Several days I ago I went into the Fallsview Casino feeling frisky, as they say, revved up, beside myself. I was visibly flushed and dry mouthed and beset by a ticklish exuberance that made me want to perform jumping jacks in the casino foyer, followed by a tumbling somersault down the gaming aisles, though I reigned in the impulse what with the hulking bored security guards at every corner just waiting for an untoward incident. Maybe it was the spring air and the extra negative ions induced by the nearby thundering cascades that made me feel so, well, effervescent.

Once they enter our bloodstream, negative ions – the odourless, tasteless and invisible molecules that we inhale near waterfalls – produce biochemical reactions that increase levels of the mood chemical serotonin, giving the body and mind a palpable boost. Whatever it was, I sat down at the always speedy 5-5 table (an unusual blind set-up but one that for some reason accelerates the action) and right from the get go came in betting, raising, re-raising, moving-in at will. The players at the table were somewhat taken aback for they had obviously been playing a rather sedate game before I arrived. Nevertheless, when they perceived that a real maniac had come to stir things up, they answered the call and put on their helmets.

Now, I’m not a maniac, and most players who know my game would vouch for that. But, as mentioned, my unusually high energy and spirits made me come in gunning. And the table image I created from the first round – that of a madman gambler – gave me an advantage over my slightly shell-shocked foes. But then, to maximize this advantage, shortly after I shot my wad so to speak, and recognized that I’d been playing recklessly and that I’d gotten lucky but it wouldn’t last, I decided to change gears.

This was the obverse of my usual procedure, i.e., create a tight table image and then exploit that with steals and re-steals. No, this time I had created the image of a veritable maniac, and the best way to exploit that image is to gear it down and play tight as a drum. To succeed at poker you never want to get yourself pigeonholed as this or that kind of player. You never want to fall into a discernible pattern. Changing gears, whether you start out playing loose or tight, is necessary if you want to keep your opponents always guessing, always a little uncomfortable when you come into a hand.

Indeed, a few of the fellows at the table made comments under their breath and to each other about the hysterical quality of my play. I overheard one guy, who could have passed for a young Bela Lugosi, lipstick and all, I overheard him say, “Those bloody chips are coming my way,” referring to my sizable stack. Of course I targeted Dracula over the next couple of hours, playing only premium hands whenever he came into a pot. As a result we had a few showdowns where I crushed his queens with my kings or destroyed his A-Q with my A-K, that kind of thing. I had the guy re-buying every hour. So, clearly, changing gears is important, whether you gear down or up, whether you start slow or fast.

But that being said, after I started showing only premium hands, and everyone thought I had finally regained my sanity, I started betting, raising, re-raising, and moving all-in like a maniac once again. Okay, I’ll admit I was catching a few cards when I played my junk and when I made moves with nothing but a two-outer, but if I hadn’t been changing gears, if I hadn’t read the rhythm of the table correctly, and if I hadn’t gotten into the heads of every player at the table that night, I would have done well but I wouldn’t have won a bundle like I did.

Then again, the poker gods can be so fickle, eh. The best poker tactics and strategies look ludicrous and overstated when things don’t go your way, when the cards don’t come, or you miss flops. A few nights after my tour de force I found myself in the Fallsview again facing a table full of frothing maniacs who were moving all-in at the drop of a hat. I could hardly catch my breath these guys were playing so fast. To counter this I tightened up my game considerably and waited patiently for a chance to strike. But it didn’t work out that way. After I took a few bad beats with premium hands I was so thrown off my game I wound up turtling and playing scared. I couldn’t even get it out of first, never mind changing gears. So sometimes, let’s face it, the hill is too high and too steep to climb, no matter what gear you’ve got it in, and that’s when you turn around and quietly pedal home.

Emile Frendo of the Honeymoon City is a semi-professional poker player and winner of the 2006 Pirate Poker Open Championship.