Champion of Poker

It is also very important that you adhere to this piece of advice when looked at from the other side as well. Be aware that each and every one of us has an inbuilt calling poker reflex, an inner monster just waiting to get out and lose us our money. It is precisely why a lot of shrewd poker professionals value bet known callers. They just bet with the best hand and the caller thinks that he is being pushed around and calls. At least if he raised and got re-raised then he would have found out that his hand was second best.

But I have seen it many times and I am sure you have committed the sin many times yourself, you called with a hand when you KNEW full well that you were beat. Your calling instinct took over and it was as though you were not in control of the hand for that split second. All top poker professionals have this character flaw but some have it more than others.

I am sure that you will have seen some player on television try to explain why he has just called his entire stack off thinking that a player was bluffing, they try to get away with it by saying that they “had a read” on the player and this was why they made the call.

But televised poker rarely shows players calling their money off simply because it does not make for good television. They edit the program and show successful bluffs, bluffs that were picked off and big pots with big hand vs big hand unless it was a hand where someone got knocked out. So beware of that calling reflex but look out for it in others as well.

There comes a time in every poker players life when they are facing an out and out bully on their table. Being the bully is something that I rarely am over all simply because at the level that I play at the players will simply not stand for it for long. I try to be the bully in selected moments when I am in a pot (selective aggression) and I feel that this style works better for me personally rather than playing in a maniac kind of a way.

But you will encounter these players on your table and like I said in an earlier piece, it is very important where these people are sat in relation to you on your table.

Firstly you have to establish what type of a bully they are. Are they being a bully in general by betting and raising almost anything that moves or are they a selective bully type like me. The selective bully is far more difficult to combat because they are playing in such a way that it seems like they are not bullying at all but just betting their strong hand that seems to come around with the correct frequency which makes it look like they have a hand even more.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson