Eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable. An image enters the eye and hits the back of the retina. Almost immediately the brain goes to work trying to fill in the blanks. Was only half of a face in view? Just the back of a head? The brain seamlessly fills in the missing information, creating an image [...]

In Understanding Deception: Part 2, I introduced the concept of reading your own hand and using that process to identify situations where you tend to play too straightforwardly. In this installment I wanted to offer a few specific examples of how to add deception to your game.
If you’ve Playing Deceptively – Part 3: Adding [...]

For today’s column I examine a hand played by wahoointexas and posted on the message board. Here’s what wahoo had to say:
Appreciate any advice as to the way this hand was played, and what you think is the correct move on the river is in this situation.
Live 2/5 NL, Q&A #122: A Top Pair Facing [...]

In Understanding Deception: Part 1 I introduced the notion of a deceptive strategy as opposed to a deceptive play. A slowplay by itself, for instance, cannot be deceptive because it is just one play. Indeed, if you slowplay habitually you will often end up with a strategy that is not deceptive at all.
A deceptive strategy [...]

Lately I’ve been thinking about deception in poker, and I decided to write a modest series of articles describing my take on exactly what deception means and how to play in a deceptive way.
I think if you asked people to define what it means to play poker “deceptively” I think most of them would mention [...]

Firing the second barrel means bluffing again on the turn after your opponent called your flop bluff. It’s probably one of the most important skills to master if you want to crush no-limit games.
Second Barrel Basics
Many flop calls are made for speculative reasons. Someone has a draw they hope to improve on the turn. Or [...]

In Part 2 of Moving Up: Beyond Winrate And Bankroll, I discussed how the relative strength of your hand reading skills versus your opponents’ is a big factor in whether you’re ready to move up or not. The river betting round is the one that allows you to benefit most from sharp hand reading, [...]

Poker players get stuck in ruts. We make so many decisions when we play that it’s natural for us to develop a sort of default, automatic way of handling most situations. Automatic plays are, on one hand, a practical necessity. I play about 500 hands an hour, and I probably make at least 800 to [...]

Your opponent – perhaps sensing weakness or perhaps taking leave of his senses – pushes out a huge bet and dares you to call. If he has the hand he’s supposed to have, you’re crushed. But you think something is amiss and decide that this is it. You’re going to take a stand. Just after [...]

Dry boards sometimes offer a golden opportunity to get extra value for your medium strength hands like top pair. Many players are always looking to sniff out a bluff on a dry board, and you can use that fact to your advantage if you have a hand that beats a typical bluff catcher. In particular, [...]