What is in your NL bag of tricks?

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I don't really like to give away my tricks .... but ok.

-betting
-raising
-fastplaying

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This is exactly right. I'm always amazed how many people insist on slowplaying big hands and then end up winning a small pot. Why? Just b/c they want to have "trapped" someone with a river c/r with the nuts. Just last night I saw a guy flop a boat from the BB. He checked the flop and it checked around, turn was checked around, and he checked the river from the BB and it was checked around. Incredible. Always get more money into the pot when you have a monster. If they don't have anythhing, they don't have anything, but build the pot when you have a big hand. Also, at these levels everyone slowplays so if you play a hand fast it actually disguises your strength b/c they'll never figure you for a huge hand. Because they'll be thinking, "He can't have a big hand, he would have slowplayed."

[MTBlue]

Try not continuation betting and any one with half a brain can figure out when you have a hand. Oh he bet he must have top pair or better. The contuation bet is used as much to disguise your made hands as it is to be profitable.

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Applying a way ahead or way behind line is another trick that players should learn.

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i forgot one: dont fastplay one pair

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If someone could explain this one, another player has a possibility of learning these concepts

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You want to play for big pots when you have a huge hand (a set or better), and you generally want to keep one pair pots small. The reason? Because you only have one pair and the hand is thus very vulnerable. For example, if you have aces, you want to raise preflop to get it heads up. Say you get one caller and the board is Q-7-2r. You have position, so you bet the flop and he calls. The turn comes 10. He checks the turn, you might want to (and I would) check behind on the turn. this is in order to keep the pot smaller. Right now, you're probably WA/WB (way ahead or way behind). He's either got something like K-Q or most likely flopped a set on you. With just a pair of aces, I want to keep the pot fairly small and see a fairly cheap showdown, so I check behind on the turn with the intention of calling a pot size bet on the river from him (since I've showed weakness you'll often induce a bluff or a "value bet" from K-Q). Say Villain flopped a set and decides to just call the turn and then bet on the river, you end up putting a lot more money into this pot than you do if you check behind on the turn. And again, you just have aces.

So in sum, build big pots with real strong hands and try to play for small pots with vulnerable hands, like one pair.

[pokernicus]

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I'm always amazed how many people insist on slowplaying big hands and then end up winning a small pot.

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While I agree that you should normally play straightforward "fast playing" poker most of the time in small stakes games, I think there are times when it's still better to slow play.

For example, suppose you flop a monster hand (like quads). Because the board fits your hand so well, it's less likely to fit your opponents as well. Therefore, any reasonable 'fast' bet on the flop will likely result in everyone folding. In this case, checking might be preferable since a turn card might fit someone else's hand and you can get more action.

I actually had this happen to me once where I was holding pocket 4s and flopped quads. The flop was checked all the way around. The turn was a queen (and two of my opponents had AQ...) We wound up in a three-way all in where they were drawing dead. This might be the exception rather than the rule, but there is a chance they could have folded to any bet I on the flop.

Personally, if I check the flop on a slow play, I rarely check the turn as well. The standard caveats of slow playing apply; also, if your opponents are complete calling stations (which happens often at small stakes), you might as well keep betting to build the pot. But, I would hesitate to say that slowplaying should be dismissed -- instead, it might be better to say that it can be applied, but perhaps much more selectively than you would apply it in a more sophisticated game. .

[pokernicus]

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my best trick is to put an opponent on hand range according to their actions on previous hands and on previous streets on the current hand.

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I think hand reading can be sometimes be more challenging at lower stakes since players will often play unconventionally -- e.g., not raising hands that normally are raised (or even raising hands that one would normally not raise), and calling bets with weak (or sometimes even non-existent) draws.

I find that when I apply hand reading techniques, it's not hard to over-estimate the strength of your opponents hands.

I'll probably get flamed for this, but my main move is to appear weak. I think people give away too much info in a effort to protect their hand on the flop. So, if I have a set or two pair or whatever on the flop, I'll check to the turn. More often than not the turn card won't do anything for your opponents. Yeah, once in a while someone will get their flush or straight, but it's rare. So, from my experience, I get more ev from flying under the radar on the flop (and sometimes the turn). Opponents bet when they think I'm weak and usually fold when they think I'm strong.

[jkkkk]

I bet the flop, turn and river.

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I bet the flop, turn and river.

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You give away info though. Flop bet has its pros and cons.

[subzero]

Posting UTG.

I did this a couple of times and had good results. I'm on a nut flush draw and I bet the the turn. So, opponent naturally thinks I am not on a draw, and when the flush completes on river he's now more relaxed and bets more, even with 3 suits on the board.