Poker Secrets: The Crucial Difference Between Strategy and Tactics You’re Missing

07 Jun 2025

Intermediate

This material is for medium-skilled players

In poker, we hear “strategy” and “tactics” all the time — but what do they really mean at the table? Most players think the best pros always know their exact EV (expected value) in every spot. The truth? You won’t always know it — especially preflop and on early streets, where the math gets way too complex. That’s why understanding the difference between strategy and tactics can totally change how you play. 

Some decisions come from solid principles you can trust even without exact numbers. Others are sharp, calculated moves when you can estimate your EV. In this episode, we’ll explore when to lean on strategy, when to go tactical, and how these ideas relate to chess — where good positioning leads to great tactics. Ready to rethink how you approach the game? Let’s dive in!

Good morning and welcome back to another episode of the Red Chip Poker Podcast. I’m James Sweeney, also known as Splitsuit, and I’m one of the co-founders here at Red Chip Poker. Today’s episode is titled “Tactics vs. Strategy”, and it’s made for poker players who’ve ever caught themselves thinking:

“Do I actually know the EV here… or am I just guessing?”.

If you’ve ever felt unsure about the line between clear strategic planning and sharp tactical plays, this episode is for you. Coach Weasel kicks things off by diving into the age-old debate between strategy and tactics, drawing comparisons from military campaigns to chess forks, and then connects it all back to poker in a way that actually makes sense.

You’ll discover why it is possible to know your EV on the river—but why trying to calculate it earlier in the hand can be a fool’s errand. More importantly, you’ll walk away with a reliable framework for decision-making in early streets, and a keen eye for spotting profitable tactical opportunities as they emerge.

Whether you’re grinding online, battling live cash, or just trying to upgrade your poker brain, this episode will sharpen your strategic lens and upgrade your tactical execution. With that said, let’s hand it over to Coach Weasel. Enjoy!

What’s up, guys? Welcome back to the Red Chip Poker Podcast. Today’s topic is: Tactics vs. Strategy. We’ll be unpacking these two terms in a poker context — but to make sense of them, it helps to first look at how they’re used in other domains.

Now, “high-level” can be confusing. For example, if I say I’ve studied something to a high level, that usually means I know the topic well. But in technical fields, “high-level” often means having a broad understanding without all the fine details.

Think of it like this: A plane flying high over a landscape sees the big picture — but not the individual trees or roads. That’s your strategic overview. On the other hand, “low-level” understanding means granular detail — like flying that plane lower and being able to pick out exact landmarks. That’s your tactical execution.

So, in short:

• Strategy = the big-picture plan.
• Tactics = the specific moves that support that plan.

Here’s one more analogy to lock it in:

• A war is made up of many battles.
• Your approach to winning the war? That’s strategy.
• The individual battles you fight to win it? That’s tactics.

A more relatable example for many is the game of chess. Now, not everyone listening is a chess player — but we’ve noticed quite a few in the Red Chip Poker Discord, so let’s keep it simple while still drawing out the parallels.

Early on, players aren’t firing shots right away. Instead, they’re developing pieces, building structure, and thinking ahead — positioning for the moment when real conflict begins. This phase is all about strategy: preparing, shaping the board, and anticipating outcomes. Then comes the tactics.

In chess, tactics are specific, calculated attacks: forks, pins, skewers, discovered attacks, or tricky combinations that directly damage your opponent’s position. These are the power moves that swing the game.

Take the fork, for instance. You make a move that attacks two of your opponent’s pieces at once — and usually, they can only save one. The result? They lose material. The tactic hits, and the damage is clear.
After that? Things might settle down again. The aggression fades. Both players go back to strategic mode, focusing on long-term positioning — until the next tactical opening emerges.

This rhythm — strategy, strategy, tactic, back to strategy — is constant in chess. And now that we’ve seen how these two concepts operate in that domain, the question becomes: “Can we apply the same concepts (strategy and tactics) to poker?”. The answer is a resounding yes.

I use the terms strategy and tactics all the time when talking about poker. But what exactly do they mean in this context? Let’s break it down:

Strategy in Poker

Strategy involves principled decision-making, typically on the early streets — before we know our specific EV. Now you might be thinking: “But good poker players always know their expected value, right?”. Not exactly. And we’ll get into why in just a moment.

For now, think of strategy as making the best-informed play without hard proof it’s +EV. You suspect it is. You’re making a play that should be right over the long run — but you can’t pinpoint a number to back it up.

Tactics in Poker

Tactics, on the other hand, are specific lines, usually on the later streets, where the expected value is clear and measurable. These are moments where the math lines up. You can run the numbers. You can say: “This river bluff shows a +1.2bb EV over time”. It’s demonstrable. Calculable. Concrete.

But let’s pause and revisit a key question: “Don’t strong players always know their EV? Isn’t that what makes them good?”. It’s a fair question — and the answer might surprise you.

Yes, you’ll hear confident takes in hand reviews or coaching sessions. It can sound like they’re tracking EV at every point in every hand — preflop, flop, turn, river. But here’s the truth: You usually can’t know your EV on early streets. And the reason comes down to something we call the Exponential Growth Problem — which we’ll unpack in the next section.

Let’s walk through why calculating EV gets harder the earlier in the hand we are — starting from the river and working backwards.

River Bluff Example

Imagine it’s the river, and you’re considering a bluff. Now let’s say you have access to some useful data—maybe from a HUD, maybe from population tendencies, or maybe you’ve been watching this opponent closely.

For instance, you know: Your bet size, and how often your opponent folds to a bet of that size. That’s all you need. You can plug those numbers into a simple EV formula, and boom — you’ve got a clean estimate. The calculation is straightforward because there aren’t many variables left. It's a single decision point. But now, let’s move one street earlier…

Turn Semi-Bluff: Way More Complex

Let’s say you’re on the turn, thinking about a semi-bluff. Can you still estimate your EV? Technically, yes — but it’s a lot messier.  Why? Because now you need to consider:

• What happens if your bluff gets called?
• What happens on the river after that?
• Do you fire again?
• Do you give up?

Sometimes, it’s manageable. For example: if you’re bluffing with a total airball, you might say: “If I get raised, I fold. If I get called, I shut down. Easy”. In those cases, you don’t need to factor in many downstream options. There’s no redraw, no backup plan — so EV is easier to estimate.

But what if your hand has potential? Say you're semi-bluffing with:

• A flush draw.
• A small pair.
• Or a hand with blockers and backdoors.

Now the picture gets murkier. You have to ask:

• If I get raised, do I call?
• If I improve on the river, do I value bet?
• If I value bet, how often does my opponent call, raise, or fold?
• If he raises, can I re-raise? Should I?
• What’s my 3-bet sizing? What’s his calling range?
• What’s my equity against that range?

Each of these is a new decision node, a branch in the game tree, and they all impact the EV of your original turn play. And that’s just one step back — from river to turn.

Sure, there are plenty of turn-to-river spots where you can make a solid estimate of your expected value. But when we talk about the exponential growth problem in poker, we’re talking about how that complexity explodes as we move earlier in the hand.

Let’s rewind to the flop. To understand the EV of a flop bet, you don’t just consider what happens next. You have to factor in:

• Every possible turn outcome.
• And for each turn outcome, every possible river sequence.

Now go back one more step — to preflop. Suddenly, you’re staring into a combinatorial abyss. For every preflop action:

• You must consider every possible flop.
• Then every possible turn for each flop.
• And then every possible river for each turn.

That’s a massive decision tree, and it grows exponentially. By the time you're looking at a preflop spot, the tree has ballooned to the point where it's nearly impossible for a human to reasonably assess whether their EV is even positive — let alone calculate it precisely.

So what’s the practical takeaway? We can often estimate our EV on the turn and river with decent confidence. But on the flop, and especially preflop, EV becomes very situation-dependent. In many cases, it’s just not practical to try to pin it down.

Now, you might say: “That’s why we have solvers, right?”. You could pull up a preflop chart, look at the hands you're supposed to defend, and see their solver-derived EVs. Those charts are based on simulations that account for the entire postflop game tree. So technically, you do know the EV.
But here’s the catch: That EV is only accurate within the solver’s model — and that model assumes both players are playing according to GTO strategies.

In real life? Your opponent is not playing like a solver. Their bet sizes are different. Their ranges are off. Their decisions are inconsistent. So while the solver output gives you a kind of idealized EV, it often doesn’t map to reality — at least not perfectly. Your actual EV could be significantly better or worse, depending on how far your opponent’s behavior deviates from the model.

So are we flying blind on early streets? Absolutely not. This is where strategy comes in. Even though we can’t precisely calculate our EV preflop or on the flop in many cases, we can still rely on strategic principles — built on experience, heuristics, and theory — to guide our play.

When we do know that our line has a positive expected value, and it’s the best available, that’s a tactical play. That’s the max EV decision, and we just take it. 

But strategy is different. We often don't know the exact EV of a play — especially on early streets. That doesn’t mean we’re clueless. It just means we shift focus from precise EV calculations to principled, strategic thinking that tends to increase our EV over time. Take this spot:

• A weak player open-raises preflop.
• You're in the big blind with a hand that's normally a fold.

But you know this player is bad postflop, and you suspect there may be profitable opportunities if you defend wider. Now — do you know the exact EV of defending this specific hand? Absolutely not. It’s nearly impossible to calculate.

But is it reasonable to think that you’ll increase your long-term EV by playing more pots against weaker players? Definitely. That’s a strategic decision. It’s built on logic, not exact math. You don’t know how much EV you’re gaining — but it’s likely more than folding.

Here’s another classic exploitative idea:

• If you have a very strong hand, like a set or a nut draw, you want to grow the pot.
• If your hand is medium strength or vulnerable, you typically want to keep the pot small.

Simple, right? That’s not pure GTO, but from an exploitative perspective, it’s fundamentally sound. Bigger pots when you're strong, smaller pots when you're weak.

Now apply this with real opponents. Say you flop a set, and you’re up against a calling station. You decide to bet large, because you think they’re not folding. Can you prove what the EV of your bet is? Nope. There are too many unknowns:

• How often they fold to different bet sizes.
• What hands they call across streets.
• How they’ll react to later aggression.

But still, is it reasonable to believe that sizing up for value here increases your EV? Absolutely. That’s a strategic assumption that’s likely to be correct in most practical settings.

On an even broader level: If you build the pot when you have high equity, your long-term EV almost always improves. Again — you don’t know by how much, but you’re confident it’s a profitable habit.
There’s another benefit to playing strategically well on early streets: It often leads to cleaner, easier tactical opportunities on later streets. For instance, imagine you’re building big pots with medium-strength hands on the flop. Now you’re stuck making awkward turn and river decisions in inflated pots.

Compare that to a player who consistently applies solid strategic principles — they’ll end up in more favorable positions on later streets, where strong tactical moves (bluffs, thin value bets, hero calls) naturally emerge. It’s just like chess:

• If you’ve built a sound, strategic position, tactics naturally reveal themselves.
• If your position is a mess, no amount of tactics will save you.

Same goes for poker: Sound early-street strategy opens the door to more profitable tactics as the hand unfolds.

Let’s clarify something important. There are spots in poker where you should have a good idea of your expected value, and there are others where it’s perfectly fine to rely on strategic intuition instead of hard numbers.

If you’re struggling to do that, it’s a clear sign you need to refine your game. Take river bluffs, for example. You may not be calculating EV down to the cent, but you should have a ballpark figure — something that tells you whether a bluff is likely +EV or not. This also applies to:

• Delayed c-bets on the turn.
• Turn and river probe bets.
• Stop-and-go lines on the river.

These are calculable spots. You can use simplified models to get a reasonable read on their expected value. Some early street spots also allow for EV estimation — especially when you’re up against a player who’s overfolding.

For instance:

• If someone folds too much to 3-bets.
• Or folds too often to flop c-bets.

It’s relatively easy to estimate your EV here because the majority of your expected value comes from your opponent's excessive folding. Even without perfect precision, you can make reasonably confident assumptions about profitability.

But what if your opponent isn’t folding much at all? Now it gets tricky. As your opponent starts continuing more often, the complexity of the game tree explodes, and your ability to estimate EV accurately breaks down. At that point, you have to fall back on strategic play — making decisions based on good poker principles — until the tactical opportunities reveal themselves.

To actually estimate your EV in these spots, you can use EV modeling techniques. This usually means using tools to map out branches of the game tree and model your decision. Examples:

• Spreadsheets (Excel) for hand math and simplified EV calcs.
• Tree-building software for detailed modeling.
• Poker solvers — though these are trickier.

With solvers, you have to be very careful. You can’t just take raw solver outputs from early streets at face value. Why? Because solvers assume balanced play, not exploitation. To make a solver useful for EV modeling, you have to apply extensive node locking — which is time-consuming and very nuanced.

Solvers can help, especially on later streets, but for exploitative modeling, they’re often more hassle than help — unless you’re already deeply familiar with node locking and game tree manipulation.

Let’s wrap this up with a few important insights from the discussion. First and foremost: You’re not supposed to know your exact EV in every situation. Yes, strong players might seem like they always know their EV — but in reality, it’s virtually impossible to calculate precise EV on early streets, especially preflop and flop.

Where EV becomes more visible is on the turn and river, where the game tree is significantly reduced and easier to analyze. When we can reasonably estimate our EV, that’s when we shift into tactical mode — executing lines we believe to be +EV based on modeling or experience.

When EV is unclear due to game tree complexity, we rely on strategic principles. These are logical, proven ideas that guide profitable decision-making over time, even without exact numbers. Examples include:

• Isolating weaker opponents.
• 3-betting for value and initiative.
• Growing pots when ahead, controlling size when marginal.

You may not be able to measure their precise EV in every hand, but over the long term, these strategic moves set you up to capture value and generate profitable tactical opportunities. Think of it like chess: You play strategically early, positioning your pieces and controlling the board. Then, when an opening presents itself, you strike with a tactic — a direct line to victory.

In poker:

• The flop is often played strategically.
• Then, a turn probe appears.
• You follow through on the river.

That’s your tactic — your path through to the end of the game tree, whether by showdown or fold. Unlike chess, where a tactic might be followed by further strategic play, a poker tactic usually ends the hand. Once you’ve reached the river or forced a fold, the game tree closes, and it's on to the next hand.

Hopefully, this discussion helped clarify the difference between strategic principles and tactical execution in poker. That’s it for today’s episode. We’ll be back soon with more. Until then — good luck at the tables, and happy grinding!