Learning No-Limit From Scratch ­- Playing Mind Games at No-Limit

Mind games! They’re a part of life. And they’re a big part of poker too. Yeah, computers are effectively unscrambling the frequency issues involved in playing poker against your opponents’ frequencies. But at the end of the day, you’re playing people. People who think have emotions, and bend to their thoughts and emotions. Great poker players adjust their frequencies based on their opponents. And they maneuver their opponent’s thinking in the direction they want them to go and exploit their thoughts!

If you want to kick ass at poker, you need to read your opponents’ thoughts and emotions. And you need to manipulate their thoughts into a mode that benefits you. I’ve found that it’s much easier to lead people in the direction they emotionally want to go. By that, I mean reinforcing weak-tight players that they’re correct in folding or reinforcing hyper-aggressive players that you’re scared of them, even though you aren’t. You want those easy to bluff to fold more. You want those who are overly aggressive to be even more aggressive. And you want to exploit those errors without them knowing, so they don’t adjust.

Of course, you must choose your battles and strategies. Inexperienced players tend to play their own hand and not think much about what an opponent may hold. But you can still accentuate their doubts, and lead them in the general direction you want to exploit. But, generally speaking, playing mind games on a hand by hand basis is beyond their comprehension. And you’ll be better served to focus your energies on your thinking opponents when playing with opponents’ minds, the players who pay attention, think about what you’re thinking, and take actions based on those thoughts.

A thinking, aggressive pro raised an upfront limper to $25 from middle position in a $2-$5 no-limit hold’em game at the Venetian. I was about $650 deep, he had me covered, and I called out of the big blind with the 6 6. The limper tossed in the $20, and we took the flop three-handed, $80 in the pot.

I flopped second set on a flop of 9 6 5. From previous observations, I knew that Mr. Aggressive-Pro would continuation-bet the flop and checked to let him bet. He obliged and fired in $55. I peeked at the limper and saw that he had lost interest in the hand. With the knowledge that he was going to fold, I flatted with my set. On a draw-heavy board like this, I’m less inclined to slowplay, fearing a bad card will either beat me or kill the future action. But in this case, I thought Mr. Aggressive-Pro had either big cards or a big pair and was drawing thin. And since I thought Mr. Limper was folding, he was no threat.

With $190 in the pot, the J arrived on the turn. I thought about how to obtain optimum value. In a previous hand, I’d seen Mr. Aggressive-Pro raise and fold an opponent who had made a small turn bet. I thought that he thought his opponent was making a blocking bet seeking a cheap card and raised to price his opponent’s draw out or as a total bluff. Since it had worked, I thought he might aspire to repeat the play.

I bet super small, $45, looking for him to “put me to the test” as he had previously done with his other opponent. He thought for a moment and raised to $350, a hefty raise. Having only about $230 left over the raise amount, I shoved. Mr. Aggressive-Pro insta-mucked. I was pretty sure he didn’t even have a pair and was raise-bluffing the turn.
My paying attention to a previous hand and taking the time to consider how an opponent thought had netted me an extra $350. I took his thought that he considered a small turn bet to be a blocking bet, recognized he liked to play an aggressive style, and played a mind game by small-betting the turn to guide him into the thoughts I wanted him to act upon.

The hand speaks to the concept of playing mind games at the poker table that manipulate your opponents’ thinking. Many players, particularly those who developed their game via internet poker, get overly focused on the frequencies and miss opportunities to craft more optimum plays by failing to pay attention and think deeply about their opponent’s thought process.

So, put down the phone, turn off the video game, get your mind on the game, and keep it there! Watch every hand. Go back and think about each opponent’s thoughts during the play of the hand, particularly, though not exclusively, those in which you see a showdown. Did anything happen that you think you’ll be able to exploit in the future? How can you exploit your knowledge? Is there a time in which you’ll think a counter-play will be most effective?

If you want to play world-class poker, you need to learn both the frequencies and how to exploit your opponents’ tendencies. The frequencies are mostly facts that you can memorize. Exploiting opponents’ tendencies requires creativity and deep thought, both in getting into your opponents’ minds and designing the counter-strategies to their thinking. None of this is easy, so continuously work on it.

And, of course, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it, and it wouldn’t have the value. ♠

Roy Cooke played poker professionally in Las Vegas for 16 years prior to becoming a successful Las Vegas Real Estate Broker/Salesman. Should you wish any information about Real Estate matters-including purchase, sale or mortgage his office number is 702-376-1515 or Roy’s e-mail is [email protected]. His website is www.RoyCooke.com. You can also find him on Facebook or Twitter @RealRoyCooke