Your public image and the behavior are crucial when you play No-Limit Texas Holdem. Mistakes in behavior and building the image lead to negative results. Therefore this aspect of Texas Holdem is very important and I am going to teach you several rules. These rules will definitely help you to become a successful poker player.

Rule N 1: If you want to use free cards make sure your opponents are suitable for such strategy. You should not depend on free cards if your opponents prefer to play aggressively placing bets all the time. You will just start to loose your money because weak cards do not bring benefits in such games.

Rule N 2: you should not invest much money in weak cards. Your opponents will read your strategy and you will become predictable. If you want to play maniac style, show it to your opponents! But be careful, do not start to make foolish decisions. The aim of a maniac is to force your opponents to fold. But if your rivals do not fold you should adjust your strategy.

Rule N 3 is the most important one. Use tight play at the flop. Even if you use maniac style, raise before the flop. Just build your public image and show weak cards only in case if the pot is small to make your opponents believe that you play the fool at the table.

3 styles (images)

There are three main images of Texas Holdem poker player. I am going to tell you about the styles. First of all you should understand that it is important to force your opponents make mistakes based on the perception of you. You try to force an opponent to fold top pair, because you played very careful before and the opponent believe you are very conservative in Texas Holdem poker. Or you want your opponent to call when you have full house. And your opponent calls because you have built a reputation of a maniac and he doesn’t believe you thinking about bluff.

Maniac
Tight – accurate and careful player
Crazy (unpredictable)

You can apply any of these styles. But I strongly advice you to learn every style and learn how to use it perfectly.

Which style to choose?

Choose style of play depending on your opponents. Play carefully with accurate and careful opponents. If you have aggressive opponents, be aggressive either.

It might sound weird because most experts do not agree with this point of view, bit it is true. But remember that we are talking about your public image, not your playing style!

The reason I advice you to play carefully against accurate rivals is that in most cases they will fold strong cards. And you will have a chance to steal blinds or bluff, but this strategy will work until your opponents think that you play carefully.

The reason I advice you to play aggressively against careless players is that you should make them consider you a weak Texas Holdem player. In most cases you won’t have to do anything to make your opponents pay you if you have, for example, pocket aces. They will just raise all the time and you just have to call. If your opponents fold when you have good cards try to show them silly things. Raise and re-raise several times having bad cards. Show them your poor skills and they will give you the money.

Unpredictable style suits opponents who know your strategy and able to read you. Unpredictable style is the only one tool you should use playing against constant opponents. In most cases unpredictable players win. It is just impossible to divine their cards and behavior.

Also recommended:

1. Table Image: Introduction
2. Table Image: Tight Play
3. Texas Holdem – a game with a maniac
4. No-Limit Texas Holdem: what cards can be considered good ones?
5. Aggressive image – key of success in Texas Holdem?