How to Create an Aura of Unpredictability

Among the most profitable places to be viewed as an Unpredictable Individual is in a tournament among friends. When you are playing with people you know--and who think they know you--the potential for you to manipulate your opponents may depend entirely on being unpredictable.

When it comes to tournament poker, unpredictable, even erratic betting, done the right way, can be your best weapon to win that hand that once you win that one, you see a clear path to a tournament win.

But how can such an unpredictable aura be created?

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Don't Lose Your Whole Bankroll Trying to Be Unpredictable

A lot of people, including a lot of poker players, fall into this Reality TV Disease where they start to think of themselves as doing something notable or famous. Thus, when these players are trying to unpredictable, all they are really doing is being predictably banal.

Endangering your bankroll to the point of extinction is the worst way to be unpredictable.

For example, let's say you are seeking to be unpredictable this tournament since everyone in the room is so loose, so you bet all in on A-K before the flop, early in the tournament, when there are still let's say 20 other players. Now, that is unpredictable.

You are also likely to get called. With so many players left in the tournament, there have got to be at least 10 Loose Geese that will fly into any airplane propeller that will have them. What are the chances that one of these daredevils is not sitting directly to your left?

In this sense, the first rule of staying unpredictable in poker is to be wary of subjecting your entire bankroll to a false god. This strategy often fails.

Instead, save your unpredictable behaviors for a stage in the game where unpredictable can mean you win a big pot without overbetting to capture it.

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Personal Unpredictability vs. Poker Unpredictability

Another idea to examine with regard to how being unpredictable can help you win at poker pertains the conflict or cooperation that can take place between a poker player's personality and a poker player's style of playing poker.

When you get into mirroring, anti-mirroring, and then just suddenly outright warping people's perception of you, your poker game, and the intersection between the two, then you are starting to play poker in a mature way.

One example of this in terms of personal unpredictability is your degree of "niceness" at the table. One minute, you could be a jovial guy, just having a good time, and then the next minute you might be saying someone's mother was a Frisco dike.

That's poker when you're personally unpredictable.

The other main type of poker unpredictability occurs when you are focusing your unpredictable energies towards the technical side of the game of poker. This approach is customarily much more valuable against a formidable opponent.

One example of poker-specific unpredictability would be if you are holding A-Q, the flop comes 7-5-4, the turn comes 5, and you bet right up until the river, calling every raise.

If you lose that hand to an opponent with a straight or a set of 5's, that opponent, as well as the other players at the table, may regard your behavior as an unpredictable act.

Such a show of unpredictability can be turned to your advantage at a later stage of the game. For instance, when you actually have the nuts and are attempting to eliminate a weaker, short-stacked player.

There are as many ways to be unpredictable as there are unpredictable people. The trick is to develop the right degree and style of unpredictability for any given situation.

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