Online Poker
is a game played with incomplete information and the key to winning is to try and figure out a correct response based on the limited facts you have in front of you. Whilst you are piecing together all the information available to you about your opponents, they are doing the exact same thing to you so it is important to mix up your game and balance your ranges.
If you only raise Queens, Kings or Aces in early position your opponents will soon cotton onto this fact and start to call you with more speculative hands hoping to hit the flop hard and get paid off in a big way, a great strategy for no-limit and other big bet games. Instead of having this extremely tight raise, you should occasionally raise with suited connectors and small to medium pairs in order to keep your opponents guessing and forcing them to really think about playing a hand against you.
Some players, after they learn
how to play online poker
, always play flush and straight draws the exact same way, making them extremely readable. They will call the flop when they have four to the flush or straight, check behind on the turn and then lead out on the river when the flush hits. However, if from time to time they played their draws fast by being aggressive and betting out or raising, they stand a chance of winning a larger pot as their opponent may call another bet even when the draw hits as they will have expected them to play it like in the example described.
Another area to mix up in order to keep your play balanced is in the sizes of your value bets and bluffs. If you only every overbet the river on a complete bluff, observant opponents will start to call you as they will recognise the signs you are bluffing. A way to counteract this is to also make large bets on the river when you have the nuts or even a hand like top pair so that your opponents never really know what you are holding at any given time.