Champion of Poker

Reflex calling is precisely what the name entails, calling on reflex. In previous articles I have discussed the sheer speed of online poker play and what this can mean to you personally. But I mentioned how certain players bet on reflex but even more of them call on reflex.

This makes bluffing in certain situations quite risky and especially in online poker play where all a player has to do to call is to click a mouse button. Plus what we have here is an underlying principle that is very important, hopefully as you are playing you will be taking notes on the other players. You might not be able to see their faces but their betting patterns will reveal many things to you.

But one of the things that I look out for are the constant callers. Either they are suffering from this calling reflex or maybe curiosity just gets the better of them and they just have to know what you have and so they stick the money in. You have to know who these people are because bluffing at the wrong times in no limit poker can be expensive. Just because a player has called your bluff does not make it a good call if they have called for the wrong reason.

Bu the sheer pace of online play means that a player can have called without thinking the situation through and in many instances they do not have the time to think it through anyway so they call on reflex. Now let me tell you a little secret that I have that enables me to win certain pots online when I am bluffing. Because when I am bluffing I want my opponent to fold then I need to assist him with that fold and I do this sometimes by giving them a moment of pause.

In the blink of an eye the action is on me and I am heads up with one other player. It is on the turn and I have bet the flop and been called. What I don’t want is to bet immediately, this gives my opponent less time to think, I want him to think that his hand is second best and that carrying on is futile. So I pause to allow him time to THINK IN MY TIME as well as his own. This just slows the game down a little bit and stops them from getting carried away and calling you with something weak like third pair.

Don’t get me wrong here, there are not many situations where I can utilise this play but I need to make you away of the calling reflex action. Because the style of play that I am teaching you is aggressive, what you do not want to see happen is for you to end up bluffing your money off to the tight passive players who only ever check/call. Please look out for the second part of this article coming shortly.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson