If having to worry about your own hands and strategies wasn’t bad enough, you also need to pay constant attention to what your opponents are doing throughout an entire session. More importantly, you need to keep track of what kind of information you are giving away to them.
Even if you are lucky enough to not have any glaring physical tell tales that give away the strength of your hand, you can provide just as much useful data to opposing players simply by the way you bet. To protect yourself against this, you need to learn how to disguise your betting patterns.
How does your betting pattern help your opponents?
Your betting pattern is the way you bet in certain scenarios. Believe it or not you will often repeatedly bet the same amount in the same situations, something that smart opponents will notice. Betting patterns can reveal when your hand is both strong and weak, which is why it is such a useful and profitable tool.
For example, whenever you have a strong hand and you are first to act, you always make a bet that’s half the size of the pot. Then, whenever you are bluffing and are the first to act, you always make a pot-sized bet or more. After enough showdowns on the river it will become obvious that you are making the same plays again and again in the same scenarios.
Techniques to throw your opponents off the scent
Thankfully, breaking a repetitious betting pattern is fairly simple; you just need to be aware of what you are doing and when.
You could occasionally under or over bet a pot to switch gears and throw your opponents. This technique works best when you are able to show your hand to the other players, so they can see you did not play that round the way you usually do.
Next, make a half-pot bluff instead of shoving all-in. You do not have to deviate from your comfort zone too much; just a little bit of confusion is all that is required. This will cause your fellow players to doubt their read on your betting pattern, which is the whole point and will allow you to pull other techniques such as traps.
You should also remember to never make a random play that will cause you to lose a hand. Changing your betting pattern should be a subtle adjustment, not something that jeopardises your win ratio.
Key Points
• Be aware that opponents can and will pick up on your betting patterns.
• Avoid betting the same amounts in the same situations repeatedly.
• Make slight adjustments to your betting patterns to throw opponents off their read.
Chris
- Chris Laquinta is a magazine editor, content specialist and poker fanatic with 10+ years writing experience and over 1,500 published articles. Chris is a naitive of Southern California, where he spent his entire life learning gaming concepts and theories from relatives that had been former professional gamblers. He currently resides in Torrance, CA where he works as a professional content writer and part-time SNG professional.
