10:59pm: I often talk about the “battle in the trenches”, which is basically just how you control the tempo in any given match. Even if you play the large pots perfectly, you still need to have a feel on when to take a stab at the small pots. If not for the chips, for confidence and for a change in momentum. Every now and then you will get into a rut where you lose like 9 pots in a row, and you start wondering when things are going to turn around. A good portion of the time you should just continue to be patient, and the cards will start to fall your way.

Or, you could take matters into your own hands and drag the long-awaited pot yourself. There’s a very specific board and course of action I’m speaking of. It is as follows:

Let’s say you hold 67off, and you completely airball the flop. It looks something like this: Kc Kd 3s. Of course I’m going to tell you to bet it, but that’s not all there is to it. There’s something really simple you can do on a flop that contains a pair that, in my estimation, will lead you to drag the pot uncontested roughly 80% of the time. Also note that it doesn’t matter whether you’re on the button or first to act - this works as a lead out move, or if it’s checked to you with the same success rate. This is EXTREMELY effective at the 50/100 blind level, where one “small” pot can change the whole scope of the match.

What you need to do in this circumstance, with this flop is break the flow of the action. Normally, there’s a certain timing/pace at which each hand is played. So what I want you to do is count to ten. When you get to ten, just bet the minimum. Simple as that.

The reason this works so well is because there’s a very good chance this flop missed your opponent. You counting to ten does two things:

1. If someone missed the flop, they will get bored waiting for you to act, and more than likely they will just want to get to the next hand, with you taking so much time to act on this particular one.
2. Even if they have something that would justify a call, they might err on the side caution and fold, as they might construe your bet as a sign of strength. Long pauses followed by bets are almost always signs on strength online, whereas quick bets are usually signs of weakness. People have caught on to this, as most people have graduated from level 1 to level 2 in today’s online poker world.

Even if this sounds completely silly to you, try it out 10 times. See how many times out of 10 your opponents call and fold. You may be pleasantly surprised.