Marcus Bateman / Marcus Bateman / 13 January 2009 / Leave a comment

One of the earliest observations from the 'mad genius' of poker, Mike Caro, about bad players was that they usually act weak when strong or strong when weak.

In the very low stakes games, players tend to just act strong when weak, weak when strong, and leave themselves open to all manner of attack

The reasons for this are actually quite obvious if you think carefully about them, and I'm sure that 99% of players made these moves when they first started (I know I did). It seems a fundamental human instinct to try and behave in an overly honest way when trying to deceive, and to behave in an overly strong way when very weak (see all the reassuring statements from banks days before they suddenly approach the government for emergency funds, or footballers statements of club allegiance days before they transfer to another club).

To anyone who is familiar with dealing with people who are habitually trying to deceive them, these features of human nature become laughably obvious after a while, and you start to wonder how anyone could think such strategies are viable. There are two much more effective ways to act when trying to deceive people. The first is to act exactly like you do when telling the truth, as this leaves people in a much harder spot in terms of successfully analysing your behavior. The other alternative to this is to mix up your weak and strong plays to such an extent that again, it becomes very difficult to read. Of these two, the first is by far the most simpler, although the latter is a much more fun style if it can be perfected.

In the very low stakes games, players tend to just act strong when weak, weak when strong, and leave themselves open to all manner of attack. As you start to move to the middle stakes, players start to act in a more complex manner, usually acting both strong when strong, but also strong when weak often enough to keep you guessing. At the very highest stakes, deception becomes of huge importance. As the playing standard is so high at the biggest limits, players only real edge becomes the ability to set up very complex plays that have meaning not over any individual hand (often the play of one hand in isolation can look completely crazy), but the many more hands that they expect to play in that particular session.

Being able to work out what a players behavior consistently indicates about their hand is one of the key things you need to be able to do to win consistently at poker. Many individuals give off very obvious signs that players around them just simply do not pick up on - don't let yourself become one of them.

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