Thu 22 Jan 2009
No, I’m not talking about different poker games, I’m talking about your play style. I’d like to explore for a moment the various styles of play we have to learn to adopt depending on the situations. I like to think of it as a kind of costume party where you have to pick the right costume depending on the guests. You wouldn’t walk into a sports themed party wearing a Dracula costume, and the samemetaphoricallycan be said of your poker play.
Here’s an example. You’re playing a lot of passive opponents. This in and of itself gives you the opportunity to play hands that would be considered medium strength otherwise. You’re not going to make any money at this table if you’re playing like the Rock and only betting the strong hands. Instead you’d want to evolve your style to exploit the passiveness of the table. Hence, you’d bluff more, and call down opponents with weaker hands that you would if you were playing against a solid or aggressive poker table.
And, speaking of aggressive tables, you’d also want to adjust accordingly. These types of tables tend to get all kinds of hands on the board that shouldn’t be on the board in the first place, but the reckless play dictates that they end up getting played anyway and people get drawn out on a lot. For this, you would exploit the aggression, taking on the guaranteed shots and busting them for trying to play garbage.
So just remember, before you just show up with your party favors, scope out what kind of costume the other players are wearing and adjust yours accordingly.
