort zone between which about 90% of all your betting will be. In this way you cut out an important way for anyone to tell what kind of hand you are on.
And off course, as always, kids: aggression, aggression, aggression! Nobody cares about you being predictable when you let them control the pots.
Your aggression should be about the only thing on which predictability is usually a good thing. When people know chances are big that you will raise their bet or won’t check behind them, they will be less likely to make that play.

Should you still have any confusion, I predict you’ll know where to find us.

The Mad Man