How to Set up a Trap

Most good poker players are born thieves. Either they were born that way, or they learned their profession after years of training against other players.

In order to win consistently at poker, you need to think occasionally like a scoundrel. Think of Elmer Gantry, the evangelist minister created by novelist Sinclair Lewis. While Gantry was preaching love and goodness, he was thinking about seduction and the attractive new girl who had just joined the chorus.

Now if you're not the thieving kind, you may as well ignore the rest of this column. But if you have a little chicanery in your soul, be my guest and read on.

One of the first things a new poker player at a table has to do is to get caught bluffing. The earlier, the better.

Make it an outlandish bluff, one the other players would never have accepted. And when you get caught in the middle of it, shrug your shoulders like a hayseed and say something short and simple like 'I got caught,' or 'You boys sure ain't easy to bluff.'

Then for the rest of the game simply play your good hands and don't do any more bluffing.

Poker players have long memories. They will call your bets with poor hands just to see if you are bluffing. They might even do it twice. If you have the cards, you absolutely want them to call.

Another way of setting a trap is one of the oldest ploys in poker but it often works. Pretend to be drunk.

I have to admit a pretender caught me in a good hand a while back. He staggered up to the table carrying a bottle of beer and began talking silly garbage talk, the kind a drunk utters. I don't know if the other players were taken in by him, but he sure fooled me.

I waited a few hands and when I had a fairly good hand, I check-raised him in a pot. He came over the top, raised me back. I meekly called and he turned over aces full.

Whoops! I smiled, got up from the table, and went to the bar for a drink.

If you have a frequent raiser at your table, it's relatively easy to set a trap for him. Just wait until you have pocket aces, kings or queens, then call his raise and let him bet until fifth street. That is when you put in your raise. Unless you are unusually unlucky, you will win the pot.

Position is always important in poker. Play position solidly and it will help set up situations where you can set a trap effectively.

Playing good poker is simple. All you need to do is outthink the opposition. Sometimes you need to think like a thief, and sometimes like the manager of a baseball team. It's always fun and it can be quite rewarding. Just be sure you are the one setting the trap and not the one falling victim to it.

Author: Geno Lawrenzi Jr.

(Geno Lawrenzi Jr. is an international journalist, magazine author and ghostwriter and poker player who lives in Phoenx, AZ. He has published 2,000 articles in 50 magazines and 125 newspapers. If you want to share a gambling story or book idea with him, send an email to glawrenzi@gmail.com ).