Imagine a game outside the game – The Metagame! It’s a concept that exists for all competitive games, and can hardly be defined in one sentence. For the sake of simplicity, the Metagame is a collection of strategies in common use pertaining to how everyone else is playing.

Clearly every game requires some quantity of real-world time, but there is a great difference between, for instance, chess and The World of Warcraft. In chess, total skill will win a game. That game skill was developed through real time investment (real time -à game skill), but the skill is independent of the game. You don’t have to play ChessZone for 100s of hours to be good at ChessZone. You just have to play chess.

So what is a Metagame? It can be defined as “the SUM of everything that you know about the other players, and everything they know about you.” Applied to poker, when you are metagaming, the objective is to look beyond individual hands and attend to the overall structural features of the game involving such concepts as table image, table presence and how they change over time. Something that doesn’t hit your brain the very first few rounds of trying to understand the concept!

Look at it this way, to make it simpler: the cards, positions and your opponents are but parts of a single situation. When you play the “meta” game part of poker, for instance, you are also trying to do things that will have an impact on the larger framework.

A heady combination of psychology and statistics are involved in the metagame behind Poker, especially in the popular poker variation of Texas Hold ‘Em. In the film Casino Royale for instance, is shown a lot of the strategy of reading your opponents and playing statistics; and playing your opponent based on your knowledge that they too know the psychology and the statistics. The metagame behind poker is interesting indeed and a great concept to learn and master – you’ll virtually become unassailable!

Practically speaking, you are playing to make money online playing poker and you can “establish a table image” by playing with a style that will reflect your personality and your risk approach. Remember that while you are doing this, your smart opponents will begin reacting to you thus minimizing whatever advantages you had established. How do you act to this? You should ADJUST! If you’ve been aggressive, loosen up a bit. If you’ve been bluffing in between, now cut back and play only solid hands. Balance your play. Make sure you pay attention to the simple features of the game as to how a game changes over sessions, timings and venues. Your image will be established over a period of time and you have to make certain that it is riddled with question marks, a mystery figure not entirely decipherable!

Learning the metagame of poker can be a turning point for your internet poker play in several ways. Young, aggressive, online-trained players can make themselves known in live games around the world within months. As a case study, note this: the metagame of poker has actually now completely shifted focus and all players, both live and online, are today dealing with an extremely high level of belligerence and aggression.

The best thing we, as players, can do now is stay ahead of the information curve. If you were an information seeker before, seek more information now. If you have not been an avid reader, now is a good time to begin. Learn more, each passing day, if winning is the motive.

Get going on mission: Poker Metagaming. It is a given that a man with money is no match against a man on a mission. So there!

By: Lina Wang

Hollywood tends to distort poker with stereotypes and really stupid moves and tricks described by scriptwriters who obviously know nothing about the game. But once in a while, you come across a movie that does a decent job of bringing the excitement of poker to the big screen. Here are a few films to rent, enjoy, and be inspired by.

One of the oldest poker movies in the history of Hollywood is the 1922 classic, Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler. It’s a bit kitschy, as you would expect from a movie this old. The premise is that psychic/arch criminal/madman Dr. Mabuse can control the minds of his opponents, and he uses this amazing power to force his gambling opponents to make a dumb move like stand on a three in blackjack, or fold a winning poker hand. The movie has a winning line, which all serious players should be able to quote: “A dream of youthful ambition, to win at cards and love.” Another winning line is “Cards or Cocaine?” which was the password of the private club. It was directed by master director Fritz Lang (who crafted Metropolis), and is considered one of the best silent foreign films.

Born Yesterday, a 1950’s classic with Judy Holliday and Broderick Crawford, will completely redefine the way you think of the phrase “table image”. Holliday’s the stereotypical dumb blonde, and Crawford’s embodies the gruff giant with a hidden soft spot. You may have heard of the 1993 remake with Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson, but that wasn’t worth much. Hard to find a copy of the original, you say? Keep looking. The gin scene alone in the 1950’s version will be worth the extra effort.

Henry Fonda and Joanne Woodward star in the 1966 film, A Big Hand for the Little Lady. The title pretty much gives a taste of where the movie is going, and there are a few gaps in the film that will make a poker player roll his eyes and say, “That’ll never happen”, but all in all it’s a good way to unwind on a slow night.

Three Godfathers was made in 1936, and after that were several remakes-one of the best being the John Wayne 1948 version. It’s got one of the best poker lines in movie history. When Walter Brennan connives to help a man he knows nothing about cheat at a poker game, somebody asks him what he could possibly have gained from breaking the rules. He answers: “I dunno. I guess I’m just a no good rat.”

Another great Hollywood poker scene can be found in the 1950’s film, The Gunfighter. It’s one of the best known Westerns, and stars Gregory Peck as a gunfighter ready to retire to a more quiet life. (Of course, we all know there’s no such thing). There are many comic poker scenes, with winning lines like, “I wouldn’t sit in this game with cards I made myself.” Watch this movie with a beer in one hand and your sense of humor in the other-it’s meant to be fun, not artistic.

By: Paul Graham