Poker Tips – Making Moves in the Dark.
I’ve read dozens of poker literature and don’t remember a whole lot of play on making moves “in the dark.” I’ve been using it more and more during live play and against weak to moderate players it is very effective in throwing off their reads and normal moves because it completely conceals the strength of your hand.
A strategy to try out is to call the small blind with a connector or whatever and when the big blind checks announce that you check dark. What you’re looking for here is to flop a huge straight draw or two pair, that way if anyone bets you set yourself up for a perfect check-raise situation and most opponents I’ve used it against couldn’t even put me on a range of hands.
I also utilized a form of this against a calling station/maniacal player that would go all the way with any piece of the board. I wanted to protect my hand so right after he called my post-flop bet I put in a huge bet in the dark before the turn. I got lucky and hit trips on the turn and a boat on the river that ended up doubling me up because the board was K-4-10-K-9… I held K-9s and he called me down with jack-four off (complete donk).
While this move can backfire if you make a dark bet and the next card hurts your hand and/or improves another. I use it very often in the small blind to make up for having to be out of position the rest of the hand. It prevents me from having to show weakness by checking AFTER seeing the flop from first to act post-flop and allows me to see what everyone else does before making a decision. Since it covers up your hand strength so well players will often bet at you and you will often have to fold but when you flop a monster with this strategy you should certainly get paid off big a lot of the time.
