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• Styles of Play

Styles of Poker Play

Bluffing

Bluffing is considered as one of the great tools in poker. But like any other tool, it needs to be used at the right time. Talking about bluffing, there are several situations where bluffing is very effective, but in all the cases, you need to know your players as well as the possibilities, before you try to bluff them. This is because they might already beware of what you are trying to do. Bearing in mind the quality of your fellow poker player, you need to alter your approach
Some of the best times to bluff are when:

Many players in the pot

It’s always easy to bluff with few people than many ones. However, trying to fox the few is quite a familiar ploy, and as such your fellow players might be aware of what’s in store. Hence, be constant with your betting, and the chances to fox them are very high.

Playing against tight players

Players who fold easily to begin with are good bluffing targets, but if you start early and they don’t shy away, you might want to think twice about keeping it up. They’ve probably got a good hand.

The other players are a little scared of you

This means that if you have won a hand genuinely through good play, and you want to play your next hand in similar manner, then they might probably presume that you have another strong one and fold.

But remember, there are also fairly common bluffs, and chances are good that the other players at the table know them and are using them, too. But then they might not always work, and hence ensure you know your players and what they would do
Another important factor is to know when to bluff. When there are many players at the table, and when they anticipate you to bluff, when you got caught bluffing, and when you are loosing lot of hands, etc. These are the bad scenarios and times when you should try bluffing your opponents. But always remember not to bluff, just for the sake of bluffing, and ensure that you have every reason and a chance of winning.

Betting

Poker is not only a game of luck, but also a game of confidence. Hence, before you start playing a hand, it’s of utmost importance to ensure that you are familiar with stakes which are the betting increment levels. For instance a $5/10 table contains minimum betting increments of $5 and $10. Hence, each time you bet, you are laying down either $5 or $10. So the way in which the betting actually takes place is game-specific, and the following are some of the betting rules.

Table Flow

For all the novice players, this table flow can be a bit confusing to grab. So to uphold the fairness of the game, the play starts around the table in a clockwise direction, which means that everybody has equal chance to be the dealer. This is important since the last player to act has an edge. In Texas Holdem, there would be no stakes, and instead these stakes are restored by the small blind and the big blind.
The player, who is to the immediate left of the dealer need to pay the small blind, and the player to the immediate left of the small blind, pays the big blind. The total cost of the big blind is equal to the low stake amount, and the total cost of small blind is half of that amount. For example, if the stakes are $1/2, the big blind pays $1 and the small blind pays $0.50.

Limit

Limit games tend to have fixed betting amounts. For instance, a $3/6 limit game has a small blind of $1.50, a large blind of $3, and the first two rounds of betting will be in units of $3. In the final two betting rounds, the bets will be $6

No-Limit

In the case of no-limit games, the maximum ante players can make is commuted by the number of chips they have. These blinds can be said as a fixed amount, and the minimum bet any time is the amount of the big blind. A player may go "all-in" by putting all their chips into the pot, but that player will not be able to place further bets. As the play carry on, remaining players might call all-in player’s amount, or even raise.
However, if the player who went all-in would become the winner, then that player wont take away all the amount in the pot, but a sum only equal to their all-in amount, multiplied by the number of players who called it. Whatever’s left in the pot beyond that amount goes into a “side pot” whose chips go to the player with the next-best hand to the winner.

Pot-Limit

This type of Hold’em is similar to No-limit, except that the maximum bet at any time is determined by the number of chips currently in the pot.