Adaptation
Adaptation is the most underrated but perhaps most important skill poker. There are many important skills in poker, and a lot of time is wasted debating which the most important one is. Patience, hand reading, aggression, bet sizing, calculating pod odd and others are all important, but once you get to a stage where you are playing players who can handle the basics and play to a certain level of competence, adaptation becomes by far the most valuable skill.
Bad players and beginners tend to make mistakes in their play, so beating these players can be done by playing good tight poker. Once a player has no big flaws in their technical game, an advantage can still be gained by being aware of exactly how a player is reacting to you (or in some cases the play of the whole table or tournament) and adjusting your play to beat his. And if you are really good at adjusting then you will have re-adjusted by the time he has realized he needs to adjust.
A good example is this; you are playing in a large buy in tournament and have got down to the final two tables. The entire tournament you have made a lot of chips by being quite liberal in reraising from the blinds, but only with good hands. So you have showdown anything from QQ to AJ. But importantly never AA/KK, and never mediocre hands like KJ or 67s. So if there is a player who you consider to be both skilled and capable of adapting you should adjust your re-raising range against that player specifically, to tempt him into making a big mistake. If he raises and you have a hand like AQ you should just call. And if you have AA you should re-raise!
If you are playing a 6 handed no limit cash game, you should be roughly aware of your bluffing frequency, and importantly how your bluffing frequency will look like to the other players. Its important to remember that if you make a big bet in a situation in which you could be bluffing and the hand isn’t shown down, it really makes no difference whether you were bluffing or not. Players will quickly become suspicious, and I will be very reluctant to bluff anyone at table if I have made a big uncalled bet recently, especially the player who folded. Obviously a bluff that is called will have a lot more impact than merely on one which roused players’ suspicions.
If you are playing poker for some time with the same players, then you need to be aware of what their general impression is of your bluffing frequency. If they are calling you often and lightly, then you should ease back on your bluffs. If you sense they are folding then you need to take advantage of this. When good players play for long periods of time it’s whoever does the best adjusting that will come out on top, the run of the cards notwithstanding!
