Poker Trap and Psychology

Every One who plays poker has heard about "having a poker face" or capture. To have a poker face is more than just watch your face, your whole body language and actions combined.

A good poker player needs to be friendly in nature. He must learn to associate his opponent facial expressions, body language, speech, and even the stakes in what are ultimately found to have been held in the hand.

Facial Expressions: With online poker, you of course cannot use this. But in a real poker game you can. Start with the eyes. When they call or raise a hand, do they look down, to the right, to the left, at an object in the room? Then what did they have when they did that?

Do they smile? Grind their teeth? Immediately take a sip of their drink after or before the bet? Look for these things each time they call or raise.

Body Language: Do they play with their poker chips under certain circumstances? Lean back or forward? Look for things they do with their body and then what kind of hand they had each time they do that action.

Betting Amounts: Some poker players don't realize they have a pattern at all or they figure no one will figure out the "code" they use for themselves. Watch how much they bet, then what type of hand they had and see if you can associate particular hand strength with a specific range of bet or even a specific raise amount.

If you find a pattern where your opponent always does a specific action in relation to having a good hand or bluffing, you have their number and can beat them at poker easily . . . or can you?

The Trap: You can establish a pattern that will be picked up by the other players. Let it cause you to lose a little money here and there. Let your poker opponents think they have your number by doing specific actions associated with different hand strengths.

Don't let it cost you too much money and watch for the signs they are taking the bait and are using your patterns to beat you. Then you can rock. Wait until you have a very good hand and do the things he did when a bluff or if you had a lowest strength hand.

Your poker opponents will imagine they have you and bet the limit. You'll win what you lost and a lot more. Play poker much more than know how to bet the cards in your hand. There are a lot of psychologies involved, mind games, if you really want to play with the best.

The Psychology Of Fear And The Science Of Poker

In the world of poker, appearances can often mean the difference between a winning hand and a losing hand. When bluffing, some people attempt to appear supremely confident to offset the fact that their hands are “junk.” This has the effect of discouraging other players from challenging you for ownership of the pot. However, there are others that prefer to use fear and anxiety as their weapons, coldly intimidating their fellow players into abandoning their positions of strength. There is a deep element of psychology whenever someone bluffs at the poker table. There can sometimes be an even deeper element of fear and anxiety behind the bluff, both for the one doing the bluffing and for those being targeted.

Some people claim they can practically smell the anxiety coming off someone who has gotten suckered into a good bluff. For some players, fear and anxiety are ideal tools in bluffing, as it plays upon some of the oldest instincts in the human psyche. When gripped by anxiety, people tend to lose their ability to objectively and clearly evaluate a situation and make good decisions. As any poker professional will tell you, the inability to analyze the situation before you is a bad situation for a poker player. Combine this with the stress of a high-risk pot and an imposing opponent and most less-experienced players will likely crack under pressure. As with all poker strategies, there are several ways to accomplish instilling fear and anxiety into your opponents during a game.

The most common method used to inspire fear and anxiety is by establishing a “reputation” or an “image.” This technique can either be long-term or short-term, though most players try to make use of both approaches. The short-term technique is to present yourself as being a dangerous player at the table you're currently playing at. This can involve consistently raising and calling, even when the odds might appear to be against you. Presenting yourself as an aggressive player can make your opponents unwilling to risk going against your calls, particularly if you've been winning most of the hands played. Other ways this can be done is through presenting an imposing physical presence, as appearances can often play a large part in how a poker player “reads” someone.

For the long-term, fear and anxiety can be instilled through the use of one's reputation or record. This method is significantly more subtle, as this relies on simply making the most of what the other players think of your poker game. For example, a player with a reputation for having a tight game can suddenly play with extreme and almost reckless aggression. This has the effect of catching other players off-guard and, while they're adjusting their strategies to cope, you can choose to keep up the aggression or drop into a defensive stance once you've managed to get a sizable number of chips.

Psychology can also play a role in deciding which strategies to employ at a poker table. According to some theorists, poker mechanics tend to favor people who are analytical and self-analytical, mainly because knowing one's strengths and weaknesses is crucial to successful poker play. Thus, a person who is able to understand his own psychological tendencies can typically be better equipped to deal with the high levels of stress involved in analyzing and re-analyzing people over the course of a game.