There’s a cardinal rule in No-Limit Hold’em: get to know your opponents. At many texas hold em sites you will run in to the same players over and over again, and it can give a strategic advantage to know a player’s tricks and habits. The more you know about a player, the better idea you’ll have about what he’s holding if he raises, checks, or calls. That’s the good news: the flipside is that the same opponent will be familiar with you as well. He’ll get to know any tricks up your sleeve and try to use them against you.
By and large, though, it’s much better to play against a familiar opponent than an unfamiliar opponent—especially one who is skilled. If you’re playing against an inexperienced, unfamiliar opponent, this isn’t as big of a challenge—you’ll probably be able to read their level of play pretty quickly, especially if they make a series of inappropriate bets or plays. If you play against an experienced but unfamiliar player, you won’t quite know what he’s up to when he raises high—is he bluffing, is he raising only on a good hand, is this part of a pattern?
The more you play No-Limit texas hold em, the more you’ll see the same names crop up again and again. It’s a good idea to keep tabs on past opponents—maybe even keeping a ledger—to remind yourself just what type of player he is, such as how much you’ve beat him for in the past and if he is loose, tight, aggressive, or passive. The more information you have on a player, the better a position you are to beat him. Knowledge in Hold’em is about a lot more than what cards he might be carrying.
Because a familiar opponent is more familiar with your style of play as well, you should think about mixing up your bets. If he starts to see a pattern in your betting, he’s going to have the leg up. To counter this, you need to send out some false tells. Bluff once in a while—maybe more than you would normally. You have to throw him off balance so he’s never entirely sure if you’re holding weak or strong. Again, the same goes for your opponent. He’s going to be trying to throw you off with a different betting strategy so you have to recognize which is a real tell and which is a false tell designed to throw you off.
For the most part, it can be fun to play a familiar opponent. While you want to win as much cold hard cash as you can, there’s also pride in beating a player who has beat you in the past. There are also those familiar players who you know you can beat and drain their stack—these are the players you should look out for most often.
