The changing story of poker online
Marcus Bateman
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Marcus Bateman /
14 December 2008 /
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When online poker first started, the only thing you had to know how to do to beat no limit hold'em games was to three bet with hands other than monsters, and make continuation bets at a high frequency.
This was because most of the players in the games saw these moves as plays of extreme strength, and they would fall for the story you were telling them (that you are sitting on a big hand), and frequently fold better hands than the one you are actually raising, with the result that they steadily went broke.
Most players were very passive, seeing hold'em as a flop game where they should at least take a flop, regardless of the pre flop price. As you miss the flop so often in hold'em, this was never going to be a successful long term strategy.
As the players either went broke or improved, many started to notice that some players were doing this at a much higher frequency than they could if they were only doing it with monsters. As a result, weak players started to call or raise flop bets with pretty weak holdings.
This in turn led to the top players adding a new story to their arsenal. As so many players were calling flop bets, then betting the turn if checked to ('oh they have checked now - they must have nothing' seems to have been the thought process amongst these players), many good players started making big check raise bluffs and semi bluffs on the turn to combat these players new found ability to combat their ceaseless pre flop and flop aggression.
The point of all of this is that poker is constantly in flux in terms of players opinion of what the 'correct' strategy is at that time. When online poker first started, a Hellmuthesque style of super tight play with lots of trapping was deemed the best, yet without Hellmuth's table presence and constant needling to get players to keep trying to call and bluff him, it is a losing strategy over the long run (this is probably why Hellmuth never seems to record good results in the biggest cash games either live or online, where table presence has little effect on hardened pros, and the lack of true balance in his game makes him a relatively easy target).
In the modern era, a more loose aggressive style, as played by the likes of young guns such as Annette Obrestad and Sorel Mizzi has become fashionable, although it may be that in the future play returns to a tighter style to take advantage of too many people playing loose.
Keep an eye not only on the play of those around you at the time, but also in the general trends of the masses behaviour. The very best players are masters of understanding and adjusting to new concepts and ways of thinking in poker - and keeping up to date with it is critical for long term success.
Related Readings
Day 1 Niagara - Should have shoved on the flop - Sorel Mizzi
Set Mining - Annette Obrestad
How much to bet in poker - Marcus Bateman
I am a robot - Pud's Poker (Blog)
EPT San Remo and future of poker - Sorel Mizzi
LAG v TAG - WSOPE
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