I was an avid bicyclist.  When I was twelve I rode my bike from Westbury, NY to Long Beach  --  a good 20 miles.  On the way home I snapped my chain and had to be rescued by my friend’s father.  Even so,  I was proud of my achievement on my basic one-speed bicycle.

Shortly thereafter,  with money I  “earned”  from my bar mitzvah,  I purchased a 10-speed Raleigh Record racing bike.  So used to not having different gears was I that for the first couple of weeks I just left the bike in third gear all the time. It took me a while before I was able to change gears effectively,  enabling my cadence to stay constant, conserving energy and maintaining speed.

I recall how my riding became much more effective once I learned how to change gears appropriately.  It really defined my graduation from being a beginner to being an experienced cyclist.  Finding the appropriate gear for the terrain is something that I’ve been working at since then.  It really is the key to long-distance bicycling and racing.

So it is with no limit holdem.  At the Baby No Limit tables it’s usually fine to cruise along at the same speed  --  staying alert and careful of course,  but really playing straightforwardly and in the same gear nearly all the time.  The tight/aggressive approach generally gets the money from the opponents who really don’t know what they’re doing.  No need to worry much about shifting gears,  because one’s opponents don’t notice what gear you’re in anyway.

But when you’re playing with aggressive,  observant,  and skilled opponents,  as you often are in the no limit hold em games higher than $1/$2 $100 max,  if you just play that steady,  consistent game and become mechanical and thereby predictable,  you will often find yourself beaten up.  Similarly,  if you don’t pay attention to what gear your opponent is in you can find yourself at a severe disadvantage.

Consider this hand that I recently played in a $2/$5 game in a nearby poker club.  I had sized up my opponents as the typical timid,  weak-tight opponents that I had played against many times at the $1/$2 blind table.  I had been doing maybe a little more than my share of stealing  (raising the $5 to $15 or $20 and knocking everyone out).  I had been playing for about an hour and had about $275 in front of me.  I was in,  to extend the metaphor perhaps a bit too far,  in passing gear nearly all the time:  playing  “fast”  to take advantage of their timidity.

I was on the button and was dealt Ah Qc.  Three players called the $5 big blind. I raised to $40,  eager to win the hand right then and willing to put in double the pot to do so.  I got one caller from the under-the-gun player.  His stack was roughly equal to mine,  maybe a little larger.  I knew him to be a regular at this club.  I’d played with him before in the $1/$2 $100 max game.  He was generally quiet and careful.  I read him to be a typical low limit guy,  waiting for the monster hand and then pounding away,  perhaps a little too prone to make and call large bets when he was already in the pot,  even if there was a likelihood that he was second best.  In an earlier hand he knocked out my stack of $200 or so when I went all in with Kings after he raised pre-flop with Jacks.  He spiked a Jack on the Turn and won the large pot.  I considered his call of my mammoth re-raise to be a mistake and I was looking forward to tangling with him again when the odds were again strongly on my side  --  figuring that sooner or later I’d get my money back and then some.

The flop was Ac Ks 7c.  With my A-Q I was very pleased with this flop.  I figured my opponent might have held an Ace-x or maybe a K-Q,  Q-J or J-T suited,  or maybe a mid-sized pocket pair.  I didn’t think he’d play anything else for a raise. And if he had A-K,  I was pretty sure that he would have raised pre-flop.  I was hoping that like a lot of guys at this game he’d be too soft to release an Ace or a King when the flop paired him.

He bet $40.  I thought about the bet for a couple of seconds.  Seemed like the typical low-limit kind of weak bet I’d expect from a weak Ace.  Sure, he had Ax or maybe even Kx and wanted to test the waters with a small bet,  to knock me out if I had nothing but small enough to fold if I played back at him.I sure didn’t want him to catch another card that would give him a miracle two pair,  or another King if that’s what he had,  giving him trips.  I decided to push him very hard because I was expecting him to fold,  winning me a nice-sized pot.  If he made another colossal mistake and called me with his weaker hand,  that would also be fine with me.  After all,  if he had Ax he’d be about a 4:1 dog.  If he had Kx he’d be an even bigger dog,  something like 9:1.

So,  with that read on a guy I read as a simple ABC weak-tight player,  I raised his bet $120.  He paused some.  I thought I saw some fear but I could have been imagining things.  He re-raised me back all in,  leaving him with $10 or so after I called his $50 raise.  I figured this final all-in raise to be a typical desperation move:  just tossing in his remaining chips in a final and futile attempt to knock me off my hand.  It fit the profile I had of this guy  --  generally tight, but reckless when cornered with a mediocre hand.

I was,  sadly,  very,  very wrong.   He flipped over A-K.   Not a shocker now as I retell the story.  But at the time it was not what I expected at all.  The Turn and the River didn’t help me and he quietly raked in another monster pot for this game.  I left to think about what I had done wrong and what he had done right.

I made the mistake of not considering that my opponent might have changed gears.  He made adjustments based on his read of me but I had failed to account for this possibility.  He had correctly assessed me as believing that by bullying the table I could succeed all night long.  So he had changed gears, become tricky with an uncharacteristic slow play,  and taken all of my money.

Had he continued in the mode in which he had played earlier in the evening (and on earlier occasions when I had played against him)  he would have raised boldly pre-flop with one of the very few hands he identified as a very strong hand pre-flop:  A-K.  Weak and timid players typically overbet AK from early position.  And I would have folded.  Or, he would have come out on the flop betting very heavily,  timidly afraid of keeping anyone in who might catch some miracle trips when he held top two pair.  And I probably would have folded to that bet as well.

But he didn’t play in the typical Baby No Limit fashion.  I mistakenly read him as a one-gear newbie.  He crossed me up by changing gears,  slowing down to deceive me.  And it worked beautifully.  The only consolation I have is that I wasn’t too upset by the good beat he put on me to appreciate what he did.

As I’ve learned at the higher limit games with the better players I’ve been up against,  (of which I now count him as one)  this changing of gears is critical to a long-term winning strategy against good players.  In bike racing it’s often a huge advantage to notice when your opponent is downshifting  --  usually for quick bursts of acceleration.  In fact,  it became quite common in the 70s for bicyclists to disguise their gear shifters by putting them at the end of their handlebars as opposed to on the headset or down tube.  We called them  “sneakies”  for that very reason.  Good no limit players try for similar observations,  recognizing when their opponents are shifting gears so they can make adjustments. Mechanical play is not sufficient.  Keeping your opponents off balance,  by changing your style from aggressive,  to passive,  to tricky,  to tight is vitally important.