Fancy Plays in Poker

Poker player’s egos need to be stroked and quite a few think that making a tremendously fancy play will get them noticed, talked about and even some chips. Well 2 out of 3 isn’t bad, or is it? Fancy plays do not earn chips, in fact quite the opposite. It’s okay to make a fancy play once in awhile to throw off your opponents but there are certainly risks to it. If you’re not careful, you will lose and then the other players will notice your fancy play and call it a bad play and talk about it. Not exactly what you were hoping for.

Player’s dealt AA will often just call preflop hoping to trap a player later and that’s okay as a deceptive play but you don’t want to do it every time with AA as sooner or later, they will get in cheap and you might lose your entire stack. It’s better to raise 2 out of 3 times and hope for one caller than get stuck playing a field full. It would be better to save that deceptive play for when you are in late position and either only one person has called or none.

A hand I was in recently, I was dealt 9 8 in the big blind. There were no raise and two other callers. The flop came A 10 6 and it was checked by all. The turn was a seven and I bet out. The second player raised, and the third player went all-in. I called and so did the second player. We all turned over our cards and the second player had pocket tens and the third had A 10 suited. I ended up winning a tidy sum when the river came a jack. Had either of the players raised preflop or bet on the flop, I would have certainly folded. Both were trying trap or fancy play each other and if either had bet on the flop, there would have certainly been raising on the flop or turn. This would have made a tidy sum for someone other than me.

Player’s watching TV poker will often see the “Great Trap” that a pro made and remember that play and talk about it with their friends. What they don’t see if the other thousands of hands the pro played and won by playing textbook poker. Those hands don’t make great TV but fancy plays certainly do. So keep your fancy plays to a minimum except to mix up your play and your opponents will be talking about what a solid player you are.