How long have you been playing poker? If you wish to become a poker pro, you have to be ready with a handful of strategies to ensure you maximize your winnings and minimize your losses. One of the key strategies revolves around knowing the different types of players that are commonly seen at online poker tables. You need to have the ability to read the playing style of your opponents and accordingly make your moves. Your observation skills come to the fore here, and you need to be really good at implementing your pre-planned strategies against different types of players you may encounter during cash games or tournaments.
One of the popular types of players is online poker tables bullies. Who are these? A bully in poker is someone who tries to intimidate other players regardless of the strength of the cards they hold and forcing them to fold up. How do they do that? By going extremely aggressive and instilling fear in the minds of opponents. This makes the other players at the poker table commit mistakes and even fold strong cards as they know that the bullies will continue to bet and re-raise till the last street. So, unless the other players have really great odds of making strong hands, they are likely to fold easily against bullies.
If you desire to become a poker expert, you will have to find out ways to beat the bullies at online poker tables. Below are a few of the top strategies to beat poker bullies when you play poker online.
Rely on the strength of Your Cards
If your calculations show better odds of having a strong hand at any of the post-flop stages, you should rely on them. You don’t get good odds of winning in every round and so it makes sense to trust your calculations and make your bets accordingly. If you already have a strong hand, play according to it and don’t fold just because a bully is betting/raising aggressively. Be confident of your moves and play it safe.
Select Your Table Wisely
Your objective is to win more poker games and make money. To be able to do so, your poker strategy should be to select the right table where you have a high number of fishes (weaker players whom you can beat easily) and less number of bullies (who might get tough to beat at times). Also, you do not want a very tight poker table which does not give enough chances of winning.
Opt for Selective Bullying
You cannot bully the bullies on your table. This will only result in you putting a lot of chips into the pot to match up to the bullying, and you could end up losing a lot more than you would have if you didn’t opt for bullying them. Instead, you can opt for the bully strategy only when there are fishes left on the table, as they tend to easily fold up against any kind of bullying. This is one of the highly effective online poker table strategies.
Using Check and Call
When you have a positional advantage over the bullies, you can try to check their pre-flop bet so as to avoid a raise on it. If you manage to get good cards, you can follow it up with a call on the flop stage. Be wary as the bullies are most likely to raise your bets on the flop stage as well as the turn stage. This is their tactic of determining if you really can hit or will fold up easily. By adopting this kind of slow playing strategy at any of the online poker tables, you prevent the bullies from making you reach near an ‘all in’ scenario and instead give yourself a good chance if you manage to see enough good cards before the river stage, so as to go really big at the river. This will be your way of winning a bigger pot, which has a lot of contribution from the bullies.
Don’t Go Overboard with a Very Tight Game
You don’t have to very tight all the time – this will result in the bullies identifying your style of play easily and they will stop bullying the instant they observe that you are continuing to bet beyond the flop. This will make them give up bullying quite early, especially when you are head to head, and even though you might end up winning the pot, the pot size could be really small. Instead, try to make a few moves on smart cards as your aim should be to let the bullies lead the game till the river stage, where strong cards can fetch you a massive win.
Effective Bankroll Management
While playing against bullies at the online poker tables with real money, you should always keep a watch on your bankroll. You might feel that it is building up, but one or two losses against the bullies where you stand strong till the river could end up drying your bankroll to a large extent. You do want to play for a long time to give you enough chances of having those few massive wins against the bullies and for that to happen, you need to have enough money saved for the night when you are fighting it out.
The Verdict
The above-mentioned strategies will come in real handy against online poker tables bullies. It may not be easy, but with experience and practise, you can manage to hold your own against the bullies at online poker tables without getting scared. So, go ahead and download an online poker app like Spartan Poker to fine-tune your game for winning against those poker bullies!
