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In online poker, most of the money good and reasonable players make is not made by playing against others who know how to play the game. One key strategy these guys use is to seek out weak players and cash in on their weaknesses.

Nowadays it is very difficult to learn proper poker just by playing online, and most of the new players never had the chance of playing a real live poker hand in their lives. Because there’s so much extremely poor play online, a person just learning the ins-and-outs of the game will find it extremely hard to learn something useful.

This is the very reason why so many players develop anti-skills. An anti-skill is a mistaken approach to a certain poker-situation, which the player doing it considers a skill. Whenever you spot one of these anti-skills in one of your opponents, you can systematically exploit it.

Let us now see a few examples of such anti-skills:

One of the most common mistakes beginners and intermediate players commit in online poker is limping pre-flop to take a peek at the flop, and see where they go from there. This is a fundamentally mistaken move, most players consider a skill. In fact this ‘skill’ of theirs is what generates a large part of the profit good players make at the online poker tables.

Generally, if you do some research on starting hand selection, besides the recommendations and charts, you’ll find one important bit of advice, “do not decide to play a starting hand because the chart says so”. Always make sure you understand WHY the chart tells you to play a certain hand. Good poker players know why they play a starting hand, and they know where they want to go with it before the flop. Losing players see too many flops. Why do you reckon the loose or tight nature of a game is measured by the ‘flops seen’ percentage? The higher that percentage, the looser the game is, and the more fish there are playing in it.

Another huge mistake players make, is the incorrect use of the check-raise. Not applying it correctly will blow huge holes in ones bankroll. It also doesn’t really make any sense to play poker without rakeback, but that’s not exactly an anti-skill.

Confusing the enemy is something many intermediate and beginning poker players consider a basic skill. Because they’re sick and tired of being read by the skilled opposition, at some point they decide it’s better for them to cast confusion than to be read all the time. Right they are about that too, however, this doesn’t make keeping your opponents confused a useful skill. When you manage to make an opponent know exactly what he/she has to do, then you’re being skilled. By keeping them confused you give them a fair chance at doing the one thing you don’t want them to do. Mislead and deceive. A good counter-intelligence has won wars in the past, and it will win you battles at the poker table too.

Last, but certainly not least, comes the anti-skill of being able to fold a good hand on the last betting round in Limit Poker. Most players are proud they can show enough self control and make such a move, and consider it a skill. They may be on to something, since in big-bet High-limit Poker, being able to fold your ‘monster hand’ in the last betting round can often mean the difference between going broke and surviving to fight another day. In Fixed-limit Poker however, the move just doesn’t make sense. You fold something you could’ve won 7-10 big bets on, in order to save one big bet. Just think about it, if you make a habit of not folding these hands, even if you only win once in 7 such hands, you’re still 2-3 big bets ahead.

A key part of being a winning poker player is the ability to spot opponents using such anti-skills.

Pay attention, identify the target, lock onto them, and you just might have chips flowing into your stack in no time.

Editor's Note: This and future articles in this series are written by Steve Larson, of RakeMeBack.com, who has been writing online gambling and poker articles in his home Canada for several years now.

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