19:39

04 Mar

There is an old - and rather cruel - joke about footballer David Beckham being interviewed, which goes something like… “They are important because they taste good and keep your breath fresh,” to which the interviewer responds, “For f*** sake David, I was asking about TACTICS, not TicTacs!”

Wisdom in poker is similarly susceptible to people imparting advice way above their knowledge level, but occasionally a ‘golden nugget’ comes your way which will prove to be very useful when you’re playing.

The Professional Approach

Sometimes it’s a full-on ‘eureka’ moment which makes sense of everything you’ve learned – sometimes it's just a little rock of cleverness which helps you to calculate your next move. Whatever it is, it pays to listen to those who have decades of experience, so who better than the pros to start us off.

Mike Caro, he of ‘Poker Tells’ fame and much more besides, took on the task of explaining how to beat a ‘bully’ at the table – courtesy of PokerGrump Robert Woolley on PokerNews.

Don’t try to be more aggressive than the bully in retaliation. He’s making the mistake of wagering too much and too often. The last thing you want to do is get in a war with him to see who can make that same mistake most often. Check and call.”

Caro’s advice makes perfect sense, and is well-worth recalling when faced with such a player; we all meet them, more often than we are comfortable with as well. As Caro explains:

This is one way in which poker differs from life. In real-world conflict, you might need to fight back. But there is no known strategy in the poker universe that can allow a bully to take advantage of you if you simply check more often, call more often, and allow him to self-destruct.”

If we are looking for one-liners rather than paragraphs, we can also add Caro’s version of ‘poker’s most important secret’, which runs “Play your best game all the time!” Easily-spoken, almost never followed at amateur level, with tilt, lack of concentration, fancy-plays, and a host of other things tempting the average player away from this nugget of wisdom.

Daniel Negreanu, one of the ‘winningest’ tournament players of all time, has written two books on ‘Hold’em Wisdom’, and although neither were truly great reads, there were enough little ideas in them to make them worthwhile. He offered up the interesting adage:

Poker is a lot like sex, everybody thinks they’re great at it, but most people don’t really know what they are doing!”

Not that this will be of much use to you at the tables, but it might just make you reconsider whether your partner’s wails and moans are for real or not!

Anonymous Amateurs

The excellent though anonymous quote, “Poker is a hard way to make an easy living”, belongs up there with the best of them – as anyone who has taken the game seriously can testify to. Sometimes it’s the amateur aficionado of the game who makes the most sense – even if they don’t always follow their own advice!

A recent reddit.com question along the lines of this article threw up some real gems. ‘SkeetRags’ produced the following lovely-worded piece of wisdom:

Start tight as shit and only widen as you get better, recreationals often do the inverse.”

Very true and very useful to remember, as JPZA88 confessed in reply: “Definitely this. Boy oh boy were my first few months loose!“ Only very good players can play the kind of hands that Gus Hansen or Daniel Negreanu seem to like!

Another poster, BradsWilson, reminded us all of a useful question to ask ourselves: "Before I do anything, I ask myself: would an idiot do that? And if the answer is yes, I do not do that thing." Although every piece of advice needs to be taken with a grain of common-sense, as ImaDunkonYou replied: "Would an idiot call this shove when I have the nuts?" reminding us that it works both ways!

Sticking with the Reddit thread, Wilfra reminded us of another anonymous and general quote:

To be good, you must learn to play tight. To be great, you must learn to play loose."

So, read Dan Harringtonthen watch Ole Schemion for example!

One which most people will have to admit to at some point in their ‘poker career is “ Don't let ego influence your decisions”, as MickMurrr19 points out. Of course we all think we are better than we actually are, but when we start to think we are better than everybody else at a table and start to take liberties, we soon come a cropper.

We have to reign in the ego and make decisions based on what we actually know and understand, rather than what we would like to have happen based on our poker ‘superpowers’!

Negreanu's version of this and similar quotes is:

You could be the 5th best player in the world, but if you’re seated at a table with the four best players in the world, well, you’re the sucker!”

The Hollywood Effect

‘Dkoot’ throws in the classic ‘Rounders’ movie line, fancied up a bit with a timely swear-word:

The cardinal fucking rule, of course. always leave yourself outs!”

In fact, the intro to Rounders, the movie which sparked a generation of new poker players, is a nugget-filled wisdom-fest all on its own…

Listen, here's the thing. If you can't spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker. Guys around here'll tell ya... you play for a living. It's like any other job. You don't gamble. You grind it out. Your goal is to win one big bet an hour, that's it. Get your money in when you have the best of it, and protect it when you don't. Don't give anything away.”

They even cover the ego problem referred to above, when delusions of grandeur get in the way of correct play!

See, I had this picture in my head. Me sitting at the big table, Doyle to my left, Amarillo Slim to my right, playing in the World Series of Poker. And I let that vision blind me at the table against KGB.”

The Ultimate in Poker Wisdom

So, words of wisdom can come in many shapes and sizes, and from many different sources, but you have to sift through the useful ones and take the other with a grain of salt. If all else fails, you can always turn to Kenny Rogers for the ultimate poker (and, of course, relationship) advice: