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If you plan on becoming a great poker player, it’s important that you CHANGE GEARS… Changing gears prevents your style of play from becoming PREDICTABLE… and we all know that predictability is your enemy.
One minute you should be cruising along in first gear… folding and watching everyone else play. And then the next minute you should kick into fifth gear and bring your game to a different level.
Let me give you some examples.
It’s 8 P.M. and you sit down at your local cash game… and the very first hand you look at is a 9-8 of spades while you’re just to the right of the button.
A few players limp-in and the action is to you.
“Make it $25 to play,” is what you say… throwing out five red chips.
You decided that you’re going to start this game in FIFTH gear… which is your aggressive gear. You do this because you want to SET THE TONE of the game and establish your table presence. This will also set you up for action later in the game when you get some real hands… like Cowboys or American Airlines.
Then… once the table gets used to your fifth gear, you shift all the way back down to first and only play premium hands. And you’ll get ACTION.
So anyway… you continue your aggressive play for the first hour or so of the game. You make raises with a wide variety of hands like J-10, 10-9, 5-3, and so on. And your opponents have NO CLUE as to what you’re making raises with.
They’re confused as hell, which puts you in a DOMINATING position. They see you as an aggressive, manic-like player who continues to push the action. And you’ve also established yourself as table leader… even though you aren’t necessarily CHIP leader.
So you began the night with $200 in chips and now it’s 9 P.M. You’ve played for an hour and now you’ve got $180 in chips. Do you care? No!
That one hour was for the purpose of “paying your dues”… because you’ve set yourself up for the rest of the night. Now you’re going to get paid off when you finally DO catch a real hand. Now it’s just a matter of being patient.
So you decide to shift gears again… and drop into third gear. You’ll still make the occasional raise with 9-8 suited, and you’ll still bluff from time to time. But ONLY when you sense weakness and have good positioning.
What you’re really doing is waiting on that big hand like Queens, Kings, or Aces. When that happens, you get paid.
Finally, at 9:45 P.M. you get dealt Cowboys when you’re third to act before the flop. You decide to make a large pre-flop raise that’s likely to create heads-up action. After all, you don’t want four guys seeing a flop when you’ve got Kings… you’re practically guaranteed to get run down.
You throw out a raise… say $50. This is an aggressive raise at this table… but you’ve established yourself as an aggressive player. Hey, last time you made it $50 to play you were holding 10-8 suited! (Of course, that was a different story… because you were on the button and you sensed weakness when everyone limped-in last time. You KNEW everyone was going to fold last time… and that’s why you SHOWED your cards too. It
was all about setting up for THIS hand.)
So anyway… Brad, the guy on the button, is the only one who calls. And to make a long story short, you end up doubling up on poor little Brad, who had AQ.
So anyway… now it’s 10 P.M. and you decide to shift down to first gear. This is your TIGHT PLAYER gear. You’ve got $475 in chips and you just want to chill out and only play premium hands.
And once again, you’ll get paid off if you’re lucky enough to catch another big hand while playing in first gear. Because remember… your OPPONENTS don’t know you’re in first gear. For all they know you’re still in fifth.
Personally, I usually use first gear as a time to regroup and think about my game plan. I spend this time attentively studying my opponents for tells and betting patterns. So an hour goes by and you’ve basically been unheard from. Your opponents have practically forgotten you’re even sitting at the table!
It’s time to let your opponents that you’re still in the game… still ready to play. Josh and Rodney both limp-in and the action is to you.
“Make it $30 to play”, you say… not really caring if your opponents call or fold. If they call, you’ve got positioning on them. If they fold you can rake in the blinds… which add up over the course of the night.
Josh folds, Rodney folds. They haven’t heard from you in awhile and are therefore a little scared that you might be sitting on a big hand.
As you rake in the blinds, you throw over your 5-3 face up on the table and say, “Hey c’mon guys… give me some action here… I know you’ve got my five high beat!” And they both smile and shake their heads. They know you’re just messing with them… and they’re used to it by now. They’ve seen this behavior before.
So you’re back in fifth gear and you start playing aggressively again. You push the action for the next hour or so and hope to catch some favorable flops. If and when that happens, your chip lead increases.
The night rolls along and you continue to switch gears… from first to fifth, third to first, fifth to first, and so on. This style of play keeps your opponents on their toes and continually guessing… never quite able to put you on a hand.
This is what strong poker playing is all about. You’ve got to harness your ability to completely change gears… back and forth and back and forth throughout the night. If you stay in one gear for too long you’ll never win on a consistent basis.

Great poker players understand the importance of MIXING UP THEIR BETS AND RAISES.
It’s so simple… yet so many players fail on this critical point. As you’ve heard me talk about, one of the keys to winning is to identify the betting patterns of your opponents. Of course, your opponents (the smart ones) will often try to identify YOUR betting patterns… So don’t let them!
Be sure to CONSTANTLY mix up your bets, raises, and even BETTING BEHAVIOR for different starting hands.
Don’t play the same starting hand the same way twice. Always change it up. This actually will give you LEVERAGE to “trick” your opponents also. For example… let’s say you raise $65 pre-flop with 7-2 offsuit after sensing weakness at the table. Everyone folds. You flip over your cards and jokingly say, “C’mon guys!”.
Another hour passes and you pick up pocket Kings on the button. You make a raise of $65 pre-flop. One of your opponents has K-J and REMEMBERS that you made the same pre-flop raise on a TOTAL BLUFF last time.
So he decides to come over the top of you for an all-in bet. And you promptly take all his money.
These types of situations won’t happen too often, of course, but when they do they are VERY SWEET!
If you find yourself totally unable to get out of the habit of betting patterns, try this sneaky little trick:
Let’s say everyone starts with 1000 in chips. The normal bets and raises are in multiples of five or ten, of course. Well, as part of your “exercise” in learning how to mix your game up, you make bets and raises ONLY with odd numbers. For instance, instead of raising 40 before the flop, you raise 43 or maybe 38. Instead of a
200 chip bet, you go for 199. And so on.
Now listen… THIS IS ANNOYING AS HELL. I’m serious… It’s one of the most annoying things ever. BUT, it’s a very useful way to get used to mixing up your betting strategy. The goal is to keep your opponents guessing at what you have… and always betting weird amounts certainly achieves this objective.