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Deception can be a useful tool in poker.  It is nice when an opponent is playing against you thinking you have one hand when you actually have another.  You are forcing your opponent to act incorrectly.  An example of deception was used in the previous section where a check on the Turn convinced your opponent to think he had the better hand than you had.  Bad players make these mistakes without another player deceiving them.  They deceive themselves and will often call you down when they are very unlikely to have the best hand.  Against good players who can play more correctly, you will want to vary your play now and then.  Play the same hand differently in the same situations if you can do so without giving up much edge.  This will make your opponent think twice on future handsto future hands.
Here is a situation:
You are in the big blind and you hold ATs.  Everyone folds to the button who is a good player.  He raises and the small blind folds.  In a situation like this, re-raising or calling is fairly close in value.  It is nice to mix up your play by sometimes re-raising and sometimes calling so your opponent will not have a good handle on what you have when you are re-raising him.
Continuing on with the hand, let’s say you simply called his pre-Flop raise.
Your hand: ATs
Flop: A-Q-3 rainbow
You check and he bets.  A check-raise may scare off your opponent if he does not have an A, but since you want to also sometimes check-raise when you have KJ and JT (for just a gut shot straight draw), you also need to check-raise sometimes when you do flop an A.  When you are
check-raising without the A in future hands, your opponent may assume you do have an A and fold if he does not have one himself.  If you play a hand like this the same way every time, it will allow the more astute players to put you on a hand too easily.  For example, if you always check-raise when you have an A in this spot, but never when you have a straight draw, then your opponent knows he can fold a hand like QJ.  On the other hand, if you never check-raise when you have a weak A, but always check-raise with the inside straight draw, then your opponent can feel comfortable calling you down with the same QJ hand.  Mixing up your play will put him on the defensive, and he will not be sure exactly what you have.  Scenarios like this come up more often in shorthanded games than they do in full games.
When you vary your game, your play may look dumb once in a while.  In the above scenario with a flop of A-Q-3, if you had check-raised with KJ and lost the hand while being forced to show it down on the River, it may look like you were gambling it up and taking unnecessary risk.  Some observers may even think you are on tilt or playing poorly, and not give you the rightful respect you deserve as a poker player.  When this happens, it is best to try to use this to your advantage.  Now you should play a bit tighter and semi-bluff less in future hands because the observant opponents are going to be more likely to call given your previous play.
With all that said, it would be wrong to vary your play too much if it means you are giving up too much expectancy on the current hand compared to the possible expectancy you may receive on future hands.  Some players will take this idea too far and play wild and crazy just to establish an image of a maniac.  They will surely increase their expectancy on future hands when they do get back to playing correctly.  However, they may be losing too much on the current hand in order to establish that wild image.  A good way to vary your play is to change up in situations where there really is not too much difference how you play.  This way you are not losing much edge and yet gain the benefit of making it tough for your opponents to read your hand correctly.

There are players who will try to play solidly when they first sit down, and continue to play solidly if they start off winning. But some players can change their styles drastically if they start to lose, particularly if they take a bad beat. All of a sudden, these players will go from playing solid to being a bit more aggressive. Then they will semi-bluff and bluff more. If they continue to lose and get some of their bluffs called, or worse, they get more bad beats, then they could wind up opening up their game and could turn into a maniac-type of player.
This is a situation where having played against the player in the past and knowing this particular characteristic is very useful. If it is the first time you ever played with him and he plays like this, you may assume this is how he plays and use that information the second time you play at the same table with him. But the second time around, he may be running good and playing solidly, in which case, your perception of him will be completely off.

Professional players are sharp and are constantly thinking about the game and their opponents. They are the best players and the ones that you least like to see at your table. They could be playing poker as their main source of income or they could be playing it as a supplemental income. They are playing poker to win unlike other players who may be playing for the gamble, the entertainment or just the competition. Professional players understand the importance of playing aggressively when they have a solid hand and they also understand the importance of choosing their hands selectively. They will try to extract the most amount of edge from their opponents when they have the best of it, but try to get away cheaply when they have the worst of it. Professional players have thought about and studied the game, be it through reading, talking to other players or just thinking about the play of hands on their own. Professional players will still have a wide range of characteristics in their style. Some will be more aggressive than others, some will bluff a bit more than others. Of course, there are always those who consider themselves as professional players who really are not.

The maniac is Mr. Hyde to the loose aggressive player’s Dr. Jekyll. The maniac is completely out of control and raises sometimes even without looking at his hole cards. Everyone is licking their chops to get a piece of this guy. Maniacs will raise and bluff way too often and they will usually lose their money quickly. Maniacs may not play like maniacs all the time. Sometimes players who are just having a bad day turn into maniacs when they are on full tilt. This can happen after they have been dealt a couple of bad beats which could lead them to play very aggressively in order to get back to even. The maniac is a horrible player and is great for the game.

The loose aggressive player likes to play a lot of hands. Unlike the calling station, he likes to play them aggressively. He will raise and bet when his cards are warranted, but he may sometimes bet and raise when it is not clear that he has the best hand at the moment. The loose aggressive player likes to bet on the come. He will use the free card raise as often as he can, even if he just has overcards. Once he raises for the free card, he oftentimes feels compelled to keep betting due to the perceived weakness of his opponents if they are just calling him. It may feel necessary to rope-a-dope (to play passively so the aggressive player will keep betting) the aggressive player by calling him instead of scaring him off with a raise or a re-raise. The loose aggressive player is always trying to steal the blinds, even from middle position. He will bluff more often than the average player and he loves fancy concepts such as semi-bluffing, raising for free cards and check-raising. But he will overuse these concepts. Because he plays so many hands and is aggressive with them, it may be harder to predict his holdings. He may sometimes run over his opponents when he has the better hand, since other players are more willing to call his bets and raises. Loose aggressive players are usually not good players, however they can get in some streaks where it may seem like they are the best player around.

Unpredictable players are not necessarily good or bad players. When they act, it is tougher to pinpoint their hand compared with pinpointing a predictable player’s hand. Unpredictable players will use strategies such as bluffing and semi-bluffing often, sometimes too often. Even though good players can be somewhat unpredictable, there is only so far they can take this. If they are too unpredictable, it will mean they are playing too many hands, and giving up too much edge for the quest to be unpredictable. Instead, good players will choose spots to be unpredictable, spots where playing unpredictably may give them the greatest edge. Players who play unpredictably all the time invariably play too many hands and are giving up too much edge for their trickiness.

The solid player is a player who has an idea of correct play. He knows he needs to be patient to win at this game, but he is not overly tight. He will play more hands than a rock and he will usually be aggressive when he does play. If he raises from early position, he is predictable because he will have a quality hand. If he open-raises from late position, his hand will be harder to predict because he understands he can loosen up in that position and he is not afraid to steal the blinds. You normally want to avoid the solid player when he is raising. He may not bluff or semi-bluff enough because he does not usually take too many chances. Some players will play like a solid player only to morph into a different type of player after a while at the table. The solid player is a good player.