poker face mask

Wouldn't it be a awsome performance for Lady Gaga?

What if at one of her concerts while performing Poker Face Lady GaGa begins by emerging out of the pool wearing a shiny masquerade mask & a black full-body leotard, with two Great Danes beside her (Lava and her son Rumpus) & throws the mask aside like in the music video?

That would be so amazing. But unfortunately one of the Great Danes died so Gaga would have to do it with only the one dog.

Mixing Up the Tag - Poker Tournament Strategy

It's no secret that in the lower levels in online poker your key to success is tight aggressive, especially in the early stages of a poker tournament. Most opponents simply just play themselves out of the tournament way too early by bluffing too much, playing too many hands, and playing too many big pots with marginal situations.

If poker is based on deception, then it goes to reason that the deception has more value when applied successfully in higher levels. I have truly found the couple were leveled you play online poker deception does not carry the kind of value it does when there are bigger stakes involved. Now that's not to say deception does not have value in the lower levels because if you are playing a tournament you will even find that in two dollar and five dollar buy-in tournaments for example, there are good players. You will have more and more of them at your table as the tournament progresses, because they are employing virtually the same strategy as you are: TAG.

So at some point when you are playing higher levels, or advance deeper into a tournament, deception is an essential requirement of successful poker. However for natural TAG players, it isn't so easy to come out of your shell and change up your game enough to take advantage of chip up opportunities.

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This is where mixing up the tag comes into play, and I have a simple way to inject a little variety in your game, while masking your true identity from your opponents. Let's face it, your opponents are probably using poker sofware and tracking your statistics anyhow, and they know you are TAG. So it might be worth a few chips here and there to get involved and, or play some small pots where you are leading the betting with unconventional hole cards. Now I'm not saying you should start playing like a maniac. No, you are still a TAG and that will still get you in the money frequently enough to be profitable. But what you need to do is throw a surprise and in there once in a while, in order to throw your opponents off your trail. And it needn't cost you a lot.

I do it by selecting a favorite hand, but one with a little chemistry. It could be something like 10-8, J9, 79, etc., and if these hands are suited that would be even better. But just pick one of them and at the beginning of the tournament and decide whenever you get that hand you will play it. Now you don't have to play it like pocket aces, but maybe more along the lines of AT suited - a medium strength hand that you can get away from if you need to. You don't even have to be determined to show the hand, but if you win a pot with one of these hands eventually someone is going to take note, and not only that it is going to skew your stats such as VP$IP and pre-flop raising to the point where anyone running software on your strategy is going to have a skewed set of numbers on you.

This is certainly a worthwhile endeavour, because it may actually help to improve your post flop play and if you do it consistently you may very well win some monster pots holding, what everyone else will be thinking are donkey hole cards. Just don`t let the pots get too large, and above all – know when to fold.

About the Author

Marty Smith has video reviews of all the poker calculator software so you can see them being used before you decide which one is right for you. He also has a poker tournament strategy video series that is free poker training just for signing up.