Game On - Mixing it Up

by Bodog Poker | Feb 4 2009

We’ve all learned that playing a tight style of poker is a good way to trap a table full of loose players, and that an aggressive style can often run over a table full of cautious players. But when you’re playing at a table with good players, who will watch every move that you make, you have to do more than just play a certain style. Most poker players repeat their playing habits, and they try to do things that worked for them in the past. Any style, regardless of how well you may play it, will be vulnerable if you continue to play it the same way all the time.

So changing up your play will be imperative to your success if you’re playing against experienced opponents. This is a common practice amongst professional players. “Changing Gears” as it’s called in the poker world means that you make a conscious effort to remember how you played certain hands, and then purposely play similar hands differently to throw your opponents off what you are holding.

If you’ve been raising the pot three times the blind from a middle position a couple of times in a session, you should switch to betting more, or less, when you’re in the same situation. You can even decide to slow play your big cards every now and then, just as long as you’re able to show your opponents that you won’t bet the same hands the same way every time you get dealt them. The skilled players that are always watching and remembering will see quickly that you change up your play, and that they can’t depend on the information that you’re putting out to be what they recognize.

Mixing it up can be taken a step further if you’re capable of doing it. The best players will not only change up their play, but they’ll change it a certain way depending on the opponent they’re in the hand with. If they understand the way their opponent would play a certain hand, they will represent a hand in the way they figure their opponent would play it. They feed the opponent what they know that player will recognize. This is obviously a tactic better utilized in a head-to-head situation.

This tactic should only be utilized on good players who will pick up on the false plays that you will be making. Weak players won’t understand the betting patterns that you’re displaying, and will never understand the hand that you’re trying to represent or disguise.

You mix up your play at the poker table because skilled players will know what you’re doing every time you repeat a betting pattern or bet size in a similar situation. If you can remember how you played your hands, you’ll be one step ahead of the good players that are trying to figure out your game. No player should be able to say how you play. They should only say that it’s hard to put you on a hand. Mixing up your play makes you the kind of player that frustrates smart players who assume they know what’s going on.

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