Playing Against Unknown Opponents

What’s your strategy whenever you’re playing at a table of players unknown to you? Do you play cautiously at first to feel out your opponents?

That’s what most people seem to do. When I talk to people about hands, most players seem to view unknown opponents as a negative. They don’t want to get too far out of line before they know much about their opponents. So they rely on a straightforward, ABC style until they get some idea about how their opponents play.

Less popularly, I’ve heard people say that they try to play a certain way to establish an image. The plan is to make a specific impression on their opponents and then switch gears. For instance, some people will play nearly all of the first ten or fifteen hands at the table to appear wild and crazy. Then they will slow down and try to capitalize on that image by getting value hands paid.

I don’t take either of these approaches. Nor do I view playing against unknown opponents as a negative. I see unknown opponents as an opportunity to be exploited.

The first insight is that the unknownness goes both ways. I don’t know how my opponents play, but they don’t know how I play either. During this time of little information, all parties are making assumptions (either explicitly or implicitly) about their opponents and playing to those assumptions. The closer your assumptions are to the reality of how your opponents play, the better you’ll do.

Therefore, my main goal during this time is to play opposite of the assumptions my opponents might make about me. If my opponents’ assumptions are nearly always wrong, then I will come out ahead, even if I make a few wrong assumptions of my own along the way.

It’s very clear to me after having played in thousands of games with unknown players that most players assume at first that I will take a roughly ABC approach. They tend to fold to my large bets. They don’t seem to go out of their way to get position on me or to play pots with me. In other words, they seem to assume I’m just another guy who is okay at poker.

Since experience tells me that it’s fair to assume that these will be the assumptions players make about me, my strategy is built to thwart these assumptions.
I don’t play every hand. That would make it obvious to my opponents that I’m a different kind of cat. Instead, I stick to a preflop strategy roughly consistent with an ABC player. It’s what I do after the flop that’s a little crazy.

My postflop play is almost completely backwards. I play limply with my good hands (though not necessarily with my nutted hands), and I fire away with air.

For example, say someone raises preflop, and I call on the button. The flop comes 10-8-3 with two spades. My opponent bets. I’m going to assume that my opponent will bet this flop nearly 100 percent of the time, and therefore I call here with basically every hand I could have.

The turn is the K. My opponent checks. I’m now going to bet turn and, if called, bomb most river cards.

If instead my opponent bets the turn, there’s a good chance I will raise small and, if flat-called, bomb the river.

As an unknown opponent, with this action the vast majority of decent players at the $2-$5 and $5-$10 level will give me credit for a hand and lay down almost everything. I’ve had players fold small flushes, sets, two pairs, you name it when I run this play. Very rarely does an unknown opponent hero call me on a hand like this.
Why? Because I’m unknown, and people tend to play cautiously against unknowns.

So while I’m still unknown, I’m going to take as many opportunities as I can to blast my way through medium-sized pots. I stick to situations where my opponent hasn’t represented any particular strength — I’m typically not trying to get someone off pocket aces, for instance. But my bluffing frequency is considerably higher than it should be. I’m counting on my opponents to assume I’m not bluffing much when in fact I’m nearly always bluffing.

Decent-strength value hands aren’t particularly valuable when your opponents assume you are playing an ABC strategy. Hands like Q-T on a Q-7-4 flop have little ability to get two streets of value from worse hands. Players will call you once, but give you credit for the hand on the second bet unless you make your bets uncommonly small.
With these hands against unknown players, my goal is to induce one bet from my opponent and then also get a value bet called. So I typically play the hand in a way that makes it appear that I can’t beat top pair. I often check the flop, call a bet on the turn, and then bet the river for value.

For example, an opponent limps, I raise the button with Q-10, and he calls. The flop comes Q-7-4 with a flush draw. He checks, and I check. Most people would bet top pair here, particularly with the flush draw on board. I’m trying to deny having top pair in an attempt to induce a turn bet and get a river value bet called.
The turn is an offsuit J. My opponent bets, and I call.

The river is a 7. My opponent checks, and I bet.

I will nearly always have the best hand after this action, and my play is confusing enough that players call sometimes with jacks and pocket pairs.

Poker is a battle of information, and when you’re playing against unknowns, there isn’t much solid information to go on. Both sides make assumptions. The key is that the assumptions people make about you will be relatively consistent from game to game, and they will depend on how you look, how you carry yourself, and so forth. Once you begin to understand the assumptions unknown players make about you, you can turn these assumptions on their heads and make plays that your opponents don’t expect. This will give you a huge edge off the top, even if in the process you make a few bad assumptions about your opponents.

Once your opponents begin to see that you’re not playing to type, you have to adjust. But in that fresh period where no one knows each other, you can get away with a whole lot. ♠

Ed’s newest book, Playing The Player: Moving Beyond ABC Poker To Dominate Your Opponents, is on sale at notedpokerauthority.com. Find Ed on Facebook at facebook.com/edmillerauthor and on Twitter @EdMillerPoker.