If you have played poker you know that you can see all the players around you as you play in a circle (unless you’re playing online poker). You just figured out the most important part of poker. You may be thinking that that’s impossible.
You may think that the most important part is the cards
What cards you get, how to use them, and so on. These are very important, correct, but it actually starts with your ability to use your body language to your advantage. The cards are going to be relatively the same for all the players. Luck usually doesn’t factor in well in poker since everyone has the same chance to get the same cards.
In case luck begins to play a large role in your game then what can you do?
A player always has 4 basic choices; you can check, bet or call, raise,or fold. If you are not getting good cards you can always fold right?
This is not always a good idea. You may be leaving large amounts of money on the table in the long run after a few initial folds. Sure you may seem to be getting away with losing less but you give up the chance to even try. Bluffing is the art of misguidance. You want them to think you have a bad hand one second and the next a great hand with all the best cards that are sure to win you the pot.
How do you accomplish such a thing?
Simply with your body language, If you have good cards act happy. You may not want them to know that you have good cards but it’s a way to change their thinking, now every time you act “happy” they will think you have good cards and may fold. If you have bad cards and you act happy they might fold because now they are afraid.
What you want to do is create a complicated pattern of sad, happy, indifferent, ecstatic, angry actions for certain hands. You want to throw them off but also try to lure them into a false sense of security where they think they understand your bluffing pattern and then hit them with the reality. As long as they are trying to keep up with whatever pattern you have, you will have them all under your control.
You have to be creative.
This is step two of poker (after learning the basics and learning them by heart), body language is very important. If you are known as a newbie and you come in they will expect you to show your cards loud and clear through your body language. You can mislead and kill your competition with a good poker face.
