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Got a question for Clonie? Drop her a line at Clonie@Bluffmagazine.com.
Clonie,
I have a problem playing hands out of position when
I don’t flop anything. It seems like when I bet
my opponents always call, and when I check they bet.
What can I do to improve the way I play these hands?
- Brett P.
Los Angeles
Brett,
Most players, even many professionals, have a problem
playing hands out of position when they don’t
flop anything. Sometimes even when they do flop something!
The thing to remember is that position is everything
in poker. Try to avoid playing hands unless you have
position. If the hand is so good that you have to play
it, then be sure to play it aggressively. If you don’t
flop anything, and you have already checked and folded
once or twice, try a good sized check raise. If you
play with opponents who recognize that you have check
folded in the past, they will probably lay down a hand
here. The key is to mix up your play. In order for this
to work, you will have to show that you will also check
raise when you have made a good hand after the flop.
Playing out of position is tricky. Mixing up your game
and never letting your opponents know where you are
is the key to successfully playing these hands.
Clonie,
Some of the players that I play with on a regular basis
are very good at reading people and finding tells. I
never seem to have any idea when people are bluffing.
How can I become better at reading people?
- PokaJoe
PokaJoe,
This will depend a lot on the type of players you
are playing against and the size of the game you are
playing. In a bigger game, you are more likely to find
tricky players who may give off false tells in order
to try to trick you; however, you will rarely, if ever,
find this caliber of player in the smaller games. The
best thing that you can do is to try to pay very close
attention to a player’s demeanor when they make
a big play. If they end up having to show a bluff, then
you will know what they tend to do when bluffing. Are
they rigidly staring at the pot? Are they watching TV,
talking to the waitress, or talking to the other players?
These things are crucial,
and you will need to pay attention when you are not
in the hand in order to catch these things. Practice
putting people on hands when you are not playing the
actual hand. It takes experience to do this, but the
trick is to make educated decisions on what they might
have, based on the patterns that you are observing.
The other thing you can do is to figure out how you
act when you are either bluffing or you have a big hand.
Most players act the same way; this is the basis for
the multitude of common tells you can read about in
all the poker books out there. Being aware when you
are playing – aware of both yourself and your
opponents – is the key to making winning decisions
in poker.
Clonie,
I am currently primarily a No Limit Hold’em cash
game player, but I am considering playing more tournaments.
What kind of adjustment do I need to make to be successful
at this?
— Sara R.
Denver
Sara,
The biggest difference between cash game play and tournament
play is the escalating blinds. In a cash game, it would
not be a bad strategy to just wait for a good hand and
play a very tight game. In most games, this style would
be a winning style. In a tournament, however, the blinds
increase on a regular basis which means that the amount
of chips you have in comparison to the blinds and the
antes decreases rapidly. In order to play successfully,
at certain points in the tournament you will have to
open your game up and play a wider variety of hands.
I would suggest that you read as many tournament strategy
books as you can find. These will give you a variety
of differing strategies that you can use to become a
winning tournament player.
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