» What is "small ball" poker?

Popularized by famous poker player Danial Negreanu, small ball is a poker strategy based on seeing many flops and relying on hand reading skills to outplay your opponents.  The idea is to try to play a lot of hands, with very small raises or calls, so as not to invest too much of your stack preflop on any one hand.  You open up your starting hand ranges considerably hoping for a big flop.  Small ball players love deceptive connecting and suited cards. If you play both your strong and weak starting hands this way, it is hard for your opponents to put you on a hand. 

To be proficient at small ball, you need to be strong at reading players and post-flop play.  Having position as much as possible helps to give you more information to make the necessary reads. Small ball is best left to experienced players, who seek to risk smaller portions of their stack in any one hand rather than their tournament life. If you play small ball poker correctly, the goal is to win more from opponents when they call you down with sub standard hands due to your loose and aggressive image than you lose from making consistent raises and bets without a strong hand. This is a reason why it is important to make small raises and bets instead of large, stronger bets.  The small bets and raises that you may win or lose pots with in earlier hands are just setting you up for bigger hands later on in the session.

It is important to pay attention to how your opponents are reacting to your play. If your opponents are not thinking about how you are playing, then you are going to have limited success. If other players at the table are loose and are going to call your bets regardless of what table image you project, then you are better off playing a tight-aggressive style rather than small ball poker.