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Never Emulate Experts!
Imitating the poker strategy of the experts is usually unwise,
since you probably haven't even seen that strategy in its full
context.
If you just watched an episode of the World Poker Tour and you saw Gus Hansen take down a monster pot with 3-8 offsuit, then you may be thinking, "I should start playing more like Gus, since he's a winner!" My advice to you is this: If you play like Gus, you will go broke. Beginner players are almost always looking for shortcuts on how to improve their poker skills. Emulating the playing style of one of your favorite professional players is not the best way to improve your game, although it seems to be a popular approach for new players. You need years of experience to become a true professional poker player. You must allow yourself the time to read every poker book published and to seriously analyze your play on a routine basis. You must also work your way up in limits before you can even consider playing the loose-aggressive style similar to that of Gus Hansen. Despite his amazing success at winning major tournaments, Gus Hansen's maniac style might be more suited for ring games. In a ring game you can compensate for your aggression and mistakes with multiple rebuys and a big bankroll. In a tournament, as soon as you make one crucial error playing like Gus Hansen... you are done. After a bad string of getting knocked out of tournaments early trying to play Gus' type of game, you'll see that you need to play more conservatively in early levels and increase your aggression later in the tournament, especially when you’re close to the bubble. The worst thing you can do to your Limit Holdem poker game is to apply the Gus Hansen strategy. It simply does not work, since Limit is a game of showdowns and pot odds. Conversely, No Limit Holdem is about position and reading people. In Limit, you cannot continue to play junk hands from early position and hope to catch enough flops in a loose game where several people are going to see the river. Also, in limit's structure, the size of your stack rarely comes into play in any individual betting round. You simply cannot make a large enough bet to induce your opponent to fold. If you try to play like Gus Hansen at a $3/$6 table on Party Poker, you will most likely win a few pots but lose the majority of them. There are plenty of advantages to playing hyper-aggressively. You do not have to memorize "starting hand requirements" and you can play anything from any position. It also makes the game a lot more exciting because instead of folding 90% of your hands, you get to see flops with 90% of your hands. You are constantly in pots mixing it up with other players. You can also use your aggression to bully a timid and weak table. Some of the best players in history were notorious for playing a hyper-aggressive style. Doyle Brunson and Stu Ungar were two World Series of Poker Champions whose styles were feared and often mimicked. I know from my own experience that there's nothing more irritating than playing against a hyper-aggressive maniac and losing a big pot after being outdrawn on the river. That's a great way to set your opponents on tilt: Play any two cards and crack one of their high pocket pairs via a brutal suckout on the river. One disadvantage of playing like a maniac is that the stress levels which you put yourself under are much higher. Since you are playing more pots with less-than-marginal hands, you expend more mental energy. That adds up over a long session. Players tend to make most of their mistakes late in sessions when fatigue becomes a factor. Playing hyper-aggressively makes you tired faster, which also leads to a higher chance that you will make an error. You have to be very observant and have a great imagination in order to become successful playing any two cards. This is one of the biggest misconceptions about Gus Hansen: Since we always see taped broadcasts of his tournaments, viewers forget that there are hundreds of thousands of hands that he folded which ended up on the cutting room floor. What we do not get to see is that Gus waits until the perfect time to raise with junk hands; usually he's in good position or has an excellent read on his opponents. One of Gus Hansen's other strengths is his post-flop play. His post-flop play has to be exceptional, otherwise he'd go broke quickly! Since you know he's liable to play junk hands, a normal ragged flop of 7-6-4 becomes a scary flop against Gus even if you are holding pocket aces. The only way a hyper-aggressive approach will work in the long run is at a table full of rocks and tight-weak players. It is important that you are able to switch gears and playing styles instantly if you want to succeed at No Limit Holdem poker. The successful players know the exact moment they need to shift from conservative to aggressive, and vice versa. Playing on specific style is the easiest way your opponents will be able to read you. Playing junk hands is also a good way to get future action on your good hands. Gus definitely gets inside his opponents’ heads, even the most conservative ones. They'll often take risks with marginal hands because they instantly think that they have a better hand than Gus, when in fact, he's holding the dominant hand. Deception is vital if you want to prevent other players from getting the perfect read on your style of play. To recap, playing like Gus Hansen is a lot of fun at the table. Adopting his style of play without considering your situation will cause beginner players to lose their bankrolls quickly. There is a time and a place to play like Hansen -- and it's not in the early stages of a tournament and definitely not at a limit table. The most profitable way to play like him would be in the later stages of a No Limit tournament, when your table gets short-handed, and especially when you are close to the bubble. Playing tight isn't the most exciting way to play poker, but it's one of the most profitable.~~ |
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