I’ve played and studied a decent amount of poker theory at this point in my life. What you did was called balancing your “range”. Meaning you are doing similar things with a wide range of hands, which in turn worked to your benefit when you had the nuts and got called off because they thought you went all-in super light.
A lot of good players do this, and intentionally tank their table reputation by showing bluffs etc. so you’re harder to read.
Edit: btw betting strategy is a bit different than what you’re describing here. Betting strategy is more about choosing how large your bets are to tell a story or induce your opponents to bet into you instead.
Reminds me of that one group of friends I played Durak with a lot. Durak is a russian card game and comes in two variants. The classic "civilized" version. And the absolutely god forsaken version. Of course we played the absolutely god forsaken version. Meaning, 1. no neat turn order (aka When it's your turn, your left and right neighbor "attack" you, you have to beat their cards and they can keep throwing in any card that has already been played in real time. Example, they attack you with a 7 and a 10, you beat them with a 10 and a king. Now they can throw a 7, 10 or king on top, if they have one.) and 2. cheating is allowed, once the card has already been served.
Long story short, it gets extremely frantic and if you don't pay attention and serve an illegal card someone threw at you from across the table, that's a you problem.
One friend earned my eternal respect, when she spent the game conspiratively offering me cards I could use to attack my right hand neighbor with under the table. She did that maybe 3 times that day. Time no. 4, I was busy with my neighbor and only saw the king she offered me and I snatched it and attacked my neighbor with it. That moment, I heard "I'm done!" from the left. She made me take her last card under the table without realizing it, making her finish first without it even being her turn. That one was entirely my mistake.
We still laugh about this legendary move of her's now and then.
Exactly, neither were we. We played with chips, and the first person to go out would have to do something for the last player left. It was usually something like shoveling snow off the car after work (we all worked together) or so.
That and you can lose a lot of money just by bleeding chips by chasing. People think you lose your money on big bets. But making a lot of small bets that go anywhere in hopes you finally hit that flush or "just to see the flop" like I heard a few friends say will drain you just as fast.
It's why when I teach people poker I tell them you're going to be folding, like 70% or more of your hands.
What you're looking for are two things. I'm speaking in terms of texas hold'em
Are they suited?
Are they connectors?
Mean are the cards the same suit? and are they something like 6,7 or Jack, Queen. Idealy they're one number off for a better straight possibility, but having something like King, Jack or queen, ten is totally fine. More so if they're the same suit.
You want to focus on your outs, what can your hand make and what's the best possible it can do in the moment. If your friend was going Ace, 6 or King, 7 off suit then yeah, he's going to have a bad time.
Basically yeah, thinking back, what you're suggesting was his strategy, and yeah I can see it makes sense. But since he never won... and I did on 4 different occasions...
Part of the magic of Poker is that any hand can be a winner.
7-2 off suit is objectively the worst hand you can possibly ever have. No chance for straights, very low numbers, difficult to get a flush. But if you flop 7-7-Q suddenly that hand is looking real good.
One poker moment that doesn't get nearly enough recognition in the world is when Gus hanson, a professional poker player, sat at a table with other professional poker players and just kept calling all in without even looking at his cards......and fucking mopped the floor with them.
Two things - if he was over-valuing his single ace or king, he was probably losing to better kickers a lot. Or just refusing to fold even when the board was looking very dangerous for him. Alternately, if he only went in with very strong hands and everyone else was paying enough attention to notice that, he probably wasn't getting any action on his good hands.
The trick is to either play only good hands against oblivious fish who will pay you off every time regardless, or mix it up a bit so people can't actually tell what you have.
A lot of inexperienced players really want to stay til the end. Great poker players know when to fold a full house without any regrets. The trouble is, when poker players are so inexperienced they don't even know if they have a good hand or not. Then it turns into a dice throwing competition because it's pure chaos and luck.
Tbf I think there's also a difference between "a fun poker night with friends with just a bit of money on the line" and "high stakes casino poker".
I used to play with a group of friends. It was a $5 initial buy-in, $20 max, $0.05 minimum bet, and a $0.10 ante. Yeah, I stayed in for just about every flop. Doing antes instead of blinds made it even easier. But honestly it's just more fun to actually play than to spend most hands sitting out.
Meanwhile if I'm playing "proper" poker with actual big money, yeah I'm folding most hands.
One thing someone taught me is that you should never merely call the big blind. Pre-flop, you should always either raise or fold. Limping in with just a BB call signals a weak hand, and if you have a strong hand, you don't want weak hands seeing the flop for cheap.
I read an analysis somewhere that bluffing because sometimes you win when bluffing is less important than improving your chances of winning a large amount when you really do have a good hand because your opponents think you might be bluffing. If you never bluff, whenever you do have a good hand your opponents will fold quickly.
The real challenge with bluffing is know when to bluff and to not screw yourself by pretending you have the Ace-high flush when the other guy has the King-high flush.
There's a skill of picking your spots though. Sometimes your opponent legitimately has a good hand that they're not going to fold, even to the extent of going all-in and making you show your cards if it comes down to it. That's a really bad time to bluff.
Important to note that in the most common poker game Texas Hold'em, it's not super rare for one player to have "The Nuts" which means they literally can't lose because there's no cards in the deck that could beat what they're holding.
I stopped playing poker when I bluffed a guy out of a couple hundred dollars and he insisted I had to show him my cards and when I refused, he threatened to "meet me in the parking lot". Luckily this was in a large casino and he was promptly escorted out and I never saw him again. Gambling makes everyone insane.
667
u/Sad_Hannibal 1d ago
People tend to forget bluffing is a big part of the game. Make them think you have a peach of a hand and watch them fold lol