There’s a series of Second World War British propaganda posters on the theme of ‘careless talk costs lives’, anyone who grew up in the British education system and learnt any history will be familiar with them. The situation in which these posters were printed and displayed were of a seriousness incomparable to what I’m writing about, however they do proffer a basic premise that can be applied to a number of things in life, not least of all poker. The basic idea is, keep quiet about what you know in order that the other guy will be unprepared and unable to equal you. As Francis Bacon said; knowledge is power.
This is brought in order to introduce an idea in poker that is so simple, so straight forward that I feel a little foolish to be writing about it. However, it has come to my attention recently that people will look for complicated theories regarding poker tactics, they will devour books and skim through websites without an understanding of the fundamental basis of poker betting, without which nothing makes much sense, and with which one frankly doesn’t need much else.
Poker betting tactics can be whittled down to the answers of...