When to change gears

Changing gears is modification of your own play from playing one range of cards to playing a different range of cards, possibly along with a corresponding change in bet size and bluff rate.

But when do you change gears? When can you profit the most from a change in gear?

The answer, as it usually does, lies within the other players.

Generally speaking, you want to change gears when another player has adapted to your current gear.

But how do we know when that has happened?

One simpler scenario uses heads up play, since we don't have to worry about isolating the opposing player, just what they are playing with.

Quite often in the small tournaments I play, either because they are free or low buy in (1-5$) if I end up heads up its against this type of player:

Conservative adaptive.

This type of player typically does well in cheap or free tournaments because they play their cards well, usually only play strong hands, and will adapt their play to other players range.

So, how do you approach this player heads up?

I almost always kick into high gear heads up to start with to assess the other opponents reaction to my increased pre flop betting rate and size, post flop bets, etc.

The only caveat to that is that I fold about 1 in 4 starting hands, this lets the other player know that there is some selection going on within my starting cards, so they know I am not preflop raising with just anything.

If the player is conservative, non-adaptive, then, barring a run of strong cards, I am going to win. Because I win the vast majority of pots where they either have bad hole cards or miss the flop, and know easily when to get out when they call my big bets or make one themselves.

However, much more likely, I will have a conservative adaptive player on my hands who is going to CHANGE THEIR RANGE within short order of my new aggression.

So, what am I looking for? I am looking for the player to start to call my big bets with lower cards, call those continuation bets on the flop with second pair or worse, or even better, call my post flop bets with two over cards.

This is when you change gears.

While the pre-flop bet action remains the same (I don't want the other player to know I have changed gears as long as possible), my post flop action changes.

I no longer bet first almost every time, I bet depending on the flop texture and likely hits, I bet depending on what I have hit, and most importantly, I bet when I have a strong hit. Its no longer a random "see how they react and continue if I'm getting their chips" scenario, now careful selection comes into place. I don't want the change to be too obvious, so if I have checked the last flop I played I will probably bet the next one so they don't detect my change in range.

The change is there, but its subtle.

The other player continues to expect your steamroller action to continue, so they will continue to call with weak hands.

So, you start to punish them with your strong hands. You start to reraise significantly when you do have top pair. Forcing them to fold their weaker hand and wonder if you have simply increased bet size further rather than modifying range.

Of course, this entire time, you are very wary of any aggression from them, at first you respect it, until a strong hand that you hold allows you to call. You are also keeping a close eye on what type of hands they do display aggression with. At first it should be solid, but their adaptive play, especially when you start reraising on your big hits, may mean they start getting aggressive on weaker and weaker hands.

At this stage you avoid their all ins all together by folding unless you have a strong hand. And this will also start to reinforce in there minds that all ins are an effective way to get you to fold. You want them to go all in on lower and lower holdings.

The point of all of this is to get them into a situation where they have put a lot of their chips down on a very marginal hand, and you have them beat.

So, the change in gears here is changing from basically a maniac mode, where, except for pre-flop hand selection (1 in 4 folds), you are raising almost every time preflop, and raising almost every time post flop, to one where you are actually raising with careful intention behind it.

The adaptive player will quickly start picking up on your maniac mode and adjust their calling range, this is when your calling range decreases, and more intelligent play starts.

As the other player becomes comfortable calling larger and larger bets with weaker and weaker hands, you use that against them to take their chips when you do hit.

As much as possible, you don't want to let them know your range has changed, so I will still continuation bet on ragged flops or flops with only one face card, flops that they were unlikely to hit, and play from there.

But when the big chips are on the line, you now have strong holdings to back that up.

Last night, the range of the adaptive conservative player had adjusted down to two over cards on the flop, calling my big bets. So, when the flop comes down 10 7 4 rainbow, and I have 10 6, I make a huge bet about half their stack size (which, considering my bet history, is not out of the range of normality in their eyes).

Last night this exact situation happened, afer about 20 minutes of play, and 4 so far successful all ins on their part, I make the big raise with now top pair, and they, after some time, move all in.

What is their range now? 20 minutes ago I would have been almost certain to loose, I most likely would have been outkicked if not more.

Now, their range is second pair, third pair, or possibly even two over cards so I call.

They show QK suited and I win the heads up battle. After they miss on the turn and river.

This combination of changing gears from maniac to carefully considered, combined with careful reads on the changes in the other players range, means you can manipulate yourself into a win.

The change of gears isn't as obvious as say, going from tight conservative to loose aggressive, but the point is to maximize the exploitation you gain from the gear change, and that is what you are trying to do here.