What are standard lines? Standard lines are your basic go-to moves in common situations. It’s your initial game plan, your default approach to playing against your opponents. You see, when you are playing a lot of poker you want to be able to eliminate as much of the unnecessary thinking at the tables as possible – that doesn’t mean you want to stop thinking, far from it.
It means you want to free your mind from all the things you do NOT have to think about at the tables if you only come well prepared for the game. An example of this is simple pot odds numbers. If you know them by heart, you will save time and energy at the tables each time you face a bet. You will automatically ”get” what price you are being offered. Similarly, if you practice equity calculations, you will also know if the price you are being offered is good or bad considering your hand. Of course, you will also have to estimate your opponent’s ranges to make a good decision, but that’s a subject for another time.
The point is, if you know these things – which you can easily practice and memorize before you sit at the tables – you will have more time and energy to focus on the “meat” of the game, the table dynamics, observing your opponents, thinking about their game plan and recent history, and so on. If you don’t have these things drilled to the level of automatism, you are at a disadvantage.
So, back to the topic. What is the meaning of standard lines, in this context? Well, if you’ve played a few hands of poker in your life, you know things can very quickly get complicated and messy at the tables. Many different opponents, different positions, different possible actions before it’s your turn, and so on. There are A LOT of different scenarios that can unravel in the course of one hand. In fact, so many, that some have been saying it’s impossible to solve them all even with the use of the most sophisticated computers, though that preconception may be changing fast.
It doesn’t really matter – what matters is, there are a lot of possible scenarios, enough that even computers have problems considering all of them. So, when you are faced with a decision at the tables, what do you do? Do you start considering that particular hand from the beginning, for each action that was taken so far, and you do this after each move somebody makes in the hand? Do you think ahead what you will do next, or two moves ahead? How do you cope with all the possible options? And the answer is standard lines.
You need a general plan for the common situations, upon which you can rely. That way, you will never get too confused at the tables, and if you do, you can just fall back on your default standard line and know that you’ll be fine in the long run – assuming that your standard lines are any good, of course.
So, now that you understand the importance of having solid standard lines, your very own game plan, all that is left to do, is to – DO IT! Yes, it may seem daunting at first, especially if you’ve never done this before. Don’t worry, we will get you started. If you need help, download the No Bullshit Standard lines that all of our CFP Micro students are using as their default strategy.
Think of it as your cheat-sheet; you do not have to create from scratch what has already been done by BPC and works great for our students at the tables. It will give a solid foundation to your game.
Use the charts, and you will never be lost at the tables. But remember – no system will get you all the way, you will have to tweak it and adapt it as you move up in stakes, and on top of that still think and be flexible at the tables. But without a system of standard lines, you have no chance at the tables.
