Poker Persona

“You’re really lucky.” – Young Chumash regular
“You obviously haven’t played with me much.” – Me

That is a pretty common misconception people have about my poker game. I think its good for a couple of reasons. For one, the players who make statements like that reveal that they aren’t really paying attention. If they did, they would note that I tend to play very few hands while seated for a very long session. And anyone who says that is thinking about his luck, too.

I think those are two factors that distinguish winning players from losing players. It should go without saying that attention to people and action at the table is required to be able to make correct decisions and be a consistent winning poker player. But most people don’t seem to put it into practice. So, where I am involved, those players see me winning an occasional large pot and label me lucky, all the while ignoring the many small losses I have incurred along the way. As far as they’re concerned, I win every hand I play.

That is just not the case. Believe me, I wish it was. However many of poker players not only place a luck factor on others’ games, but they attribute their own (bad) results to that fickle lady. Luck is exactly why I have never been into playing slots. Why in the world would anyone put a significant amount of money at risk when luck is the only thing determining whether they win or lose? I wouldn’t. But that’s just me…obviously. Millions of people vacation in Vegas and throw down random amounts of green on games they don’t know how to play properly. So, even with games that can be played using methods to maximize one’s odds of winning, people ignore the possibilities (and probabilities) and hope for divine intervention.

The same thing happens at the poker table. Except poker is a game in which there are many different ways to lose money. When playing slot machines, most people either play the min or max bet consistently. So, barring a winning pull, they will lose their money at the same rate every time. Other games, like blackjack, craps, or roulette, have high enough limits that someone could lay their entire bankroll on one turn. But the average Joe places the same small bet until it is all gone because they don’t intend to risk it all.

When playing poker, Joe Average buys in intending to play a few hands and, hopefully, get lucky. Whether loose or tight, he does have a range of starting hands that he is willing to limp with or call an opening raise. One of these pretty hands will appear. When it does, whether he will win or lose is all that’s on his mind. Its only after the hand is over that he will realize how much he won or lost. So he could misplay a big hand and only win a small amount or lose a big amount. Or the opposite could occur as he misplays a bad hand and manages to win a large pot or lose a small one. There are other ways for it to go down but the key is that, in Joe’s mind, luck will only have come into play in the hands he lost.

“How did you win those other hands, Joe? Was it luck or skill? Or a combination of both? Think about it, Joe.”

Well, I do think about that. I lost that hand. Could I have played it differently and won? Or could I have lost less? And that hand that I won before, could I have played that better? Could I have extracted more chips from my opponent? He didn’t show down…Did he have me until the river and I got lucky?

So the other night at Commerce, when the friendly guy on my left suggested, after I had raised with AK and then flopped an Ace,
“You raise with that, you hit. I raise with that, nothing comes,”
my response didn’t suggest that I was not lucky…
“That’s jealously talkin’.”

I guess what I’m trying to say is, good luck at the tables.

SEEYa