As you move up the stakes in Holdem games the importance of paying attention to others increases. It is also important to pay attention to yourself and what you may potentially be giving away. There are a couple great methods that I use, which if implemented as a habit, will seriously stifle my opponent from gaining enough information to wrestle my poker chips away from me.
Any good player who acts before you at the poker tables is not going to see your action before theirs. The best way for them to derive the strength of your cards is to see your reaction to them. But if you don’t see them and react to them before your opponent’s action, you’ve eliminated that information at the source. Also, while taking the extra time to look at those cards decide in general what your action will be based on the strength of what you see. If you establish a consistent time period after which you will act after seeing your cards, then it will be theoretically impossible to give up what your hands are. Therefore your poker chips will remain in front of you!
