Online Poker Betting Strategies

Your online poker betting strategy is a critical component of long-term profitable play. To understand who imagine for a moment a player with the following strategy: Always bet strong hands - the stronger the hand the bigger the bet, call with medium hands or draws and fold weak hands. Now, this strategy would enable you to play perfectly against this opponent, maximizing your gains and minimizing your losses. 

To win in online poker you need to vary your bets. The core concept is to give away as little information as possible about your hand – at the same time as maximizing your returns from your winners. This article looks at how to successfully disguise your online poker betting strategies to ensure you make a profit at the tables.

We will start with the concept of ‘credibility’ of betting information and how often your bets need to change to effectively disguise the strength of your hand. Next we look at some of the common ways in which you can adjust your betting strategy to this end. Finally we will consider the tendencies of individual opponents and your own table image and how these affect your online poker betting strategies.

In the above example we imagined a player who always bet ‘honestly’ in relation to the strength of the cards held. Conversely, a player who always bluffed with weak hands and checked when strong would be equally easy to play against. Their betting strategy is different but since they always bet the same way this information is credible – it can be used to make easy decisions when playing against them.

A player who randomized their bets between these two extremes would offer very little in the way of credible information, you would never be sure what each bet meant. However, would a 50% / 50% strategy actually maximize profit for this player?

Since the core idea of poker is to build bigger pots when strong and lose smaller amounts when weak this 50% / 50% strategy would not get the best results. The player would leave too much money un-bet when holding a strong hand. An ideal would be to mix your betting strategy by enough to make opponents doubt the accuracy of information conveyed – yet keep this ‘true’ to the strength of your hand (and thus your real betting objective) a large percentage of the time. The suggestion is to mix your bets between 10% and 20% of the time depending on the tendencies of your opponents.

There are several ways of adjusting your online poker betting strategies without going to either extreme. These include bluffing, semi-bluffing, slow-playing and check-raising as well as varying the size of bets and raises in no-limit and pot-limit games.

Making the occasional bluff is an important part of a balanced betting strategy. However, semi-bluffs are often more profitable. Here you are bluffing with ‘outs’ – that is to say that if your bet is called you may improve to the best hand. The most common example is with a draw to a flush or a straight, though this can be tried with as little as over-cards.

Slow-playing is the opposite of bluffing, here you adapt your betting strategy to appear weak when you in fact have a monster hand. It is important to ensure that there are no obvious draws on the flop before deciding to slow-play. Giving a free card to an opponent who then makes the best hand is one of the most expensive errors you can make at the poker table.

The check-raise can be executed either with a strong hand or as a (semi) bluff. This is a powerful move and will often win the pot uncontested. Balancing your betting strategy with this – and all of the above moves – is a key component of a winning poker strategy.

All opponents in poker have their individual traits, your online poker betting strategies should be adjusted to these. For example there is no point in slow-playing against an opponent who will usually call every bet. Check-raising will not work against a timid opponent, who will just check behind you when they are weak. Adapting your betting strategy to individuals can be very profitable, to help succeed with this ensure you take notes on any specific tendencies that you spot.

Finally, your own table image has an effect on your betting strategy. If you have recently been dealt several good hands and have won pots without showing down your cards you are in a ideal position to play a good hand aggressively. You will be perceived as ‘wild’ by the table and should adjust by bluffing less but betting your strong hands more aggressively. Conversely, if you have folded the last 20 hands a well timed bluff raise may have a better than usual chance of winning the pot.

To summarize, online poker betting strategies are required so that aware opponents do not get credible information about the strength of your hand from your bets. 10% to 20% of the time change your strategy – yet at the same time keep in mind the principal that you want to build big pots with your strong hands. The tendencies of opponents and your own table image can be factored into your betting strategy for additional profits.