Online Casino Blog » Inner Game

How Luck (and Fate) Plays a Role in Poker

Mike Smack — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 14:00:45 +0000

From Monk:

How many times have you tried to explain to someone that poker is not just a game of chance? Can you show someone else how you understand a situation? And then show them how someone else sees the same thing, but differently? Now explain how that difference gives you an edge over them? I find that difficult to do. There is a lot of knowledge the person needs to have to be able take in a detailed description, poker terms and math, or a very agile and broad mind to understand a more abstract explanation. After doing all that, maybe your ‘friend’ will ask: ‘Isnt there still a lot of luck involved?’ Queue the Hamlet speech. But we all know Shakespeare is dead and gone. He cant help us now, our only hope is WOODY ALLEN!

Woody knows Poker

If you have seen the last Woody Allen movie Match Point you probably picked up on his “luck plays a bigger role in life than people want to admit” theme. The more I look at life and the poker table the more I find those words true. I would love to put that out there. All of us that think we have this game under control in different degrees, or those that are seeking to get it under control, how much control do we have over ourselves? To what degree is it even possible to steer the ship?

Now I know we have to keep some sort of perspective here. Good old Uncle Math tells us about the, oh so faithful long run, and I believe, oh I do, but could it be guided by a form of luck that’s even bigger, maybe (if you will let me use the word without giving it all sorts of strange connotations) Fate?

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Why Poker Has Nothing to Do With Money

Mike Smack — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 14:00:55 +0000

From Monk:

Poker has nothing to do with money.

Now you might think it does, but it can’t. The first thing I need to do before I sit down at the table is remove myself from the world of bills and burgers and new tires for my old saab. If I am still there I am not playing poker, I’m dreaming. The same thing goes for leaving the poker table. I really have to leave it. Now I am not buying a happy meal with a small blind, it’s a couple bucks and if I think it’s a small blind, I’m dreaming. Is dreaming all that bad!?! Well, it can be.

Every time I see money while I am playing poker it costs me money. When I notice how much I’ve lost (in terms of what it costs, like: oh crap!! I could have bought a new guitar with that!) I lose touch with the game and it’s so easy to slip from there. It’s so easy not to notice that I’m not playing poker anymore, I’m just handing over chances for the rest of you to get at my chips.

How about when I notice how much I’m winning, that can’t hurt! Oh yes!! It does, I get tight, I want to keep this, or maybe I get loose and aggressive, this is my night! But in both instances I have left the game and gone off to bed to dream of my poker greatness.

Now I’m not saying go into the game and forget about your bankroll, but that’s not cash. They come from two different worlds. Like the Matrix, the rules of the two worlds are not the same. You have to know which one you’re in.

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Words of Poker Wisdom: Learning to Win

Mike Smack — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:00:45 +0000

From hdouble:

“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.”
–William Shakespeare

The last couple months have been a tough grind as my compadres and I at one of the best online poker sites out there have been camping out at the office. It’s been a bit of a dark period for me, as it’s the only time in my life that I can remember where I’ve directed my focus to a single activity– my job. I like what I do, but there is definitely a hole left by my lack of activity in other things that I’m passionate about.

Luckily I’ve been able to take a step back recently and work my way back to the poker tables. It took me a few sessions to shake the rust off my game, but I think I’m back in the swing of things. The focus required at the tables was good medicine for my work-addled mind, and I was reminded just how complicated Hold ‘Em can be. The online games are slightly tougher than they were a couple months ago, but there is still plenty of EV to be theoretically pocketed. The local live games are better than ever– in a 4 hour session at the Hustler last night, a regular Joe gambler at my table made 100 big bets. He had so many racks stacked up on the table that he actually could hide behind them when someone tried to get a read on him.

Since I haven’t been actually playing much poker in the last couple months, but have been surrounded by the game in one way or another, I’ve developed a strange perception of the game. My job requires that I spend a lot more time looking at poker players from the inside, so sitting down at the tables affords me the chance to look at the game from the outside. I guess it’s been somewhat like reading a lot of poker books and learning about the odds and mechanics of the game, and then finally sitting down at the table to apply them. Watching the patterns of the online poker world for any prolonged period of time gives you a new perspective when you participate in one of the single data points that composes the pattern.

When I thought about how I might package up these observations in a blog post, I was reminded of one of my favorite posts of all time. Back in 1999, a couple of sharp young hold ‘em players were challenging conventional wisdom, frequently battling well-known poker academics and winning. Abdul Jalib and Izmet Fekali used computers, courage, and humor to change the way that people thought about hold ‘em.

When I was first learning how to play, I came across something that Izmet had written that I felt captured the spirit of the winning hold ‘em player, as well as some great rules for a poker player to live by. This post should be read by every poker player planning on playing poker on a regular basis. The post is fittingly called, “Learning To Win.”

***
Here are some of Izmet’s words of wisdom that have resonated with me:

On Book Learning:
But, the best material BY FAR can be found in past rec.gambling.poker archives. Go to www.dejanews.com and take it from there. Some rgp posters are pretty smart, some are blissful morons, it’s up to you to figure out who is who. By doing this, the game will soon start making sense to you. Make your own conclusions, build your own strategy. Listen to everyone. Trust no one. Read rgp FAQ, it’s a good starting point for finding more information.

On Fundamentals:
Play, play, play. When starting out, play a solid straightforward game, do not waste time with bluffs, slowplays, banks, good laydowns. Do not let them push you off your hand if you started good. Fight. Fight with raises, not calls. Learn when to run. When there’s a good (but not 100%) chance of holding the best hand, throw your chips at opponents like there’s no tomorrow. Aim for the forehead with a solid swing. Let them fear you.

On thinking at the table:
When raised, stop, think, reevaluate. A raise is an incoming message. What is the sender trying to communicate? Does he have something to say or has he just pressed a wrong button at the wrong time? Bets and calls are often automatic, not so with raises. When in doubt, fold. If you like winning, you’ll have to do lots of folding. Flee and live to tell.

On reading players:
Try to know your players. The correct poker move at any point is a function of the opponents. What are their tendencies, what are their motives, what are their habits? Who is the best player at the table? Who are the suckers? Who is having fun? Who is losing? Who is the village idiot? Who seems always to flip over a solid hand at the showdown? Who hit a gutshot-gutshot straight on the river? Who will you run from, who can you run over?

On motivation:
Examine your motives for playing. Some people play for money, some for fun, some for the excitement, some for the punishment. These are all valid reasons to play poker. Respect the losers, they have their own reasons for playing. They are usually getting what they need from the game. It’s OK to be a loser if that is what you need (I’m not speaking with tongue-in-cheek here, this is a fact. Self punishment is the underlying reason for most weird behavior in life). If so, be a loser in moderation.

On Bankroll:
Build a bankroll. Treat it as a funny money. Have enough to withstand challenges of fate. Do not spend the winnings. After a while, if the game is good to you, buy yourself something out of the bankroll. A shiny gambler’s watch maybe. A little token of pride. A mark of achievement. You will feel good about yourself, that’s never a bad thing.

On one long session:
Be comfortable at the tables at all times. If not, leave. The game of poker never breaks it just suspends for a moment. You can return whenever you are ready again. Take a fresh start. Maybe a kiss from a woman in love is all you need to come back with a vengeance. There are no blinds to worry about when away from the tables.

***

In tribute to Izmet and an attempt to capture the subtle discoveries I’ve made in the last few months, here is my advice on how you can beat the game.

The first step to becoming a successful player is understanding the basic theory behind gambling. So many poker players seem to be clueless on such basic ideas such as variance, expected value, and probability in general. I hear so many beginning players complaining about the fish and how it’s impossible to win because their pocket Aces got cracked by some garbage hand. Newsflash: Pocket Aces lose to 72o 13% of the time! That means that if somebody calls your pre-flop all in when you have Aces you are almost 7:1 to win– great odds, but you’re still going to take a bad beat 1 out of 10 times. If you’re going to play poker to win, you have to understand the basic concepts behind gambling.
Realize the flavor of the game. This applies mostly to live poker, but it can be applied to the online game as well. Each game has a different spirit to it, a different reason for existence. The spirit of the game should affect not only your approach to the game, but your style of play as well. The homegame that I host is a chance for my friends and I to get together and celebrate our friendship and our mutual passion for poker. It is not a place to build your bankroll and see 15% of the flops. The $25-50 game at the Hustler is not a collection of poker professionals fighting over the blinds– it’s a place where wealthy LA residents can have a night out and win or lose a little money. Understanding the flavor of the game will not only help you get a read on what’s going on in the game, it will help you enjoy the game a lot more. When a real estate king sucks out on your set with a runner runner flush, it is much easier to accept the outcome when you understand his motivation.
Understand that long term success at poker requires a lot of hard work. Like most jobs, achieving success in poker requires effort, concentration, and study. It took Howard Lederer (one of the smartest all-around people I have met) 12 years of study and play before he felt he had mastered the game and could succeed at the $200-$400 game. If you aren’t willing to memorize odds, focus on your game, and continually evaluate your play, then you aren’t going to succeed in poker at a high level. For most people, poker is a recreational experience, and long term success is not a primary goal for them. For those who want to succeed at poker, you need to work at it. It’s not always fun to review your performance and critique your play, but in order to improve your game, it’s a necessity.
Performance is directly proportional to your ability to concentrate at the table. As you move up the limits in poker, your edge against your opponents decreases, and your “poker knowledge” no longer exceeds that of your opponents. If you can “out-concentrate” your opponents on every single hand, you can give yourself a significant edge in the long run. If your superior concentration gives you a 5% edge on every hand, this gives you a significant advantage over your opponents over the course of the session.
Come to the poker table to play. Whatever your reason for playing, poker is a game that is most enjoyed when you’re able to focus on the game rather than what happened at work today or what you have to do tomorrow. It’s much easier to fold a mediocre hand to a tight raise when you have a clear head and can think clearly. If you are serious about poker, create a mindset where you know that while you are at the tables, you won’t allow yourself to be distracted by anything. Being “in” the game fully is almost like meditation.
Have faith in your game and yourself. The most difficult thing for any poker player is to accept that perfect performance can sometimes result in poor results in the short run. A successful player is able to determine when the poor results are a product of bad luck or of mistakes in judgment. Believe that you are better than your opponents– you study more, think about the game more, and perform better than they do.
And most of all, remember that poker is a game. Whatever your reasons for playing, it’s important to remember that poker was created to amuse people. Win or lose, if you’re not having fun, than there are plenty of other things you can do to amuse yourself.

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The 6 Types of Poker Players and How to Beat Them

Mike Smack — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 14:00:55 +0000

From HDouble:

The most important lesson I’ve learned in the past couple months is that the biggest difference between players at middle limits and above is the relationship between a poker player and his bankroll. While players often overvalue hands and have minor differences in skill, the biggest difference I see among players is their attitude about winning and losing money.

Personally, I feel like I grew into my bankroll– in Los Angeles, the $15-30 games aren’t all that much different than the $3-6 games online, so skill and bankroll have strange proportions in the city of angels. While my poker skills were ready for the $15-30 games in terms of skill, mentally it was very difficult to accept the variance that comes at that level, and downswings took their toll mentally. Luckily I come from a good statistical background, and my start as a card counter helped me understand and accept these downswings.

But these days my bankroll is pretty healthy, and variance is a good friend of mine… or at least I understand her pretty well. It is one thing to accept the idea that you are going to have 100 big bet downswings every once in a while, and another thing to have gone through it a few times. Believing in statistical theory requires supreme confidence that you are a better poker player than those you play against– not an easy thing during your first 100 bet downswing. But if you are a consistent winner night after night, it’s much easier to shake off a few losing sessions.

A simpler way to say this is:

Losing hurts more when it makes you question your poker skill.

Understanding your opponent’s relationship with his bankroll can sometimes help you determine the correct play against that opponent. For example, a recreational player who is happy to lose a few hundred bucks for a night of fun is more likely to call your value bet on the river with a weak hand “just to see what you have”.

Below is an attempt to categorize the most common player-bankroll relationships that I have come across. I’m sure these types apply to online players, but it’s probably impossible to figure out who’s who unless you can see what your opponents look like.

Guide to poker bankroll types

1. The recreational gambler

DESCRIPTION: This player has set aside a certain amount of cash that he is willing to lose in the cardroom that day. If he loses, then he chalks it up as the cost of a night out. If he wins, he will most likely buy something with his winnings, rather than put them towards a poker bankroll. This player often shows up after payday, with the goal of having fun and maybe getting lucky. The recreational gambler is here to gamble in the purest sense of the word.

PLAYING STYLE: Likely to call you down with weak holdings and gamble “on the come”. Plays fast and loose when losing or winning, but even faster and looser when winning. This type of player pays the wages of the professionals and is extremely common in LA.

2. The high roller

DESCRIPTION: This player has an unlimited bankroll and is usually retired and looking for a good time. The high roller is often a regular in the highest stakes game in the casino, and losing or winning money has minimal effect on his psyche.

PLAYING STYLE: Usually extremely aggressive, attempts to use unlimited bankroll to push players off of a hand. The high roller issues the unspoken challenge, “If you’re going to play a pot with me, it’s going to be expensive”. High rollers can also be calling stations who play every hand. Games are built around these players, as they are happy to donate to the game regularly.

3. The gentleman gambler

DESCRIPTION: This player is skilled, and has a great deal of experience at the table. Not a regular, but shows up at the cardroom every couple of weeks. Often older and retired, these players enjoy a night of competition and matching wits with his opponents. This player hates to lose, but not because of the money.

PLAYING STYLE: The gentleman gambler is a tough opponent, and usually plays only good starting hands. Tends to be overly tight, so you can usually put him on a relatively narrow range of hands. This player does not like to lose to “garbage” hands, and may begin overplaying hands when his opponents are beating him.

4. Scared money

DESCRIPTION: This player is a solid player at a limit below the limit he is playing, but is playing at a limit where a loss will put a serious dent in his bankroll. You can often find this player when a higher-limit game has one or two high rollers in the game.

PLAYING STYLE: Weak tight, this player will usually “pick a hand and go with it”. As a heads-up 6 big bet pot may represent a 12 big bet pot in his normal game, it is often difficult for him to get away from the hand.

5. The properly bankrolled player

DESCRIPTION: This player is unhampered by financial considerations, as a losing session will have minimum effect on him financially.

PLAYING STYLE: Solid, plays optimally to his skill level if not on tilt.

6. The overly bankrolled player

DESCRIPTION: Solid player, but playing at a level where his win rate is significantly less than his hourly wage. Much like the high roller, financial losses have absolutely no effect on this player. This player takes the game seriously, and believes that he should “work his way up” through the limits before playing at a level where losses might cause minor financial pain.

PLAYING STYLE: Since this player takes poker seriously, losses will often have a strong emotional affect on the player. If this type of player goes on tilt, they are likely to try to run over the table like the high roller.

Many poker players spend extensive amounts of time thinking about the game, but little time considering the way that their bankroll affects their play. I think that at the higher limits, bankroll considerations are often the biggest difference among players. Understanding how much money you are really willing to lose at the poker table without having serious financial consequences is an important and underrated part of serious poker.

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4 Ways to Maintain the Winning Edge While Playing Online

Mike Smack — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 00:30:38 +0000

Rest

When you’re winning just keep riding that winning wave. But if you start losing, stop and rest up. Use your time to do relaxing things like hitting your bed to take a power nap, watch some television, or get a snack. If you think of it like if you’re a computer, you’re “resetting yourself”. You come back to the game and the winners have dipped from the table and the losers are depressed so now’s your chance to get the edge.

A lot of times, just taking a break from the action and doing something else - getting your mind off the poker, blackjack, or baccarat game - can really put you in the right mindset you need to be in to do your best. A common event that might happen to is let’s say you start losing. You start getting pissed, “Damn it, why do I keep losing? I always suck at this hour - damn it!”

Take a breath - and take a break. Maybe sit out the next hand and take a nice walk outside if its a nice day out. Think about the other times in the past you’ve been able to bounce back from a rough start. Then when you’re ready, come back, fire up the software, and you’re likely to do well

Study

Take a look around at the other players seated at your table online. If your software has a notes feature, use it. Take notes on their playing styles and their tendencies. If they are unfamiliar to you, pay close attention on how they play their hands - take notes on that. If your game is going bad, don’t hesitate to switch to another table. Sometimes a change of the players surrounding you makes your game better.

Of course in the study category, you have got to improve your overall knowledge of the game. Lots of great books on the subject have been written, you can check your local library for some great classics. There’s also some pretty good ebooks online if you’re not into the library. If you’re into learning poker techniques for example, you can grab the ebook (comes in PDF form) Danish Dragon Poker Strategy by Kim Birch, the “Danish Dragon”.

Manage

Set yourself with an amount of money you want to spend that day - whether its big bucks or only pocket change. Once this is done, take your winnings or just stop if you’ve used up all your money. I know PokerStars has a feature called Responsible Gaming that does this. You access this by opening up the PokerStars software after you’ve downloaded it, then click on Requests in the menu above, then click Responsible Gaming. There you can choose Restrict Deposit Limit and Exclude Me From Playing.

Another part of managing is to manage your game. Think, are you playing solely to win, or do you want to learn? If you’re playing to win, then play your best games (let’s say you’re great at Texas Hold’em, well, play that). If you’re playing to learn, why not try a new game? Try Omaha Poker, Stud Poker, Blackjack, Baccarat, HORSE, etc. Try something new - you might realize you’re actually good at it!

Don’t Drink and Play

This one should be obvious but I’ll say it anyway: keep the liquor to a minimum while playing. Yes, I know, you have some buddies over, you’re having fun and you throw back a few. That’s all good, but if you’re playing to win, then hold back on the alcohol. A common mistake you might make while drunken is placing a large bet for bad cards - just don’t do it.

And if you do really bad at the tables, definitely don’t drink yourself to a drunken stupor. Keyboards don’t work well when they’re sticky from last night’s dinner.

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Does Emotion Have a Place in Poker

Mike Smack — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 14:00:49 +0000

From The Cards Speak:

“The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional.”
–Oscar Wilde

Main Entry: emotion

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle French, from emouvoir to stir up, from Old French esmovoir, from Latin emovEre to remove, displace, from e- + movEre to move

1. A mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes; a feeling: the emotions of joy, sorrow, reverence, hate, and love.
2. A state of mental agitation or disturbance: spoke unsteadily in a voice that betrayed his emotion.
3. The part of the consciousness that involves feeling; sensibility: “The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect” (Isaac Bashevis Singer).

Traditional poker wisdom has said that emotion has no place in poker. Frustration, anger, and other “negative” emotions that can lead one to a mental state outside the one designed to make logical poker decisions can be harmful for the bankroll.

So how can one of the most successful poker tournament players in history be one of the most emotional players on the circuit? How can Phil Hellmuth consistently perform well in tournaments, despite consistently achieving a “state of mental agitation” whenever the cards do not fall in his favor? How can Mike Matusow, who puts Hamlet’s insanity act to shame every time the cameras are rolling, be one of the most successful tournament players in the past two months? Is it possible that “emotional poker players” have an edge in tournament poker?

In order to answer this question, we need to break down the most common reasons people get emotional at the poker table.

1. Frustration with results

The most common display of emotion among poker players occurs when they encounter a negative result (not surprisingly, positive results are more often welcomed by relative stoicism, unless your name is Mattias Andersson). When a player makes the statistically correct play and loses the pot, there is a greater amount of frustration than when they fail to suck out on a better hand. This type of frustration most likely results from the fundamental belief that if you make the right decision, you will be rewarded with a positive result. While this belief holds true in many situations in life, it does not take the role of luck into account. Pocket deuces beat pocket aces nearly 1 out of every 5 times, so the underdog is going to win a lot more times than one would expect if they don’t know the odds.

Those that become frustrated when a result doesn’t match performance have a fundamental misunderstanding of gambling theory. The thing that baffles me is that some of the best players in the world still get angry when the cards don’t fall their way. If “there was no luck in this game,” it wouldn’t be much of a game– a bunch of professionals pushing razor thin edges until the house ends up the only winner.

One would think that someone who has an emotional connection to a bad result might be more likely to avoid risks that would end in frustration or anger. In other words, emotional players would be more likely to sit and wait for the nuts, as they have been negatively reinforced to avoid bad beats. This would suggest that emotional players are more likely to survive than those who see no emotional downside to losing their money when they are a favorite.

Personally, I think that survival is overrated in a tournament– even the best players have a relatively small chance to win a tournament, so players like Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu achieve success by pushing their small edges at every chance they have. However, it seems that the greater the number of players capable of making hopeless plays, the greater the advantage for the player who focuses on “survival.” No need to take weighted coin flips when players will bluff their chips off to you with Ace high.

2. Frustration with performance

The second most common display of negative emotion among poker players is frustration or anger at their performance. This most frequently takes the form of the statement “I know better” or “I should have known,” and frequently occurs when a player goes against his or her instincts, or the opposite case, when the player lets odds win out over instincts and makes the incorrect play. This one hits closer to home for me, as I tend to be pretty hard on myself for mental mistakes. Example (limit poker): loose player raises in middle position, I defend my blind with Q9o or the like. Flop comes AQ4, and by the odds our second pair is probably good against loose guy, whose hand range is pretty wide. We check and call, resolved that we are way ahead or way behind, and he’ll bluff off his chips with a hand like TT. Turn comes an Ace, making it less likely that he is holding an Ace, but when he bets the turn our gut tells us he’s got the ace. I’ll usually be Math guy here and call him down, and usually end up frustrated when loose guy shows me the ace.

While this form of negative emotion seems more productive than results-based emotion (you can correct your incorrect decision, but you have no control over the way the cards fall), it can still make for poor play. People tend to remember emotional experiences, and remembering when a player outplays you might cause one to overcompensate for a previous call or raise, and make the incorrect play. Following the above idea that players who have strong negative emotion based on poor performance, the emotional player will attempt to play their best at all times, and avoid the negative emotion that comes with making an incorrect decision.

Using the above line of reasoning, it’s possible that negative emotional experiences based on performance can help one to remember the bad plays and improve upon them in similar future situations.

3. “Injustice”

Most bad beat stories end in a punch line of, “You’ll never guess what he had” or some similar phrase summing up the unbelievably bad play of the fishy bad beat administrator. A common source of frustration and anger is the injustice of the poker gods: the unlucky protagonist will lose on the river when he is a 90% favorite, and become frustrated when his clueless opponent achieves better results than he does. The mighty protagonist has studied for countless hours and considers himself a very good player, and when his opponent makes a poor play he feels the injustice of the game– knowledge and skill cannot defeat luck in poker, and this leads to frustration on the part of the player defeated by luck. This type of emotional response is similar to the two responses described above, but the frustration experienced by the “good player” is often directed at the poor player (”you can’t even spell poker”) or perhaps the poker gods (”I can never win a race”).

This frustration may lead to self-doubt, or questioning the value of the game of poker. An understanding of gambling theory can help deal with this type of frustration, but I think that emotions that force introspection and questioning usually end up being productive.

***

It’s hard for me to identify with guys like Hellmuth and Matusow, but their results argue that emotion doesn’t seem to have a negative impact on tournament finishes. On a personal level, I try to take joy in good performance, and try not to beat myself up too much for poor performance. Without some measure of emotion, you might as well be a poker bot.

In answer to the question, “Do emotional poker players have an advantage in tournament poker?” I think the jury is still out. Plenty of players who don’t outwardly display emotion (Lederer, Greenstein, Ivey) have had better results than anyone, but “emotional players” have had their share of victories as well. My gut tells me that emotion might give a player a little edge somewhere, but I can’t quite work it out. The emotional player has more at stake in a way, and higher stakes may result in better play.

Or maybe they’re just goofballs who catch cards.

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The Philosophy of Emmanuel Kant Applied to Poker

Mike Smack — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:34:11 +0000

From poker perspectives:

Iggy said this in his latest post:

The correct attitude - the one you should always strive to have - is that you are ALWAYS even when the hand begins. No matter what’s happened previously - play your hand for what it’s worth NOW.

He goes on to make a mental note to follow his own advice. It is sound advice - but one of those things that’s easy to grasp intellectually, but damned hard to put into practice. I constantly struggle with the concept. It’s not easy to see your play as one long poker game. Variance - good and bad, doesn’t care if it’s today, tomorrow or ten years from now. It has no clock, no calendar. Poker is existential.

When I’m up, I’m cautious - ever ready for the inevitable downswing and to help thwart it, I try to hone my discipline, to recognize it and make adjustments. Having a firm stop-loss number is a must. When I’m down, I make an extra effort to remind myself it’s only temporary - if I remain disciplined.

Change of subject, sorta.

I engaged in some deep poker pondering this week when revisiting my efforts to understand game theory. I was re-reading a discussion of applications of game theory and ended up pondering Emmanuel Kant’s categorical imperative which states:

Act only on such a maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

While the intention behind the imperative is aimed at the principles of morality, it got me to wondering what would happen if it was applied to the decisions we are faced with when playing poker. Was it even applicable? The following example of Kant’s imperative further intrigued me:

Always borrow money when in need and promise to pay it back without any intention of keeping the promise.

Follow that logically and you discover that, whereas this maxim is beneficial to the individual, it can’t fly as universal law - everyone would then break promises, making them irrelevant, therefore they’d cease to exist. This creates a logical contradiction - ultimately it’s not in an individual’s best interest to break the promise.

Is there a maxim for a poker player to act on that if willed, could become a universal “poker” law? For the poker player it’s in his individual interest to make the correct decision on each hand. It’s not in his individual interest for his opponents to do the same. Success in poker is predicated upon making consistent +EV decisions while your opponents make -EV mistakes. If everyone made the “correct” play all the time - i.e.: played by the book, then, theoretically, at best you will break even over the long term. Right?

Poker, then, would seem to require a little anarchy in order for the individual to achieve long term gain. Therefore, Kant’s categorical imperative isn’t applicable.

Hobbes “state of nature” may be more apt:

A person must always be suspicious that another will attack in order to maximize his/her own self-interest. Therefore, in order for a person to maximize his best interest, he must attack the other person before that other person can attack.

Anyway, it was fun to ponder. Even if it’s probably bullshit. Talk amongst your selves.

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The Stages of Poker Mastery

Mike Smack — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:00:00 +0000

From The Cards Speak:

“He who has a hundred miles to walk should reckon ninety as half the journey.”
–Japanese Proverb
A long time ago, a good friend of mine explained his theory of the development cycle that everyone must go through when learning a new task. I didn’t really buy it at the time, but as I gained life experience, my friend’s stages of development seemed to constantly reappear every time I tried to learn something new.

Looking back on my first 2 years as a poker player, it’s not too difficult to divide my cumulative experiences into the four developmental stages, although it requires a lot of oversimplification. Poker is such a dynamic game that there’s so much to learn from each session– as soon as you think you have a grasp on the technical aspects of the game, you then realize how much there is to learn about yourself and the psychological effect that poker has on you. Dividing experience into four neat categories may be an over-generalization, but it also allows one to foresee the challenges that lay on the road ahead.

A year ago I wrote a post that chronicled my development in my first year as a poker player. While this post concentrated mostly on issues of technical development, it is also interesting to look at the development of a poker player as a purely psychological level.

***
Stage 1: Novelty
When first learning a new task, all of the senses of the learner are assaulted with new input. Everything is new, and there are so many inputs that the mind is overwhelmed when trying to keep track of what’s going on. In my first live poker session, everything was a challenge– looking at my cards, remembering them, trying to watch my opponents, and even counting out chips to make a bet– all of these things were new, and required a lot of mental effort to accomplish them at even the most basic level. Even the simple things at the poker table take time, and the fledgling poker player enters a new world of knowledge.

The good news is that poker, in all its newness, is so exciting that the player learns effortlessly. Even if the player makes no effort to improve his game, becoming familiar with the patterns and rhythm of the game happens automatically, much like an infant learns to form words simply by listening to their repetition. This stage is the most exciting time in a player’s development– every session brings a tangible improvement, and the learning player acts as a sponge, absorbing all of the inputs and unconsciously storing them away for future use.
Stage 2: Mastery
After a bit of experience, the newness wears off, and the basic tasks become simple. A player no longer needs to put effort into remembering hole cards and counting chips for bets, and begins to focus on learning the technical knowledge required to become a good player. Learning becomes a conscious effort, and the learning player must become a student of the game in order to continue improving. Books, conversations with other players, and careful evaluation of one’s play help to create a deeper understanding of the game for the player in stage 2.

Endeavors that require a large amount of technical skill cannot be learned without a great deal of experience. The guitar player who wishes to reach mediocrity must be able to play notes and chords without thinking about where he needs to place his fingers. This can only be achieved with lots of practice. In addition to the critical thinking required for poker mastery, the student must also gain a “feel” for the game that only comes from experience. The mastery phase requires conscious study and diligent work on the part of those learning the task.
Stage 3: Denial
After technical mastery has been achieved, those learning the task are forced to turn inward in order to improve. The learning that occurs at this stage is focused on the internal psychology of the student, and represents the most difficult stage of development. At this point, learning slows to a crawl, and the “old ways” of learning through study and experience no longer work. The student questions the worth of the endeavor, and feels that he has learned “all that he can learn.”

The denial stage represents the “inflection point” on the curve of development: students will often give up the quest for improvement, content with technical mastery or bored with the entire process. The student realizes that not only does he no longer know how to improve, but even if he does figure out how to go beyond his current knowledge, the perceived gains will most likely be extremely small.

The poker player in the denial stage is content to be a steady winner, and his technical knowledge and experience is rewarded with consistent winning sessions. However, his game remains stagnant and he feels that something is lacking– namely, the sense of improvement he felt when reaching his current plateau.

Stage 4: Acceptance
For the few players who decide to take the final leap of faith into their chosen task, accepting the hard road towards becoming a master of the game, they are rewarded with a new world of experience. Those who rid themselves of the doubts and laziness of the denial stage and turn their gaze inward are able to gain a mastery of the task and themselves that they never imagined possible.It’s difficult for me to hypothesize about the challenges and characteristics of the true master of a task, as I have never reached this level with any task. However, I would guess that a sense of peace and effortlessness come over the master who is executing his chosen task, and that true experts are very easy to identify in the real world.
***

If I had to put my poker play into one of these categories, it would probably be nearing stage 3. I don’t have much time to play at the moment, but I’m confident that I’ll get back to serious play in the near future. Poker will always be there, but in the meantime I’m focused on more important things.

Thanks for reading and good journeys on your own path to mastery.

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How Rituals Can Improve Your Poker Playing

Mike Smack — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 13:00:01 +0000

From Cards Speak:

“Ritual is the way you carry the presence of the sacred. Ritual is the spark that must not go out.” - Christina Baldwin

On the recommendation of the poker player I most respect, I picked up Zen in the Art of Archery, by Eugen Herrigel, a first-hand account of a Westerner’s experience with Zen. Howard Lederer discusses how the book helped him improve as a poker player by changing the way he thinks about the game.

In the book, the author talks about the long journey from beginner to expert archer, and the many transformations that he undergoes in order to achieve mastery (of both himself and archery). The mark of an expert is his lack of purpose: an expert does not try to hit the target, but his mind and body somehow “know” how to hit the target without a goal or purpose.

This idea brought me back to the only thing I feel I ever became an expert in: a single offensive position on the football field (tight end). After 18 years of practice, running around on the football field seemed just as normal to me as driving a car. But it took many years and many repetitions to get to the point where the body seemed to go beyond conscious effort. One savvy coach’s way of explaining the concept of purposelessness described above was by saying “you’re trying too hard.”

At first, his advice didn’t make sense– shouldn’t 100% effort result in playing the best a player possibly could? But the more I thought about it, the more I realized what he was saying– a relaxed, controlled player who lets his instincts and “muscle-memory” guide him will outperform one who tries to consciously dictate his play.

But enough about Zen and football. The real purpose of this post is to offer up the best poker advice I’ve ever given in this poker blog. It’s a simple piece of advice, one that I discovered last week in the middle of a session where everything was going right. Before that great session, I’d had a few sessions where I’d gotten off to terrible starts, and then slowly battled my way back to even after a few hours.

I realized that in those “comeback” sessions, I’d started out lacking focus (a long day of work can prevent concentration at the table). The losses at the beginning of the session had woken me up, forcing me to concentrate and play my best poker in order to “catch up.” But in the session where everything went right, I made a conscious effort to quiet my mind and concentrate on poker and poker only.

The advice is so simple that it seems obvious, but it is something I haven’t been making a conscious effort of doing:

Expert play requires expert mental preparation.

Lack of mental preparation does not allow one’s mind to settle into the state of purposelessness concentration required to make expert plays. On the football field, every practice and every game began with the same routine: after putting on the same pads the same way, and performing the same stretches and warm-ups every time, the mind became accustomed to the ritual of preparation, and began to settle into concentration mode.

Herrigel recounts the advice of his master:

“When you come to the lessons in the future, you must collect yourselves on your way here. Focus your minds on what happens in the practice-hall. Walk past everything without noticing it, as if there were only one thing in the world that is important and real, and that is archery!”

The method of preparation doesn’t matter much– it’s the routine that counts. One of the strangest things I encountered in all my years of football was the variety of different routines that players had for their pre-game ceremonies. Personally, I liked to sit quietly and visualize plays that I’d made in the past. But there were some bizarre rituals that my teammates went through before every game, including:

Staying up all night
Doing a handstand and walking around the room on hands for 15 minutes
Dancing
Rapping
Face Painting
Throwing up

The point is that all of these pre-game rituals helped the player to mentally prepare for the state of concentration required to play their best game. The one thing these rituals had in common was that they represented an activity that signalled the mind to shut out all of the surrounding distractions and focus on what was important– the upcoming task.

Barry Greenstein also knows the value of mental preparation in Ace on the River:

“I put myself on a schedule. I would sleep until 5 p.m., go to the cardroom at 6, and play until the club closed at 2 a.m. I won consistently and thought it must be because I was the best player. But that wasn’t the reason. I was playing against people who had worked all day and had a few drinks to relax. Meanwhile, I was resting and training for the event. I didn’t know the difference until I got a job and tried to play after working all day. I was a basket case. On that trip to California, I didn’t win because I was a better player. I won because of my preparation.”

If you take one piece of advice from anything I’ve written here, let it be this simple sentence:

Expert play requires expert mental preparation.

If you’re serious about poker, I suggest you develop a “pre-game ritual” that allows you to focus all of your attention and energy on playing your best poker. Close down the instant messengers, email programs, and web-browsers, and do something that settles your mind into the concentrated state required to make the best poker plays that you can.

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The Poker Wisdom of The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

Mike Smack — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 13:00:57 +0000

From The Cards Speak:

The Man With No Name has all the characteristics of a great poker player: courage, nerves of steel, and a poker face like Chris Ferguson. Most importantly, nothing rattles him– his stoicism under pressure keeps him cool enough to outduel the master gunman Angel Eyes, while his sharp mind outwits the devious Tuco. There is much to be learned about poker from The Man With No Name.

***

Man With No Name: Two hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money. We’re gonna have to earn it.

This simple quote from Clint says more than it would appear — when everyone else thinks that finding the gold is going to be easy, The Man With No Name knows that when that much money’s involved, nothing’s easy. The new world of online poker is full of people thinking they’re going to get rich quick after they’ve had a couple of big winning sessions. When variance is on your side and the cards are going your way, it’s easy to think that being a poker pro is a piece of cake. And although I’ve never played professionally, I believe that success in poker is achieved in the same way as in any other job– discipline, hard work, and concentration. If you want to be successful in poker, you might be one of the lucky ones, like Gus Hansen or Tuan Le, but most likely, you’re gonna have to earn it. As they say, playing poker professionally is a hard way to make an easy living.

Tuco: You never had a rope around your neck. Well, I’m going to tell you something. When that rope starts to pull tight, you can feel the Devil bite your ass.

Those of you that have ever played on a short bankroll or at a limit that’s a little uncomfortable know what Tuco’s talking about. 3 or 4 bad beats at the start of a session and you feel that rope tightening and if the run is bad enough, you wonder if your poker life is at stake. But Tuco’s a gambler, and the only way he knows how to get ahead is to put his neck on the line. And I’m not advising you to play on a short bankroll or above your head, but putting your neck on the line– or at least putting something at risk– is what poker’s all about. T.J. Cloutier says that if you’re serious about poker, you’ve got to play stakes where you can win at least as much per hour as you make working. Anything less and you might as well work instead. The point is, serious poker requires the element of risk. In order to feel the exhiliration of victory, you’re going to have to also feel the Devil biting your ass every so often.

One Armed Man: I’ve been looking for you for 8 months. Whenever I should have had a gun in my right hand, I thought of you. Now I find you in exactly the position that suits me. I had lots of time to learn to shoot with my left.
[Tuco kills him with the gun he has hidden in the foam.]
Tuco: When you have to shoot, shoot, don’t talk.

Tuco’s quote addresses something that is a pet peeve of mine– when you sit down to play poker, play poker. Don’t instant message people, read RGP, watch TV or anything else except play poker. When you’re putting your money on the line and playing a game that requires full concentration, there’s no reason to divert your attention doing anything else but play poker.

The Man With No Name: After a meal there’s nothing like a good cigar.

In a rare moment of relaxation, The Man With No Name enjoys a break from the action by smoking a cigar. You get the feeling that he is preparing himself for future trials, while also celebrating the fact that he’s alive. Poker can be so much of a grind that if we don’t take some time out to celebrate our victories, the game can get a bit too abstract. Izmet offers the following advice as to how to connect the poker world to the real world:

“Build a bankroll. Treat it as a funny money. Have enough to withstand challenges of fate. Do not spend the winnings. After a while, if the game is good to you, buy yourself something out of the bankroll. A shiny gambler’s watch maybe. A little token of pride. A mark of achievement. You will feel good about yourself, that’s never a bad thing.”

Remember to celebrate your victories– poker should be fun when you’re winning.

Tuco: That’s so. Even a tramp like me, no matter what happens, I know there’s always a brother who won’t refuse me a bowl of soup.

Even “The Ugly” Tuco has someone to turn to when everything goes wrong. Of course it’s important to have someone to lean on when things aren’t going well, but it’s even more important to poker players. The swings of variance can be extremely difficult emotionally, even for the most stoic poker player. I’ve met a lot of people that seemed to get sucked in to the poker world, with little else outside their life besides pot odds and hourly win rate. Poker is a great game, but those who are “inside” the game 24 hours a day have no time to reflect on their play and their game cannot improve. There’s more to life than the best hand holding up.

Tuco: [shouting] Hey, Blond! You know what you are? Just the greatest son-of-a-b-!

The last lines of the movie feature Tuco’s exasperated screams addressed to The Man With No Name as Clint rides off into the sunset. The Man With No Name leaves Tuco hanging, literally. The hero breaks his word in order to protect himself and the potential threat of the devious Tuco. This fits with the typical poker advice that “there are no friends at the poker table” and that the only person you should be looking out for is yourself.

But in a final twist, the closing scene shows The Man With No Name return to mercifully shoot Tuco from the noose, freeing him and fulfilling his end of the bargain. The lesson: those who value honesty and compassion will be rewarded more than those who only look out for themselves. One of the reasons The Man With No Name is able to survive all of the movie’s trials is because he adheres to his principles and is able to act with confidence. Many people may disagree, but I think that even at the poker table, a purely selfish approach won’t lead you as far as a more compassionate approach in the long run.

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