JV'S KILLER POKER:
ANTIFISH!

BY: John Vorhaus

Poker is filled with nostrums - what the faux literati might call nostra - pieces of advice or, if you will, wisdom, designed to speed the player from ignorance to bliss in pursuit of perfect poker. One such nostrum that you hear from time to time is this: If you look around the table and you can't spot the fish, it's you.

And it's true. Or anyway I've heard that it's true. Never having been that sucker - that fish - I can't say for sure. And I'm sure you've never had that experience either. Clear-eyed, confident Killer Poker player that you are, you're an expert at game selection and never allow yourself to get into a situation where, against all conceivable odds, your enemies are actually better at their craft than you. Okay, once maybe, once it happened to you, but you never let it happen again, right? Right?

Well, whatever.

But behind every problem lies an opportunity, and it is opportunity which we wish to discuss here: the specific opportunity to be the dominant player in the game, the one the others defer to and avoid and fear. To describe this player I now coin the word antifish, and present a corollary nostrum thus: If you look around the table and can't spot the antifish, be it!

Nature, as we know, abhors a vacuum, and a poker game without an antifish is a vacuum waiting to be filled. Consider: You enter a nice, friendly $5-10 or $10-20 hold 'em game where everyone is more or less behaving themselves. They're tight, they're quiet, they're folding bad hands and raising with good ones. No one's getting too frisky or too far out of line. That's a stable game. That game could go on for hours without anyone getting too badly hurt or anyone (save the house) making any serious coin.

But now here comes you the antifish to destabilize the game. You do it with fiendish delight, because you know that the mere act of destabilizing the game, putting other players outside their comfort zones, will do more to make you a winner here than all the great cards you could wait to catch.

And you do it from the very first hand.

Having determined that the game lacks a table leader, a force to be reckoned with, you post your first blind. Most fish, with most hands, are hoping that they won't face a raise here because, face it, how premium is that very first holding likely to be? But the antifish has a whole 'nother agenda. You're more interested in seizing the game by the throat than in winning a particular hand (or saving a handful of chips), so when the action comes around to you, you make that raise, you pop your own blind, no matter what cards you hold. Immediately the table holds you in suspicion. Where did you come from, antifish, and where do you get off making so rash and reckless a move as to raise your own blind when everyone else was content to let you see the flop for free? Contemplate what the other players are feeling right now. Some may be angry, some may be wary; some may be licking their chops over you because they see you as reckless and stupid, and not the bold and smart antifish you really are. They're all morsels for your meal, poor fish, because they've stopped thinking about their own game and started thinking about yours instead. This is what you want; this is control. And it comes at so little cost.

Because what's the worst that can happen when you raise your own blind? The flop could miss you completely. Then you fold, and (mis)identify yourself as someone who plays too fast before the flop and pays for it afterwards. That's an image you can parlay into profit later with authentically muscular hands. But if you hit the flop, especially with the arbitrarily ragged hand you raised with, you can drive and drive and drive and never look like anyone but someone trying to make a hopeless bluff stand up. When you turn over winners - 9-4 offsuit! - you make the rest of the table hate and loathe and fear and deride you, all at the same time. As they struggle to recover, they realize only dimly what you already know to be true: The antifish is here, and the antifish rules!

But if you intend to play this role, gentle reader, make sure you know what you're doing, for there's a fine, fine line between fish and antifish, and it is ignorance which blurs that line. So how can you tell if you're the fish or the antifish? Easy. The fish calls a lot, folds a little, and raises not at all. The antifish raises a lot, folds a lot, and almost never just calls. To be the antifish, the dominant player at the table, you must be the one who is expected to raise. To create that expectation, simply put the heat on and keep it on. If you're in the right game with the right actions, you'll be the Lone Raiser... a consummation devoutly to be wished.

I mean really, wouldn't you like it to be that way? Wouldn't you love to play in a game where, literally, the only one who thinks to raise is you? Can't you just count the advantages that gives you? First, it gives you room to speculate with your hands. Second, it makes your foes nervous and edgy by forcing them to take their dubious holdings forward for twice what they wanted to pay. Third... well, you think of third; I'm not doing your homework for you.

So here's your homework: The next time you go to play poker, be the antifish. Look around for a game that's soft and genial (oh don't tell me you can't find one - I play in these places too, you know) and then set out to beat it senseless. Control is the issue, not profit. Or let me put it another way, in the form of a nostrum if you will: Antifish rules! Seize control of the table, and profit will follow you home.