We all know that playing poker is as much about how you play and how you bet as it is about what cards you get. One of the most common mistakes of the inexperienced player is his reaction to his hole cards. We react in various ways but a skilled observer can discover the reactions you make and get more information about your hole cards. This is information we all want to have about other players and do not want to give out about our own hands.
The best Power Play to help you deal with this issue is to avoid looking at your hole cards until it is your turn to bet before the flop. This allows you to observe all of the other players as they look at their hole cards and as they bet. You even get the opportunity to observe how different players handle their chips when they are either going to bet, or not, as the case may be. Most important, all of those betting before you get no information from you about your hole cards because you don't even know what they are until the other players have already acted.
The corallary to this rule is to look at your cards once and once only. Remember what they are and do not look at them again. A second look at your cards can give away the fact that you are looking to make a hand. For example, if the flop is three cards of one suit and you immediately look at your cards a second time, it strongly suggests that you are trying to remember the suits of your two unsuited cards so that you can determine if you are in the running for a flush. Conversely, if you bet big and do not look at your cards a second time, it suggests pretty strongly that you got exactly what you wanted from the flop and your flush is already made. The Power Play here is to look at your cards once and once only immediately before you bet pre-flop.
The only exception to this rule is when the second look at your cards is part of a betting deception. Note the very limited way that you can turn looking at your cards a second time in to a Power Play in the suggestion about betting.
