You have probably heard the term metagame many times before. You may even have an underlying understanding of what it means, but I’m going to clear things up once and for all. The prefix ‘meta’ essentially means ‘beyond’ or ‘transcending’. So metagame literally refers to things ‘outside of the game’ that are brought to bear on the game itself. It could be any number of things – table image, psychology, your history with another player – basically any information that comes from outside of the immediate situation that can affect your in-game decisions.
For instance, say you’ve got pocket Nines, have been four-bet all-in and you’re not pot-committed. It’s an easy fold against that kind of action in a standard situation. However, from a metagame perspective it may be that you’ve been seen to be three-betting light and the player that moved all-in is a super-loose maniac, so suddenly the easy fold sways towards a call.
When players talk about playing and thinking on different levels, or ‘levelling’ each other, it’s the metagame they’re talking about. It’s what’s going on within the minds of each player at the table. Every time you stray away from fundamental poker strategy in a hand to take advantage of your wider knowledge of the game and the way a specific player approaches it you’re factoring in the metagame.
Of course, the longer you play with someone and the more hands you play against them the deeper the metagame develops. If they never think about your game and adapt to how you play you’ll be able to exploit them time and time again, leaving you as the big winner in the metagame battle and most likely in terms of stacks.
The fascinating thing about the metagame is that it never ever ends! Carrying on from the previous example, you now need to factor in that the strong observant players at the table may now be more likely to fast-play their big pairs against you as you’ve shown you’re willing to call all-in as light as 9-9. That’s gives you issues to think about such as, ‘Should I tighten my three-betting range against these observant players?’ And, ‘Which players do I think are actually observant enough to factor the information into their view of the metagame?’ Keep thinking and keep adapting.
Don’t make excuses
The one thing you shouldn’t use metagame factors for is as an excuse to play poor poker. Just because a maniac has once shown he was willing to three-barrel all the way to the river with just King-high it doesn’t mean that calling them down with Ace-high is going to be a profitable play!
Check out our ‘Metagame Hands’ series to see three examples of how metagame affected a big hand.