By Guy Downs
From Nettbetter.com
Perhaps no game in the history of mankind is as misunderstood
as poker. Ask almost any pro, and he’ll tell you that at its
core poker is a game of percentages. Ace-king usually beats Ace-queen.
Pocket kings will typically collect from ace-six offsuit. No, these
things don’t happen all the time, but they happen often enough
to allow a small group of players to make a healthy living playing
the game. In the final analysis, 90% of poker is about showing down
the best hand. If you can do this more often then your opponents,
you’re going to take home the barley. Yet most Americans think
winning poker players operate on an esoteric, sub-psychic level,
where the cards they’re holding are only incidental. Now maybe
this is true with the world class players, but I can tell you now
that virtually all of the consistent low and mid-limit winners are
essentially in the business of showing their opponents the best
hand. Yes, sometimes you ‘play the man’. But the easy-not
to mention reliable-money comes from simply playing the cards.
It is with this in mind, then, that we venture forth into the heart
of this essay. Let’s look at a couple of the ‘myths’
that surround poker, and see what we can do to debunk them.
Myth 1—The best poker players bluff a lot.
Let’s face it—bluffing is fun. And, when used with
discretion, it’s an important part of a winning player’s
arsenal. That having been said, the art of the bluff is only one
bullet—and a low-caliber one at that—in the winning
poker player’s gun. The fact is, most players just love to
call. Remember, the majority of your opponents are not playing for
money. They may think they’re playing to win, but they’re
really playing because they enjoy the game and the action if provides.
And, since getting ‘bluffed out’ of a pot is most certainly
not enjoyable, they’ll find any number of excuses to call
you even when they know they shouldn’t. This means, of course,
that you’re only going to find a limited number of profitable
bluffing opportunities in any given session. In big-bet poker, where
you can push all your chips in the middle at any given time, the
art of the bluff is much more important. But in limit poker it’s
just not all that valuable.
There are other factors other than your opponents’ predisposition
towards calling that make bluffing of limited value. For one thing,
you’ll often find yourself involved in a pot with two or more
opponents. This means you need to calculate the probability that
all players still contesting the pot will fold. If you’re
‘heads up’ and you figure your opponent will fold 33%
of the time, you can expect to drag the pot one in every three trials.
If, however, you’re up against two opponents, each of whom
can be expected to fold 33% of the time, you’re now looking
at an 11% success rate for your bluff—or once in every nine
trials. Trying to run a bluff in this second scenario is obviously
tougher than trying to run one in the previous example. Yet in the
course of any given session you’ll probably find yourself
faced with two or more opponents a majority of the time.
You also need to understand that the farther you get into a hand
the more expensive your bluffs become, while at the same time your
chances of having your bluff succeed usually decrease. If you bluff
the flop, for example, and get one caller, you’ll often be
tempted to follow through on the turn (and sometimes on the river
as well). Thus, the bluff in its entirety will often cost you either
1 ½ or 2 ½ small bets. The problem is that as the
hand progresses the chances that your opponent actually ‘has
something’ go up, since you usually reason that he wouldn’t
be in there calling with a hand worse than yours. Further compounding
matters is the fact that in limit hold ‘em the bets double
on the turn. You have to put in twice as much money on the turn
as you did on the flop, while the odds that your opponent likes
his hand have increased. For obvious reasons this argues against
trying to run a bluff.
Thirdly, limit hold ‘em becomes an extraordinarily tough
game to beat once you’ve acquired a reputation as a habitual
bluffer. Because the pots often get so big before the flop, you
would usually like to see your opponents fold on the flop when you
bet with a good—but vulnerable- hand. If, however, you’ve
been ‘caught stealing’ a few times, the chances of having
your bets respected have gone way down. Let’s say you raise
before the flop with Ac Kh, and get four callers. The flop comes
down As Ts 7h. If you bet, you’d probably like to see all
of your opponents fold—or at least most of them. But players
who bluff a lot are almost always going to get calls here from hands
that they would like to see fold (hands like Qs Td, for example,
or Th 8h), whereas a player who’s considered a ‘nut
hugger’ might get some of these hands to drop out. True, a
habitual bluffer will occasionally drag a monster pot when he flops
the nuts. But flopping a good-but-not-great hand is much, much more
common than flopping a huge hand, and the pots the bluffer ends
up losing with his good-but-not-great hands far outweighs the extra
chips he collects when he flops a ‘gadget’.
Myth 2—Poker is a game of tells.
I’ll try to keep this a brief as possible. Simply put, tells
are probably the least important part of limit hold ‘em. Consider
the following example; you have 4c 4d, and the flop comes 4s 4h
5h. The turn brings the 6h. When the six drops you see one of your
opponents’ hands start to tremble, which often indicates a
big hand. Are you just going to check and call here, since the ‘tell’
indicates that your opponents has a monster hand? Of course not!
In fact, you’d probably lose a ton of money on this hand if
it turns out your beaten even if your opponent screamed ‘ship
it!’ and started doing the mamba around the table. Sure, you
picked up a ‘tell’, but so what? You’re not going
to give him credit for the straight flush, since that ‘tell’
could easily indicate sixes full. If you’re like me, you’ll
probably cap it on the turn, and take it six or seven bets on the
river no matter how your opponent reacts.
This may sound like an exaggeration, but the concept outlined here
applies to less dramatic—and therefore more common—examples
as well. Let’s say you have the Kh Th, and the flop comes
8h 5s 3h. The turn is the Js, and the river is the 7h. When the
seven hits you get a tell that indicates your opponent liked that
card. Well, who cares! You liked it too. The fact that you picked
up a ‘tell’ probably won’t inform your play that
much, since you’re likely taking this hand to three bets anyway.
Myth 3—The best player always wins.
Uh, no. Trust me on this one—this is not true. Most winning
limit hold ‘em players will win around 60-80% of their sessions,
depending on their playing style. This leaves 20-40% where their
wallet leaves the casino lighter than when it first arrived. Bad
players can and do get lucky—and often they keep getting lucky
for weeks or even months on end. If you haven’t started seriously
playing yet, you’ll soon see what I mean. If you’re
already a regular player then you know exactly what I’m talking
about.
Myth 4—Great poker players are born, not made.
It is true that some great poker players seemed destined for greatness.
Stu Ungar, for example, appears to have been such a player. But
most solid poker players became winners by making a study of the
game and working diligently on improving. I think it’s probably
safe to say that people who are born with a phlegmatic disposition
have an easier time becoming winners, but having the proper mind-set
is only a step one requirement. With a steady diet of practice and
study I’m convinced that anyone can learn how to beat the
game. I’ve run across plenty of winning players, and a lot
of them had the ‘card sense’ of a koala bear. But they
beat the game because they worked hard at it. |
