Chameleon

1. A reference to a player that is able to change their style of play between wild to tight at a moment's notice.

Explained

It might not be obvious, but successful poker players will tell you that their most important tool is the ability to adapt - to the game itself and to their opponents. Theoretically, if you play the same way against the same opponents and they adapt while you don't, they will start to beat you. However, if you change your game along with them and stay one step ahead - thus adapting - you will be a winning player.

General Situational Examples

For simplicity's sake, let's say you've been insanely active at your tournament table for the past few orbits, but mainly because you've had a good rush of cards. You can tell your opponents are getting frustrated and calling you down lighter. At this stage, you can adapt in two ways: you can tighten up and play solid TAG poker or you can push the action even further by playing a LAG style. Given your table image, you should probably tighten up and take advantage of your opponents paying you off at showdown when you have the goods.

On the flip side, if you've been card-dead for the past few orbits of your MTT, but antes have kicked in and blinds are up, so you need to make something happen. Since your table image is likely extremely nitty, you should be able to get away with stealing a few pots by widening your opening range and executing a few three-bet bluffs. If you sit back and wait for a hand - in essence failing to adapt - you may end up blinding out of the tournament, or at the very least losing your workable stack.