Changing gears

Most winning poker players are known for either their tight-aggressive style or their tendency to play loose-aggressive but the very best of them can switch seamlessly between the two, making them extremely difficult to play against.

Poker Tips suggest that the easiest and most common way to change gears is in the number of hands you choose to play. If you have been playing tight for an hour or so then it would make sense to start playing much more loosely for a number of orbits. As you will have hardly played a hand, your opponents will give you much more credit for having a good hand when you do start to play more hands.

If your timing is correct you should be able to accumulate a lot of chips before your opponents figure out you have changed gears, at which point you can revert to a tight style and hope your opponents think you are still playing loose and pay you off if you do hold a very strong hand.

Whilst a large percentage of players are capable of changing gears, they often do so far too gradually. By slowly increasing the number of hands you play you are allowing your opponents to adapt to your changes which defeats the object of changing gears in the first place.

In order for changing gears to be successful you need to alter your playing style quite abruptly. By literally going from playing like a rock to playing like a maniac you stand a much higher chance of being paid off. Playing overly tight or overly loose would make you a target at the table but by combining the two styles you instantly become one of the most difficult to play against, as they will not want to bluff you as you could be a maniac and your opponents will be reluctant to call you down in case you are a rock. If you want to learn multi table poker tournaments then changing gears should be one of the first aspects of tournament poker you should learn and put into practice.