When you’re playing NL Holdem and you’re playing against competent opponents then you need to make sure that you change the pace of your game. By changing pace I don’t mean you need to bluff all the time, but I mean you need to change the way you play certain hands. For instance, if you commonly push all-in when you have a pocket pair such as aces or kings your opponents will pick up on this quickly if they know how to play the game. To avoid not getting paid off on your premium hands you need to change the way you play the hand so that it looks disguised. We’re going to look at some tips now that will help you change pace when playing NL Holdem.

One way to change pace when you’re playing NL Holdem is you can change the way you play hands as mentioned above. Not only can you play your premium hands differently, but you can also change the way you would play other hands. For instance, instead of folding your suited 7/6 you could try and limp into the pot to see if you can hit a big hand. At worst it will loosen up your image a bit and help you get paid off in the future.

If you’re in a relatively small pot compared to the average sized pot on your table then you could throw in some weird plays that will help your image. For instance, if you’re sitting with a pair of aces and your opponent makes a small bet on the river you could call him off. You could possibly win the hand, but even if you don’t everyone will see that you called down with only top pair. This will help you later in the session because you’ll be able to find opponents calling you off since they have you tagged as fairly loose.

Bluffing is apart of NL Holdem and if you don’t bluff then you’re not going to do as well as you could be doing. If you don’t generally bluff you should try doing a couple bluffs every session you play to see how they pan out. You need to wait for the right opportunity, but once you have found it you can often make some good money by stealing the pot. If you end up getting caught bluffing and someone calls you then at least your image will be looser and you’ll have a better shot at being paid off when you have the nuts.