Humans are creatures of habit and poker players are no exception: We gravitate to a favorite place and after a time, become known to others and them to us. Thus, we have a goodly percentage of the table “made” (that is, we have a reasonable idea how certain people play) by the time we sit down. If our opponents indeed think about poker, our arrival and presence in the game is somewhat known to them as well. That has its advantages and disadvantages; if we understand both and the ramifications of each, we have a potential edge over the other players.
Occasionally we embark on a road trip and possibly (just “possibly,” mind you) might find ourselves at a “foreign” casino or card room where we are an unknown entity. Our strengths and weaknesses are a mystery, our playing and betting styles undetermined and we but a newcomer with an anonymous poker past. I like situations like that because a number of things are likely to occur and can be taken advantage of. First, you can really – and I mean really – change your style of play, almost with abandon. No one knows you; you have no history with these players. No one knows if you are mixing things up or if this is your actual playing style. The opportunity to experiment with different styles and betting patterns exists without someone else announcing to the table, “Jeez, Drew, you’ve never played like this before, what happened? You miss your medication, or what?”
I remember hearing Daniel Negreanu speak about this (he did admit this tactic I’m about to share was better used when he was an unknown entity, now that he’s so well-known people have come to expect it from him) when he addressed the topic of “Changing Gears” during a seminar. He said when he first sat down in a (not the home-town) casino, he would automatically raise no matter what cards he held, no matter the position and no matter the game, for the first hour of play.
After a period of this his opponents would go absolutely ballistic (“You raised with that?”) if they saw his cards at the hand’s end, they would aggressively play back to ‘teach this puppy a lesson’ or they would resign their hands to his raises until they got superb starting hands (“SO easy to read at that point.”) so that by the first hours’ end, no-one had any idea of what he held when a raise came from him.
“After that first hour,” Daniel continues, “I could tighten my game, make raises with good hands which nobody respected, ‘cause they’ve seen me raise with any two cards, so for the rest of the night I could ride that reputation made in the minds of my opponents that I was a ‘loosey-goosey raising fool’ while I quietly changed gears and continuously raked in their chips, admitting that I just got lucky.”
Well, an opportunity to try this out – an amended tactic actually – arose when I flew my wife down to Sante Fe, NM for her birthday weekend. We stayed at the new Hilton resort “Buffalo Thunder” a few miles north of town (out past the opera house and the next exit north of Camel Rock Casino) and I can heartily declare that is THE place to stay. Service was great, food was good, facilities clean and fresh and each room ($99 per night weekend rate) has a patio where a Happy Hour can be served in pleasant surroundings. The poker room is clean, neat, friendly and QUIET. I played a $2-$6 spread limit until the $20-$40 dealers’ choice opened up, then moved there.
I did not have all day (I was there Saturday afternoon) as Sweetie’s big dinner was that night, but I got five hours in. So as this ‘unknown player’ – they certainly made me for someone with poker experience, but little else – I decided I would raise before the flop with anything that had potential: All high cards, all low cards and any high-low sweeper possibilities. After the flop I would hit it again aggressively if I had a four-card draw to whatever holdings I had and hammer it again after the turn if the pot odds were with me. With this plan in place, I pulled the trigger on this tactic during my second hand.
While a lot of the days’ specific hands went unremembered (Dang! Those were three fine bottles of wine that night) I do recall recognizing that most of the players went to resigning themselves to my raises; those who did play on made reading their hand for what they must hold got easier the longer I played. When I rose to leave for dinner preparation I figured to have about $250 per opponent profit in my jeans: Paid for the trip, the stay and the birthday dinner and then some.
So the next time you’re out at some foreign casino and you’re the unknown player, try changing gears to see what happens. Try playing the opposite of how you normally play AND incorporate your normal style as well. Have fun with the change; experiment with it and explore freely. You might be amazed at the results, have some new ammunition added to your arsenal, and have some fun as well.
