JV'S KILLER POKER: LIES!

BY: John Vorhaus

Losers speak a certain language, one that requires deft and careful translation. If you pay close attention I can teach you to speak loserese. Just study the following chart:

WHAT THEY SAY WHAT THEY MEAN
"I came out a little ahead." = "I lost."
"I broke even." = "I lost."
"I dropped a few bucks." = "I lost a lot."

Losers are liars. You can't trust 'em. It's bad enough that they lie to you (they swear to god they'll pay you back) but oh the lies that they tell themselves. Let's crawl inside a loser's head and hear what he has to say. Don't forget your translation key above.

"I didn't play too badly tonight. (I lost.) I couldn't catch a damn flop, that's for sure. (I lost.) You just can't protect your hand at this limit. (I lost.) I should play higher."

Hey now, there's a handy lie: "I should play higher." Yeeps. No sooner has this chucklehead's game degenerated to where he's actively denying the grim reality of what he just went through than he's out there looking for an excuse to do it to himself again, and worse.

You see it all the time.

A loser gets hammered out of a game. So then he looks around and says, "What should I do next, go home?" Or no, actually, that thought never crosses his mind. Instead he notices an open seat in a higher limit game, and I mean a much higher limit, the limit that makes him go gulp! (Which raises an interesting question: What is the gulp limit for you? Everyone's is different. Grandma goes gulp at the sight of quarters on the kitchen table. I don't go gulp at Fort Knox. So what's your gulp limit and why? And don't imagine for a single moment that this question is unimportant or not directed at you. Obviously you can't play well with scared money, so it's crucial that you know where scared money starts.)

So this chucklehead marches over to the gulp-limit game and studies it for quite some time which, as losers measure time, is about ten seconds. Let's see how many lies he can tell before he even gets into this game.

"That money I lost just now doesn't count because I wasn't warmed up. But with this money I'm taking out now, I will be much more disciplined. Anyway, this lineup doesn't look so tough. So what if three players have three racks each? That'll be my strength. They're playing super-aggressive, so I'll just wait for quality hands and trap. I'll use their big stacks against 'em!"

That's a funny-looking lie. It's the one the loser uses when he's really undercapitalized for play at his gulp limit, but wants to take a shot with short money. Sad pathetic loser, short money equals gone money; haven't you figured that out yet? Why are you wasting my time?

How it burdens my soul to think about the nonsense you think up. "One loose call won't kill me. One drink won't hurt my play. One short buy-in's okay. One hour of sleep is sufficient. One more hand and I'll go."

And that's only lies that start with "one". Can you think of five lies that start with "two"? Two outs are plenty. Two bets – Oh hell, why am I doing your homework?

Look, I don't care if you lie to your friends. I don't care if you lie to your spouse. I even don't care if you lie to yourself. But you sure as hell better not lie to me. If I ask you how much you won or lost last night and how long it took you to do it and why, you'd better have an honest answer, and not only that but a damn articulate one too. Because this is the simple stuff, Poker Honesty 101, and if you can't get this part right, you have no freaking hope for the rest.

Trouble is, lies are a double-edged sword. Lies come back to bite you. You lie to your enemy when you represent a hand you don't have. That's fine, that's part of the game. But over time you become habituated to lies. You start to think they're a good idea. You start to focus on falsehood as something essential to your poker (it is) and thus to your life (it is not).

Grasp if you can the critical difference between deception and delusion: Deception is what you do to others. Delusion is what you do to yourself. When these forces are in harmony, everyone at the table thinks you're stuck and bleeding, but you know you're not. When they're reversed, however, you think you're still playing well but your foes all know you're in orbit. Where are you then? On your way to speaking loserese.

"I had a run of bad cards. The dealer jinxed me. This one guy just called with anything. You can't beat a guy like that. Unless you play like that. Maybe I should open up my play."

Oh you need help. And I can't do it alone. So ask yourself this question: Are you going to waste all my valuable insight by pretending it doesn't apply to you? Or are you going to strive to arrive at a higher place? The choice is yours and as usual I don't give a damn one way or another. But let me just say that I hate waste, be it your money or my words. So shape up, confront yourself and start seeing reality as it really is. If you want to have a hope in hell of ever playing winning poker, that's the least you must do. Do it. Do it now. The lie you save may be your own.