In some ways, it’s a hyper-efficient way of playing poker. When you’re playing limit, you take whatever edge you’ve got and you push it as far as it’ll carry you. That’s often good for 10-20BB. In no limit/pot limit, you do the same, but this time it’s good for 10-50BB. Sure, there’s more variance, but I find that even when the cards run against me, I tend not to lose that much money. The times when I lose the most money is when I refuse to believe the other guy flopped a set. But I don’t mind those losses as much.

Destroy their pot odds. The suckouts tend to be more rare since I don’t let the calling stations off easy–this not only reduces chasing, but reduces the schooling phenomenon as well. Now here’s where your play may differ. Maybe you like having fish in multi-way pots because of the long-term +EV. For me, I’m okay with reducing my variance a bit at the expense of my win rate. All it takes is one guy calling to the showdown with middle pair for you to double up. Here’s the key difference between no limit and pot limit: your ability to destroy the odds. With pot limit, anyone with 9 or more outs on the flop has odds to call the pot. Check-raising the max can help you get around this limitation, especially with a few smooth-calls ahead of you. At a loose enough NL table, the implied odds could be through the roof. So you may not be able to manipulate the pot enough to win it. In these situations, you want the best hand, and a good draw: best set, top pair and nut flush and gutshot straight draw, etc.

Establish who you are. Bets and raises for 3-4 times the previous bet can really put the fear of God in your opponents. This does wonders for your table image. I haven’t yet fully exploited this, mostly because I’m concerned about my ability to change gears once I’ve taken a stab at taking the pot, which in turn is colored by my experience of having chasers fold at the river bet.

Manouevers vs. blunt force. I think slowplaying is overrated because if someone’s hand improves, it’s hard to let go of your good hand, and that can be expensive. Try check-raising instead of check-calling. Also, I think on some hands like a pair or three suited cards on the flop, people expect trickiness, so just betting with your set or flopped flush may get you more calls than checking the flop and betting the turn. That can give you the opportunity for check-calling the turn and other trickiness. Trickiness is overrated.

Anyway, I figured I should actually post something about poker, rather than just results or a hand, so there it is. All based on just a few thousand hands. I’ll get back to you when I’ve got another ten thousand. In the meantime, read the tips at Cards Speak.