| Starting Early |
| 04.15.10 | |
Poker strategy doesn’t always start at the table. If you pay attention, you can start getting reads on opponents before anyone’s even taken a seat. Before a tournament starts, there’s usually a short time where the players gather around and wait to get their seating assignments, and if you keep an eye on players while everyone’s milling around, you can generally start picking up on peoples’ styles.
You don’t need to start chatting everyone up, just keeping an eye on people’s body language as they wait around is usually enough to give you decent starting point for the reads that you’ll be making during the game.
The guys who are walking around like they own the place, talking down to people and generally just acting cocky are usually the more aggressive type, and I usually assume that these guys play a bit looser as well. The quiet, mousy ones who isolate themselves are generally tighter, and you can usually count on the obvious regulars, the ones who chat up the dealers and waitresses and know them by name, probably know their way around a poker online game.
It’s not a foolproof plan, but if you give yourself something to work with before the game starts, you’ll have something to work with and adjust as the online poker game progresses.
