5 Poker Skills to Work on During the Pandemic

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It is impossible to know how much longer the poker world will be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. For many poker players, it is time to perhaps start adjusting your game to compensate for the pandemic or to prepare for similar scenarios for the future.

Today, we will cover the top poker skills you should work on to play in poker games during the pandemic era.

Six-Handed Play

There are some of you out there that still prefer to play full-ring games for both cash games and poker tournaments. That’s fine if you are able to find action. However, if you want to maximize your profits during the pandemic era, you will need to work on your short-handed play.

If you plan to play in live games, you may have no option but to play in six-handed games. The skillset for short-handed games is different than full-ring and has been covered extensively. It is better to work on those skills now as you never know when poker rooms are going to decide to move exclusively to short-handed tables.

Spotting Betting Patterns

Serious poker players should already know how to spot betting patterns when playing online poker, but what about when playing live poker? Yes, we are serious. Considering the number of states and casinos that now require that players wear masks at the poker table, it will be harder to pick up on certain physical tells.

This makes playing live poker more like online poker. If you’re an online poker player that isn’t already taking advantage of betting pattern tells, this is a basic skill you need to work on now. As more live tournaments move online, this is an invaluable skill to have. For live players, start working on picking up betting patterns rather than looking for physical tells.

Continuation Betting

We’ve covered continuation betting in the past, and for newer players, this is a skill you need to have in your poker arsenal. Often, a continuation bet will win you the pot on the flop. Failing to make regular continuation bets will make your play predictable.

Newer players need to improve their strategy quicker during the pandemic era since there are more players online than in previous years. The faster you improve your game, the faster you’ll start turning a profit at poker.

This is particularly true for tournament players as chips are more valuable in later stages of tournaments. Improving your continuation betting will help you earn more chips and help you get deeper in poker tournaments.

LAG Play

A common theme that’s happening in many online tournament series is turbo or super turbo events. Recently, there was a Super Turbo WSOP online event that ended in less than four hours. How insane is that?

If you hope to compete in some of these hyper-aggressive online poker tournaments, you need to develop a loose-aggressive style of play. Newer poker players may still be working on loosening up their game, but times are changing and a LAG style is not just recommended, but becoming necessary to compete in certain tournaments.

Three and Four-Betting

Back in the day, a player three or four-betting was assumed to have a monster hand like Aces, Kings, or Kings pre-flop or some type of monster hand after the flop. Of course, that has changed in this era of players four-betting light.

If you are looking for the right time to work on your three and four-betting skills, this is the time. You will need to find any extra edge you can to earn a profit, and being able to pull the trigger on a three or four-bet is one of those edges.