Setting Up your Poker Opponents
One aspect of online poker strategy has to do with setting your opponents up. What exactly does this mean? A basic explanation would be that you act one way early in the session because you plan on acting another way later in the session. The way you act early in the session plants an idea in your opponent’s mind about the way you play, which you will use to your advantage later. In fact you might even be intentionally sacrificing chips early on because you consider it an investment that you intend to recoup (plus dividends) later - although this can be a dangerous practice with online players you don’t know well. Typically you would employ this tactic against a single opponent whom you are targeting.
If all goes according to plan you will be taking your target’s stack a little later on, even after fattening it just a bit with your chips now. This is a sophisticated poker concept which many pros cannot even grasp. If you are able to understand it, and properly implement it into your regular game plan, you will be miles ahead of some pros and light years ahead of your targets.
Your target needs to display an exploitable weakness. It’s no use trying to setup other good players. They won’t fall into the trap and you will blow off chips unnecessarily attempting to set them up. Your target needs to be an action player. Somebody who will put his stack in trying to pick off your bluff, or put it in trying to bluff you when he thinks your bet looks weak.
Consequently the best type of opponent to try and setup is a maniac. Not the type who pops in and leaves soon. They need to be a regular maniac in your particular game. That way even if they leave before you can spring the trap you can get them on another day. (This is one of the reasons it pays to have a recognizable avatar.) What you want to do is bluff at them for small chips and either get caught or fold to their reraises. Then when you really have the goods you get them to put their stack in by making a similar action in a similar situation from the past when they caught you.
It’s worth spending your entire online poker career just hunting down players with even slightly maniacal tendencies and setting them up. That’s winning poker.
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