Weekend Warriors

I'm an admitted classic basketball weekend warrior. My co-workers and friends converge on the local gym and community parks each week in a relatively pathetic attempt to relive our sports glory days from long ago. Rather than producing a compelling basketball game, though, our gang of 30 and 40-somethings usually simply produces sore muscles, twisted ankles, and bruised egos. With our high school varsity sports little more than a distant memory, the competitive fire still attracts us to play despite the drastic drop off in our conditioning and skill. Poker is seeing an entire new crop of weekend warriors hitting the scene. I meet players all of the time who spend their Friday and Saturday evenings tapping their mouse as they play online poker. They drop $100 into their online account for an evening of two of entertainment and fun at the end of a long work week. They have no real hope or expectation to get rich and famous from poker, just as my basketball game is not filled with NBA hopefuls. Just like the hoops game at the park, poker weekend warriors are simply playing for the competition and excitement.

I think many of us mistakenly assume that nearly everyone that we encounter in casinos and online are well-schooled, intense competitors. We think that everyone is playing on a serious quest to build a large bankroll, to qualify for the World Series or a WPT event, and to perhaps break through as a professional player. The simple truth is that a mindset such as this is completely inaccurate. In fact, a huge majority of players are like those at my weekend warrior basketball excursions. Most players are logged on or visiting the poker room to get satisfaction for their competitive compulsions. They are at the tables because it is fun. They are at the tables as a relief and a break from the daily grind of work, bills, and family-induced stresses.

Playing against weekend warriors at the table often involves a different strategy than you might employ with hardened, serious poker players. Your first task is to identify the weekend poker warrior. This is most easily accomplished in live games, when casual conversation can lead into work, family, and how often one plays the game. Online identification might involve some more focused investigation to weed out the weekend player. Start by hitting the tables on weekend evenings, keenly watching for players who appear to be loose and unskilled. While these casual players can be found online anytime, their proliferation seems to be heaviest at these convenient hours. Identify them by logging their screen name in your notes. Many popular online poker rooms allow you to save notations on others players by using a player notes feature. Now attempt to track some of these player's levels and styles of play over a course of time.

After you have the weekend warrior identified, it is time to use some psychological ploys to take their chips. In my basketball games, we rarely actually keep track of the score and wins/losses. We are just there to play and enjoy the competition. Poker weekend warriors follow this pattern. Once they transfer their money into their poker accounts, they will not necessarily measure their success based on their wins or losses. Instead, they are looking for a good return on their investment. In other words, they want some fun and competition to arise from that money. If the money is all lost by Sunday morning, they will still be satisfied as long as they meet their psychological needs along the way. It is much like my basketball buddies who nurse sore knees and stiff backs after every game. The negative of the poor overall performance is outweighed by the mental and emotion needs. Keep this in mind to extract their chips. Keep them engaged by exchanging in friendly conversation which appeals to their competitive edge. Promote the ideal of playing for fun, laughing while encouraging the weekend warrior to play many hands and gamble. Knowing that they only have a limited amount of time and patience, slyly remind them of the time factor. You can remind the warrior's subconscious that it is vital to play fast and loose with small cues such as looking at your watch and saying, "It is almost midnight. I've gotta go pretty soon." Mostly, do your part to keep the atmosphere jovial and competitive. Offer up drinks and jokes. Provide the weekend warrior a compliment when he wins a hand. Talk about how you are trying to reach a certain goal, perhaps saying you want to leave after doubling your starting stack. Inevitably the weekend warrior will internalize your comment and consider it a challenge. He will almost certainly adopt your goal, assuring that he will be staying put at the table as he works toward a difficult goal. In the end, the idea is that you will have many of his chips as he leaves empty handed. With that, he'll be back the next weekend playing poker to fill his emotional needs just as I'll be back next weekend to play an ugly game of basketball.

Note: In addition to being a columnist for many of the top poker magazines in the U.S. and Canada, John is a National Certified Counselor (NCC) in America. He has a Master of Arts degree in Counseling from West Virginia University, and a Bachelor's degree in Psychology with a minor in Sociology from Lock Haven University. You can arrange for interviews, speaking engagements, or find out more about the psychology of poker by emailing carlisle14@hotmail.com.

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