Keep Your Hand to Yourself
Thursday, September 30th, 2010When you are playing in a deep-stack poker tournament, you can expect to sit with the same players for an extended period of time, especially during the early stages of play. That means you will have time to observe the other players and they in turn can watch you to see if you give off any signals about your hand.
Everest Poker players must work very hard to keep from giving any reliable information about their hands to opponents. There are several ways you can disguise your starting hands and make it nearly impossible to read you intentions.
One way to do this is to simply not look at your hand until it’s actually your turn to act. If you don’t know what your cards are, you can’t give off any information ahead of time about whether you’ll fold, call or raise.
Another way to disguise your hands is to always open with the same raise amount - perhaps 3x the big blind, a fairly standard raise - whether you’re holding Aces or suited connectors or just a naked bluff. Once you get past the flop, continue with standard bets, such as three-quarters of the pot. By adhering to standard raises, you will not give off the strength of your hand.
These strategies work well in cash games and in deep-stack online poker tournaments. Once you get to the later stages of a tournament, your betting strategy will have to change and be adapted to hand, position and your opponents. Disguising your hands consistently with formulaic betting during the early stages will help advance you to the later stage of the tournament.