I just started playing online poker, and have become pretty good at it. I was wondering how many of you win a lot of chips with crap in your hand. I do this with a couple techniques I will share. The first is fairly obvious...
Being the aggressor
I never like to enter a hand unless I am the percieved aggressor of the hand. That is to say, when the flop comes, I have only one or two others in the hand, and I was either the first to raise large preflop, or I raised over someone else regardless of how premium my hand was, forcing them to call just so I could project more strength. If they reraise me, I call and hope to hit. If not I'm outa there unless they show weakness henceforth.
Here's an example: Say I have Ah Js regardless of position. It's not a particularly strong hand, but when I get it I want the pot. I might raise to 75 at 15-30 blinds preflop. I get two callers and the flop comes Qs Td 7d. If someone bets ahead of me I fold. Cut my losses. If someone checks to me I will immediately bet about 50. Most of the time they both fold, and I take the pot without hitting anything. If someone has something on a flop like this they will most likely call me, wondering what I have, and knowing there are still two betting rounds. That's when I know they hit something. I will slow down considerably. Now I see the next card for that 50, and I take it from there as usual based on whether I hit the turn etc.
My attitude is not whether I got good cards. It's whether anyone else did. I could care less what I have. If I had A J offsuit, and two large bets came in front of me preflop, I would fold period. There's too much working against me at that point. I'll make my money later by shaking down less premium hands.
Based on that attitide, I also do something like this...
The fake hand in the crap deal
If I see that there are very few people in the hand when I have position, (say one limper so far and I'm the cutoff) I will represent a false hand in what I call a crap deal (no one got much). I raise 2x big blind, and hope for one caller. If I get one and they don't hit the flop, I take it down with ease. I can get away with this because it works 2 out of 3 times. I'm becoming very good at winning money without the goods in crap deals. Just like a rag community, there can also be rag pockets. (Almost all high cards out there are mixed with a low offsuit around the table in the various hands). I take advantage of this.
That's just a couple of things I do. Do you hate me now, or is this good poker that you can relate to?
