Poker Strategies
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
Practice Matters
ATC 1 (No grasp of hand strength) –
ATC 1 (No grasp of hand strength) – The first group of players who play any two cards really has no solid grasp of hand strength, position, or why to play certain hands in some situations and not others. These players are typical also called .fish. because they’ll put in too much money with weak hands and pay off against dominated hands. These are players you should like playing with, but you need to be aware that if you miss the flop, they may have hit it and they may also call you down with any piece of it. So you don’t typically want to bluff players in this category unless you see them folding a lot to a second bet (or third). You do however want to value bet your made hands against them as they will nearly always pay off with weaker hands or dominated hands.
ATC 2 (Some grasp of hand strength) –
ATC 2 (Some grasp of hand strength) – You’ll see a lot of these players primarily in short-handed games, but they do also show up in full ring games. These players will play any two cards, but they typically won’t invest too much into the pot unless they have a good hand after the flop. They’ll commonly call raises with a hand such as K6o on the button (note this is different than CRW – see above) with the intention of either bluffing you out of the pot OR nailing a big hand hoping to bust you with your large pocket pair. These players will be very visible because they’ll be involved in a lot of pots, and they’ll usually be fairly aggressive. If they have some grasp of hand strength, then they are getting involved in a lot of pots for a reason, and that reason is usually because they believe they can bluff you out of the pot, or bust you with their unusual T4o hand. These opponents can be more dangerous, but a lot of times they will still go too far with a top pair hand thinking you’re bluffing (even though you have a better kicker then they do). You want to bet into them when you have a strong hand and hope they don’t believe you and make a move in the wrong spot. Make your bets big and strong against these opponents, because they tend to not believe people betting into them. You really don’t need to slowplay against these opponents.