JV'S KILLER POKER: SCABS!

BY: John Vorhaus

Suppose you had a scab on your knee. Your impulse would be to pick it – and you know how good it would feel if you did. Very common behavior, indulging ourselves in something that feels good. And it doesn't have to be a scab. It could be coffee, cigarettes, booze, pot, porn, anything. Whatever floats your boat. Why? Because, self-indulgence, my dear friend and attentive reader, is its own reward. Now I have no problem with self-indulgence when it comes to scabs or whatever. But when self-indulgence leaks into your poker, that's a recipe for mayhem. And the bad news is it happens all the time. You want examples? Can you stand to stare them in the face?

How about the time you went heads-up against some blind stealer, calling his raise even though you had only some scabby 7-4 with which to defend? The flop came 5-6-x and you got all moist and oozy because now you had a straight draw, even though you knew you had the worst of it, pot odds versus card odds, all that crap. But he bet and you called anyway. Why? 'Cause it felt good. You were imagining the look on that smug chump's face when you caught your draw, made your hand and administered to him the whupping that he and all other heathen, degenerate blind-stealers deserve. You didn't have a legitimate call, but you called anyway, because you wanted the triumph. You wanted to feel good. You wanted to see the look on the other guy's face when things went your way.

But most of the time in these situations, things do not go our way. Nor should they – pot odds versus card odds, all that crap. And then we end up losing not just money, but also credibility, and image, and control over ourselves and others at the table. So now we have a new math: self-indulgence = self-destruction. How do you feel about that?

Or how about this? You're getting ready to leave a game, but you decide to just play through to your blind before you go. This feels good because it feels like you're getting something for nothing, a free ride, a look at several more hands without having to pay the price of the blind. Trouble is, you've already mentally checked out of the game, and your chances of playing perfect poker (or even adequate poker) have checked out too. So now here comes a hand you know you shouldn't play, and never ever would play except for the fact that you're already halfway outta there, and maybe you have a few extra chips above some arbitrary number of chips (three more than a full rack, say?) so you decide to take a flier on the hand. Why? Because it feels good. It's action! But then you catch a piece of the flop and make several calls you shouldn't make (destroying the aesthetic purity of that full rack en route) and get clobbered in the hand. Which you deserve, frankly, since you shouldn't have been in it in the first place. Now, smarting from your wounds, you decide to take another lap or two (or six) around the table, rather than leave the game you had previously decided to leave. An hour (or six) later, you stumble away, stunned and remorseful, having turned a nice, respectable win into a devastating loss. You started out doing something that you thought would make you feel good and ended up feeling bad, bad, bad. You can call it fate or instant karma or even bad luck; I just say that the universe is there to sort you out.

Never fall victim to this again! Vow now to play all hands and every hand for a good, sound, solid reason and not just because it feels good. That's monkey poker. I have no time for that, and neither should you.

I played maybe 15 or 20 hours of poker last week, and I never played one single hand just for the hell of it. Can you make the same claim? Work on this. Set it as your goal. When you're in there, be in there for a reason, and not just because you feel like picking a scab.

Unless, of course, it's the other guy's scab.

Because, you see, once you realize that people do things at the poker table just to feel good about themselves, you can manipulate them into making countless costly mistakes in service of that spurious need. A guy hates to have his blind attacked? All the more reason to attack it! His defense makes him feel proud and bold and strong, even though it may be a big, fat, hairy error to defend. Someone looks like she's about to leave the game, just playing through to her blinds? Don't raise in front of her. Encourage her to call, since she wants to blow off a few random chips before she goes, and will likely choose to blow them off with a marginal hand. Don't encourage her to wise up. Let her toss her loose, dead money in the pot. Then bet any flop. She won't call, not if it means breaking her rack, and if she does break her rack, maybe you can get her stuck for the whole hundred chips!

Remember: Every mistake you discover in your own game is one that's present in your enemies' game as well. And they've got it worse than you, because they're not paying attention like you are. So now you have two jobs. The first is to eradicate self-indulgence from your play. The second is to encourage it and exploit it in others. What I want you to do, and I'm not kidding about this, is to write down these words on a piece of paper: self-indulgence = self-destruction. Then tape that piece of paper to your steering wheel or your dashboard so that you can see it and contemplate it and meditate upon it all the way to the place you play. When you arrive you'll be that much better prepared to play the kind of no-nonsense, serious-minded, kick-ass poker that you must play if you hope to have any realistic chance of winning at all.

Or would you rather just feel good?