Killer Poker Online/2: Advanced Strategies For Crushing The Internet Game. John Vorhaus

fold, and basically give you everything they’ve got.

      Like all orphan attacks, the orphan flop trifecta works best against few foes because the fewer foes you face, the less the chance that one of your enemies has a real hand. So pick your spots. Can you think of other spots where applied luck, plus context density, can put you into a position to manipulate the few or the many weak minded foes you face?

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      Here’s one you see a lot online, especially in short handed play. Someone makes a raise and two players call. The flop comes A-x-x. The first player to bet at this flop is certainly representing an ace, which the other players may give him credit for—at first. If he goes too often to this same well, soon his foes will stop believing he has the ace and start putting him on the steal he’s making. If you’re the one betting into the naked ace, count on your opponents yielding to you the first or second time, but not the third. Again, they’re more likely to follow this line of lockstep thinking online because they’re much more likely to see an A-x-x flop several times within the space of their modest attention spans. In the realworld, the only opponents retaining information about your theft attempts are the very ones you’ll have most difficulty manipulating.

      I don’t want to give the impression that your internet opponents, as a class, are less skillful and more easily beaten than your realworld foes. This may be true, simply because online poker is the port of entry for thousands of new players every day, and new players, as a class, are less skillful and more easily beaten than experienced ones. But that’s not really the point. In both online games and b&m games, you will find a distribution of strong players and weak ones, and you will naturally make more money by avoiding the strong ones and engaging the weak ones. That’s Poker 101, as I’m sure you already know:

      DON’T CHALLENGE STRONG PLAYERS:

       CHALLENGE WEAK ONES—THAT’S WHAT THEY’RE THERE FOR.

      Nor do I want you to adopt something like “third time’s the adjustment” with the force of religious conviction. Some foes adjust more quickly. Others never adjust. In all cases, it’s a matter of nuance, timing, and knowing your foes. But the thing about context density is that it creates a circumstance unique to online poker, one in which your weaker foes can be exploited in a particular way.

      For this reason, online poker requires us to think strategically not just about each bet and each hand but about each hand within the flow of hands recently seen and those we can reasonably expect to see soon. If it’s true that “third time’s the adjustment” (and against some players it certainly is), you should plan to bet at many flops whether you hit them or not, just to put yourself in position to win big when you happen to hit your hand at the exact moment your foes have been manipulated into showing some spine. If it doesn’t happen during this sequence, it’ll happen during the next one or the one after that. If it doesn’t happen at all, well, you still have the benefit of being the active, aggressive bettor at your table, and that’s never a bad thing.

      Of course, you can’t go slinging your bets around all day without ever having a hand. Consistent naked aggression makes you just too easy to trap. Here’s a rule of thumb I use to moderate my aggressiveness and give my opponents ample opportunity to lean the wrong way:

      STEAL TWICE, REAL ONCE.

      Steal twice. Real once. Be bold and aggressive with your theft attempts, and be aware that every time you steal successfully you hasten the moment when your foes will play back at you. To reiterate, if applied luck breaks your way, you’ll surprise them by having the goods. If it doesn’t, no problem! Just dial back on your aggression until you find the opportunity to resume your manipulative ways. Thanks to context density, you have a strategy that will give you the confidence to play aggressively and outfox the foes you face.