Randomising Your Poker Play

The primary reason for randomising your play is so your opponents find it much more difficult to get reliable reads on what your actions actually mean. Against astute players, being predicatable is a huge disadvantage because those type of opponents will quickly learn and document the way you play in many common situations and use this information against you in future sessions, you will end up losing big pots and winning small ones if this is the case. Incorporating randomness into your poker arsenal does'nt mean that you have to start playing like a madman in fear of being too easy to read, a calculated approach is advisable and there are many ways of achieving this goal without leaving yourself too vulnerable.

Using the second hand on your watch to generate randomness is a possibility, this allows for all sorts of percentages to be used but arguably the most appropriate methods would be to use either a ratio of 50:50 or 75:25; for the 75:25 ratio, if the seconds hand lies between 12 and 3 then make a certain play, if the seconds hand lies between 3 and 12 then make another play, this would allow you to make your normal play 75% of the time and deviate from that play the remaining 25% of the time.

Using your hole cards can be a slightly more complicated way of randomising you play but it's every bit as effective so long as you understand the maths behind it; there's a 25% chance that your first hole card will be a diamond, so you can easily employ a 75:25 randomisation just by looking at your first hole card. Even a slight deviation like 80%/20% will keep your more observant opponents guessing, which ultimately is the reason why you would undertake such an exercise.

One point worth bearing in mind is it's only worth randomising your play against perceptive opponents; randomising your play aginst players who only think about their own cards is a waste of time because they are not paying attention enough for you to benefit from any randomisations. This is also true against players who don't bother to act on the information they are recieving. It's mainly against perceptive players that randomising your play makes the most difference.