In Part 1 we discussed whether your Poker opponents use a certain style in your games of No Limit Texas Hold’em. Your opponents always offer clues on how to beat them, no style is absolutely unbeatable. This is what makes playing poker so exciting, even the amateur player can defeat the professional player despite a skill gap. This is why poker tournaments around the world are filled with so many players; everyone has a good chance to win and the difference between the best and the worst player is much smaller than in other sports.

After broadly classifying your opponent’s style you need to drill further into discovering how they play. You need a good memory because in a tournament you will meet many players if you do well and cash games can see a high turnover of players. You need to learn how every opponent plays strong hands like two pair or better, how they play dangerous boards and to what extent their perception of hand values change, how they play draws, how they exercise pot control and whether they can make a value bet on the river and whether they overbet pots as bluffs or value raises. Aren’t you pleased poker is such an easy game?

The way to analyse these things is by closely following the action and before you make a bet against these players always ask yourself the following questions.

• Is my opponent good enough to understand exactly what he is doing?
• What does he think about how I am playing?
• What was the outcome of a hand played in a similar way to this in the past? Is he/she repeating for the same outcome? If not, does that suggest a bluff?
• From what I calculate their style to be, is there an opportunity for me to win the pot outright?

Stop for a moment. All of these questions cloud the key concept of poker that you must be aware of throughout each and every hand you play, your own hand strength. It would be very easy for me (and I have done this many times) to work out a player could be on a bluff or is playing passively and who should think I am tight, and then make an ill-timed bluff with such a weak hand it was not worth it. Sometimes you know the opponent is bluffing but you must nevertheless live to fight another day.

Therefore, there is one last point to remember when considering the above questions and that is,

• Does my own hand strength allow me to engage in this situation or is it simply too weak?

Creative plays are fine and it is always good to read your opponents and understand what sort of hand you are going to engage in, but do not be afraid to impose your own style on the hand. ABC Poker is a powerful style in its own right. Sometimes it is best not to get too engrossed in the technical poker concepts we have discussed and bet because you want to build a pot because you think you are ahead! Many amateur players bet because they have a good hand not realising more complex ideas that support their decision. My poker game has shown much improvement recently when I went back to basics and stopped paralysing my mind with analysis.

There is a balance between using the ideas above and your fundamental understanding of poker to decide what to do in a hand. I completely believe that being able to rationalise your thinking using the ideas listed above and in Part 1 will become very helpful for those inevitable tough decisions we all face in our poker games. That is when extra knowledge is helpful and in today’s modern online and live poker environment there is really no excuse for not learning and studying as much about poker as you can.

Hopefully the discussion here has helped you as much as it has helped me to write it! Good luck on the poker tables.

By Malcolm Clarke

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