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DECEPTION AND THE NUMBER OF OPPONENTS IN THE POT
With weak players, with a larger pot, and with large early bets, you need not be so concerned about disguising your hand.
A corollary is that the more players in the pot, the less you gain by disguising your hand. You cost yourself too much when you do.
You won’t be able to make everybody fold when you bet with a weak, and you cost yourself too many bet when you miss a raise with a strong hand.
What’s more, when you let many opponents in cheaply, you increase the chances of being outdrawn. Heads-up situations require disguising your hand more than do multi-way pots.
Let’s look at two early-round betting situations one in which you don’t care that you’ve given your hand away and the other in which you should use deception.
In both situations you have a pair of aces in the hole before the flop in holdem. That is, you have the nuts, the best possible hand at that point.
The first game is no-limit. You’ve made a small raise, four or five people have called, and now someone puts in a substantial reraise. You must reraise again even if your play gives away your hand completely.
It is worth dropping all disguise because as the pot gets larger and larger, what’s in the pot right now counts more than potential bets on later betting rounds.
With two aces you should put in all the bets you can. On the other hand, with two aces against a good player in a limit holdem game, you should often not put in all bets.
A reraise is fine because you could have a variety of hands. However, if your single opponent reraises again, you should probably just call. If you raise one more time, your opponent figures you for two aces.
All you have gained is one small extra bet right there, but you may have cost yourself two or three bets later on. In this case, you have lost too much by giving your hand away. You stand to gain more by using deception.
Summary
The general rule is: The better the players and the smaller the pot, the more you disguise your hand when there are more cards to come.
The worse the players and the larger the pot, the more you play your hand normally, without regard to giving anything away.
Sometimes, though, playing your hand normally may be the best deception of all against very tough players who expect you to be deceptive. The following hand from seven card stud will illustrate this point:
You
Opponent
If a tough opponent acts before you and raise, reraise just as you would against a sucker. A tough opponent who has two kings knows you might be reraising with a three-flush or number of second-best hands. So you still have your deception as well as an extra bet.
It is extremely important to disguise your hand against players who put great emphasis on reading poker hands, though such players may not necessarily be good, and when deceptive play has gotten the super readers confused, they’ve got no chance.
This type tends to put you on a hand early, and like a captain going down with the ship, he sticks to his opinion until the end.
There are five criteria for using deception to avoid giving your hand away.
1. You are up against good players or super readers.
2. The pot is small in comparison to future bets.
3. The present round of betting is small in comparison to future bets.
4. You have only one or two opponents against you.
5. You are slow playing a monster hand.
The first two conditions are most significant. It is not necessary to meet all five conditions before deception is employed. Three of the five are usually sufficient so long as one or both the first two are included.
Do not use deception against bad players, against many players, when the pot is larger, or when the early bets are larger.
It is especially important to play a good hand strongly if the pot is larger. The only exception would be when you have an unbeatable hand and figure you will gain more by waiting a round before making your move.
The basis of you decision to play normally or deceptively is simply. You should play each session and each hand of each session in the way that will win the most money and lose the least (except when you intentionally play a hand badly to create an impression for future hands).
Always remember from the Fundamental Theorem of Poker that the more your opponents know about your hand, the less likely they are to make mistakes.
However, there are situations when deception can be costly and straightforward play is best. We shall look at such situations in the next chapter.