How to Maximize Wins on Big Hands

In order to get value and maximize the profit you make per session, you have to adjust certain things in your own game every single day. These little things will allow you to get called by certain players at the table as well as force folds from other players. Ideally, you want to get called all the time and show your opponent the best hand. To get a call all the time you have to earn it day in and day out. Often times if you are sitting down at a poker table and not putting chips into pots almost ever, you will never get action when you have big hands. One key to playing live poker especially is to have a looser and aggressive table image. When you have that table image, you will get called more times than not. In live poker you have to earn your pots just like you do online, but in live poker you can also manipulate players at the table differently. Where you cannot see facial tells online, you can see facial tells and the level of excitement that is coursing through your opponent by the second. To exploit live poker players you just have to put in the hours and learn when to play hands and when to not play hands. You will adjust your betting and learn how to get value over time, but one way to do well in the short run is to play aggressive.

If you play aggressive in a cash game, you will almost always find one hero sitting at the table who will not let go of his middle pair because he desperately wants it to be good. This player is going to be your key at the table and someone you can get profit from playing against. Your bet sizing can be a little higher than normal because against poor players they will not know the difference and also you can give away false information to them, and have them interpret it as weakness. One big tell in live poker games are when a player has made a bet and starts talking during a hand. This always means strength almost every single time. Also, the level of comfort that they have during a pot will tell you how strong their hand is. When you see the strength in someone, you can in return do the same thing later at a table when you are bluffing. If they showed that type of strength and forced folds from opponents then you should be able to do the same thing.

More importantly when relating to poker you should always get the correct value for monster hands. When you have monster hands it is simple to get carried away with yourself and bet way too much at a pot, but ideally what you want is to find the correct number that your opponent will call. If you find this number consistently then you will get the right value for your hands. One interesting way to get value from a monster hand is to make smallish type bets on the river, where your opponent almost has to re-raise you. These blocker bets are good to make when you think your opponent was on a flush or straight draw. The small bet will induce your opponent to shove all in or make a massive re-raise. This scenario does come up just about every day, but it is also a play that only works against the brash younger aggressive players. If you throw a small bet out on the river against older players sometimes they might just call with nothing much to see your hand. If you categorize the players at your table, you can find this play to be very profitable in the long run. The reason that it is profitable is because of your effectiveness in building up a pot before the river card is dealt. If there is a ton of chips in the middle, you will figure out at some point that you want to get the rest of your opponent’s chips into the middle. To do so sometimes it is best to make a weak looking bet on the river as opposed to an all in shove. If your opponent has nothing then the only way to get their chips is to induce them into shoving all in.