I am fond of saying poker is a pendulum game. What this means is that any action out of balance is eventually noticed by opponents who then compensate by reacting, generally overreacting, in an opposite direction. this causes the out of balance player to either keep losing to completely change by pushing the pendulum to the other side, taking advantage of the overreaction. This work for a while until the opponents notice the change, in which case the see-saw bounces again.

You can pick your own example, but let’s just take a tight, straightforward player. He never bets draws, never bluffs, always has the goods. sooner or later, opponents realize that calling this guy is like making a deposit directly into his bank account, and he stops getting much action. If he is content, fine. But perhaps, noticing he he is rarely getting called, he tries a bluff. It works, of course. Now he feels he has found the keys to the kingdom, and tries another. That works too. With his new found boldness, he plays more hands and bluffs more often. Soon, opponents notice that his playing, betting and raising frequency has moved far higher than could be justified by just having hands, and they start calling and catching bluffs. He does not like losing money in unsuccessful bluff attempts, so tightens u again. But he still gets called until opponents notice he always has the goods and stop calling him. Round we go.

If you play frequently, you will notice that poker play in general also goes through phases and fads. There is sort of a mass action pendulum that operates on a wider scale, be it by cardroom or city or even world wide. These larger trends cause significant changes to the way the game is played. It is one of the major reasons I tell people that their game must continually evolve. If you were a winning player in 2001, and you decided you had mastered the game and would just -play that method for the rest of your life, it is unlikely you will win that much, if at all, in 2007.

For example, let’s look at the free card play. You are in late position on the flop, raise with a draw on the flop, and when everyone checks to you on the turn, you check right back unless you made your draw. This play was a staple of the pros between 20 and 10 years ago. After everyone had read Hold’em for Advanced Players which explained the play in detail, more and more people started using it. Combined with the number of players who waited until the turn to raise if they really had a hand, it seemed like almost every late flop raise was a free card play.

So players reacted. They three-bet the flop, or called and bet a non-scary turn rather than check to the raiser. These defenses against the free card play added volatility, but were effective. In many games, trying for a free card became very expensive.

But as the pendulum pushed, some players saw an opening. They stopped trying for free cards (I mostly stopped about six or so years ago) and began raising the flop with premium hands that they used to wait for the turn with. Now the defense against the free card play simply became an expensive way to pay off a good hand. Playing good hands fast on the flop taking advantage of free card defenses still seems to be working, but my radar says enough players are adopting this strategy that the old free card play may start working again in a year or so.

This is just one of many examples. Continuous awareness and adaptability, not just to specific opponents but also prevailing theories, will help keep you on top of this.