First impressions can last a session

Mike Caro, one of poker’s earliest strategists, used to give a fun tip for when a player first sits down in a cash game. The tip wasn’t presented as a “must-do.” It was more of an “if you try this, it often works” nugget of strategy.

Caro recommended that when you first sit down at a cash table with players relatively unknown to you, do something completely irrational in the first hand or two for the value it will bring in later hands. “‘Irrational’ is the key word,” as such a move will give your opponents the wrong scent to follow for the rest of the session.

Imagine four-betting preflop with an awful hand, then showing it, win or lose. If you only four-bet with pocket aces or pocket kings from that point forward, you’re far more likely to get action/value that justifies your “irrational” setup.

The key to this tip is the dynamic element of how our opponents build an understanding of how we play. With limited data, our initial actions are given far greater meaning and form an early overall approach that our opponents will take against us. While Caro’s example is extreme, I’ve used an element of it in two different ways with great success throughout my poker career.

The first way is employed when I am the preflop raiser. If I’m fortunate enough to flop top pair, I check.

Say I raise preflop with As Kd, and the flop comes Ah 9c 5c. If I check that flop and ultimately show my A-K, aware opponents will hesitate to think that my checks mean weakness. Broadly speaking, they will give my future checks credit as potential traps, and that will buy me a lot of free turn or river cards at key moments. They might also view future flop-continua- tion bets (C-Bets) as a sign that I missed the flop. As the game proceeds, the Cbets that I make with solid hands are more likely to get action/value.

The second similar tactic is employed by leading into a raiser when I flop a draw out of position, or raising a flop-continuation bet with a draw when in position, then showing my cards regardless of whether I win or lose.

I do this because I tend not to play my draws very aggressively over the course of a session, and I like to bet for value when I have a legitimate hand and opponents have cause to think that I don’t. If I flop a set with a draw on the board and bet into an opponent who had reraised me preflop, can you guess what’s going to happen frequently? I’ll get raised. Yay!

Reading opponents is often far less about spotting a behavioral tick than it is about reading the patterns our opponents employ. The easiest pattern to read, and to feed, is that of how we are being read by our opponents, which will determine the meaning of their tactics and actions.

If you accept an early risk or even an early loss, the pain of losing the first battle will be eased by the joy of winning the war.