Choose Your Opponents Carefully

I am reminded of my fourth-grade teacher. God bless her soul, she turned my young life around because she cared for me. The one thing she would say to me often was, "Andy, pay attention now." That was my signal to quit daydreaming. Now was the time to quit gazing out the window, to pull my thoughts together to some point of history, math, geography or grammar. My mother was also most grateful to that teacher. What that dear teacher taught me in fourth grade has, believe it or not, carried over to the green oval poker table. There are some very important moments when I must indeed remind myself to pay attention now.

THE EDUCATED PLAYER

Let's talk about what the informed poker player does while watching a poker game in session, whether he is sitting at the table or waiting to get a seat.

What a good player looks for when watching the game is to identify the general playing styles of each player. Information is gleaned about one or more players on every hand. If any cards are visible, like in Seven Card Stud, an educated player can make a decent guess as to the strength of a hand by the porch and the betting or calling pattern. For instance, if an aggressive player is showing four big cards in one suit and checks it when there is nothing threatening about the other hands showing, you can usually determine that he does not have his flush. (You must be careful that he isn't hoping to check-raise.) Of course there are several other possibilities if a person doesn't bet when he has a good porch. One is that he could be a timid better and is afraid that someone else has a higher flush or hit their two pairs draw to hold a full house. All of these possibilities are clues.

The educated player watching the game is paying attention to all these possibilities. This information is pivotal for profit. The matrix of each and every hand is complex. The good player looks first for the general level of competency of each online poker UK player and then refines his opinions as he gains more data.

I was playing with a group of players I had never seen before. The game was Texas Hold 'Em and one player raised from early position. When the hand was shown down, he had a pair of twos in his hand. He immediately went into my "flake" category. Later he re-raised with an ace-four off suit, hit two runners to make a straight with his four. I then moved this player into the "dangerous, but love to have in the game" classification. Side note: Doesn't low-limit poker have some wonderful characters? And when they win, it is really fun to watch them.

The game of online poker has so many subtleties that it can hold a lifetime of fascination to an alert player. Success, though, is centered on being able to do what my teacher advised, "Pay attention, now."

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