I can always tell a good poker game simply by looking at the bet sizing that certain players look to execute. For example let us say that I see a player check-raise on the flop so that half their stack is in the middle. If they are doing this on a bluff then their leverage is all wrong. If you are risking say 60bb on a semi-bluff when a raise to 40bb would have induced the same fold then you have placed 20bb of dead money into the pot.
You may have heard of the concept of reverse implied odds. Well this is called “reverse dead money”. When you look to move on up through the levels in online poker then you need to be very mindful of your bet sizing. This was a mistake that I made some years ago when I tried playing higher levels. I was watching my opponents like a hawk and figuring out their ranges and playing patterns. It all came to nothing because I didn’t know jack about reverse dead money, pivot points and leverage.
Luckily I managed to be on the right side of variance and got out of Dodge City in one piece without being gunned down by the local bad boys. That kind of spooked me into never going back to high stakes poker again but I was never a high stakes player anyway. There is a world of difference between playing at high stakes poker and being a high stakes poker player. Hundreds of thousands have tried the first……only a few succeed at the second over the long term.
Carl “The Dean” Sampson plays poker at www.pokerstars.co.uk
