By Tony Guerrera

I’ve often written that poker is all about the following process:

• Putting your opponents on hand distributions
• Evaluating your own hand relative to your opponents’ distributions
• Evaluating how your opponents will respond to all actions available to you
• Executing the action that yields the highest EV (expectation value, the amount of money you expect to earn on average in the long run)

When I first came up with this playing model, I was thinking about poker from a completely reactionary perspective. Playing reactionary poker means being flexible, and making the best decisions (fold, check, call, bet, or raise) based on all the information you have on your opponents. To be a profitable poker player, you need a good foundation in playing reactionary poker. Indeed, I’ve enjoyed much success at poker because I continually hone my reactionary skills. When I sit in a casino or play online, I’m a silent assassin who constantly deciphers betting patterns and picks off tells.

You can be a winning player by playing good reactionary poker. However, there’s a level beyond reactionary poker. I call this realm “inductive poker.” The word “inductive” usually refers to one of two things: 1.) a type of reasoning 2.) electricity and magnetism. The word “inductive” also means “serving to induce,” and that’s the definition of inductive that I use when I refer to inductive poker.

Playing inductive poker means forcing your opponents to act in a way that’s beneficial to you. When you play reactionary poker, you’re in a sit and wait mode. You wait for your opponents to leave you openings, and when they do, you pounce on them mercilessly. When you play inductive poker, you shift from a mentality of sitting and waiting to a mentality of creating your own opportunities.

Inductive poker can happens in many ways. The easiest way to introduce inductive play to your arsenal is to meaningfully manipulate betting patterns that will ultimately lead your opponents to make big mistakes against you in big pots. Perhaps you do a lot of preflop raising and continuation betting at flops. With the loose image you have from all your raising and continuation betting, you can get huge value from your made hands by getting larger bets called on the turn and the river. Playing inductively by manipulating betting patterns is crucial to playing successful shorthanded poker.

Meaningfully manipulating betting patterns is something that you can do by sitting silently at the table. The next level of inductive play involves knowing the psychology of your opponents so well that you can interact with your opponents (as opposed to sitting silently) and get them to do exactly what you want them to do. Inductive poker at this level is possibly the highest level of poker you can attain.

A great example of this type of inductive play occurred in a home game I played in. Unfortunately, this game happened a long time ago, so I don’t recall detailed betting information from every round of betting. However, even in its state of incomplete information, this hand still teaches an important lesson.

A hand came up in which the board was something like A789T. Player A had a 6 in his hand, and he had position on Player B on the river. Player B checked on the river. Player A had a really good read on Player B; he knew that Player B had something like a pair of aces. Some players get timid in Player A’s position and check behind; however, with his read, Player A wanted to extract maximum value.

Player A knew that Player B was very likely to fold to a bet. Knowing this, Player A needed to somehow increase the likelihood that Player B would call. To do this, Player A bet, and while Player B thought, Player A offered to show Player B a card, knowing that the card he’d show would induce Player B to call. Player B agreed to see a card, and Player A showed a 5. After seeing the 5, Player B reflexively called. It was pretty much an instantaneous call with a pair of aces…extremely solid play on Player A’s part!

Table chat and exposing cards…these are just a few of the weapons used by masters of inductive poker. Many times, the practitioners of inductive poker accumulate massive stacks of chips because of the calls they get as a result of their crazy images. These inductive players appear to be crazy on the surface, but in reality, all of their crazy actions have a purpose: to induce desired actions from their opponents. The very best inductive players portray a maniacal image to get loose calls and simultaneously know how to get their opponents to fold to stone-cold bluffs!

Watching inductive players in action is a great show. Next time you’re at a casino, and you see an inductive player with a massive stack of chips, make a mental note to be careful, and also see if you can pick up some tricks. Additionally, you should read one of the best pieces on inductive poker ever written: Mike Caro’s Power Course in Draw Poker in Doyle Brunson’s Supersystem.

Tony Guerrera is the author of Killer Poker By The Numbers

Copyright © 2008 Pokerhelper.com. All rights reserved.
Reproduction of this article in whole or in part without permission from Pokerhelper.com is prohibited.