Hey everybody, in today’s article we’re going to talk about some unconventional poker advice that can have an outsized effect on your results.
These aren’t necessarily the kinds of tips you hear repeated in every training video, but they can dramatically change how opponents react to you and how you approach the game.
Let’s get right into it.
1. Nobody should be able to describe exactly how you play
One of the biggest bluffs you’ll ever pull off has nothing to do with a particular hand. It’s convincing people that you’re a different type of poker player than you actually are.
It amazes me how many players don’t care about this at all. If I sit down with you and within 20 minutes decide that you’re a tight player, and it turns out you really are a tight player, you’ve given up a huge amount of potential profit against me.
The same thing applies if everybody can immediately identify you as loose, solid, maniacal, passive, or a calling station. The moment your opponents can accurately categorize you, they can begin making much easier decisions against you.
You need to start thinking about deception from the moment you sit down.
I’m typically a fairly solid cash-game player, but looking like a solid cash-game player doesn’t always get me paid. So sometimes I’ll deliberately act a little more obnoxious or action-oriented than I really am.
I don’t push it so far that I annoy everyone at the table. But if somebody makes a completely standard continuation bet and their opponent folds, I might loudly say something like, “Nice bet!" just to make myself seem a little more ridiculous than I actually am.
I might straddle a couple of times as well. I want people thinking that I’m there to gamble and splash around rather than quietly wait for strong situations.
That image has gotten me called in big value spots far more often than simply sitting there looking disciplined. Stop automatically showing people exactly who you are and start thinking about what you want them to believe.
2. Maniacs win tournaments, but nits rarely do
We’ve all watched poker on TV and seen a wildly aggressive player who seems like they’re barely keeping track of what they’re doing make an incredibly deep tournament run. There’s a reason that style can be so dangerous in tournaments.
Tournament pressure makes people uncomfortable making huge call-downs. That means an aggressive player often has more than one way to win a pot: they can make the best hand, or they can force everyone else to fold.
Compare that with the ultra-tight player who waits endlessly for premium situations. Those players can survive for a long time, but unless the deck completely runs them over, they often struggle to accumulate enough chips to actually win the tournament.
That doesn’t mean you should start shoving garbage hands because you saw somebody do it on television. It does mean that if everybody at your table can confidently describe you as a nit, you probably aren’t applying enough pressure.
The next time you play a tournament, ask yourself what your opponents would say about you. If everyone thinks you’re simply a solid player who always has it, you may be leaving too many opportunities untouched.
When you’re afraid to pull the trigger on a reasonable bluff, ask yourself a more uncomfortable question. Do you actually want to win the tournament, or are you primarily trying to avoid busting?
Those are not the same objective.
3. You don’t always need to match the biggest stack
There is another piece of cash-game advice that often gets repeated without enough thought: always buy in to cover the biggest stack at the table.
Sometimes that makes perfect sense, but sometimes it’s just ego disguised as strategy.
If the biggest stack belongs to a terrible player who is giving away chips, then absolutely consider matching that stack. You want to have the ability to win as much as possible when you get involved with the weakest player at the table.
But imagine that the biggest stacks belong to several strong, aggressive players who are constantly battling each other. Buying in equally deep just so you can say you cover everybody may unnecessarily put you into more complicated spots against competent opponents.
In that situation, buying in for around 100 big blinds can make a lot of sense. You can wait for strong situations, get the money in with big pairs or strong one-pair hands, and potentially double through somebody who gets a little too aggressive.
Now you have a deeper stack without having exposed yourself to the same risk from the moment you sat down. You effectively earned your way into the deeper game instead of immediately volunteering for it.
Stack depth should be a strategic decision, not a pride decision. You don’t get a bonus for sitting down with the biggest stack just because everybody else did.
4. Live poker should often be the treat, not the training ground
The more hands you play, the more opportunities you have to learn. Volume gives you repeated exposure to common situations, which makes it easier to recognize patterns and improve your fundamentals.
If you live somewhere where regulated online poker is available, online play can be an incredibly efficient way to get that volume. If you’re able to multi-table, you may sometimes play more hands in a short online session than you would during many hours at a live table.
That difference matters.
Live poker can obviously be extremely profitable because the games often contain more recreational players and larger mistakes. But if you’re still learning basic preflop ranges, continuation betting, 3-bet pots, blind defense, and other fundamentals, live poker can be painfully slow.
You simply don’t see enough hands.
If you’re trying to learn everything exclusively through live poker, it may take a very long time before you’ve experienced the same situation often enough to understand it properly. Online poker compresses those repetitions.
That’s why, when possible, I like the idea of learning your fundamentals through online volume and then using those fundamentals to crush live games. Online poker teaches you discipline and repetition, while live poker gives you opportunities to exploit much larger deviations.
Of course, this advice changes if you have access to an exceptional live game or can put in serious live volume. But for many developing players, the fastest route to improvement involves getting far more hands under their belt.
5. If you never punt a big stack near a bubble, you may be playing to survive
This last one is going to make some tournament players uncomfortable.
If you never blow up a big stack around the bubble or near a final table, there’s a chance you’re not taking enough risks during the stages where pressure matters most.
Think about how fold equity changes throughout a tournament.
At the beginning of a re-entry tournament, you may have very little fold equity against certain opponents. Everyone is fresh, re-entry is available, and plenty of players are happy to gamble.
That generally isn’t the time to start blasting away with marginal bluffs. Your bluffing range should often be more selective, with stronger draws and hands that retain significant equity when called.
Now compare that with the period immediately before the money bubble bursts. Suddenly players who have invested hours and multiple buy-ins desperately do not want to walk away with nothing.
They start folding.
That means your fold equity can become much more valuable. If opponents are dramatically overfolding because they’re afraid of busting, aggressive players should be willing to take advantage of that fear.
The same dynamic can show up right before a final table. Nobody wants to tell their friends that they finished tenth when the final table started at nine, so some players become far more risk-averse than they normally would.
Those are exactly the situations where a big stack can become a weapon.
Sometimes using that weapon means you’re going to run into a hand and lose a large portion of your stack. That doesn’t automatically mean the aggression was a mistake.
If you go through tournament after tournament without ever putting a meaningful stack at risk during the highest-pressure stages, ask yourself whether you’re actually trying to maximize your chances of winning. You may simply be maximizing your chances of hanging around.
Winning and surviving are two different strategies.
Stop trying to look like a textbook poker player
Some of the most useful poker adjustments don’t come from memorizing another chart or learning another solver output. They come from understanding how your opponents perceive you, where pressure exists, and when conventional advice doesn’t fit the situation in front of you.
Create a misleading table image instead of advertising your exact style. Apply pressure in tournaments instead of waiting endlessly for premium hands, choose your stack depth strategically, use online volume when it helps you learn faster, and recognize when tournament fear gives you an opportunity to attack.
None of these ideas mean abandoning fundamentals. They mean using those fundamentals while thinking more creatively about how actual poker games are played.
I hope these tips have been beneficial to you and your game. Wishing you the best of luck on the felt.
Alex Fitzgerald is a best-selling author published by D&B Poker. Check out Alex’s most recent book, ‘How to Beat Players Who Never Fold.’
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