Don’t Bite the Hand That Feeds You

You frequently hear supposedly good players berate bad players for their play at the table. I say supposedly good, because these players do more harm to the game and thereby to themselves than they seem to realize. The thing is that poker players may have different reasons to play poker. Improving your skills through studies and experiment while gradually building your bankroll is only one such reason and there is no inherent reason why this reason should be any better than say to play to get entertained or to play for the challenge. Yet berating the bad player usually seems to be a habit of the type of player who reads books and works seriously on his game, as he tends to think that this somehow means that he is "supposed" to win all the time. Well, let me tell you something: no one is entitled to win all the time. There is a strong element of luck in poker and this means that everybody will experience unusually big wins as well as losses. And this mechanism is what allows the poor player to blame his bad performance on bad luck and thereby keep coming back. There is a reason poker is a great money game while chess is not!!!

Now I will sometimes play shorthanded against a couple of local pros who are at least as good as I am if this is required to get the game started and when I expect the game to be good later on if a couple of tourists sit down. It is an inescapable fact that most of the money to be won in poker comes from a few bad players. If the game never fills up and I end up playing a bunch of pros all night we will just be pushing chips around. Somebody will win and somebody will lose, but this will be strongly dependent on luck of the day, and not really affect long-term expectation. The only long-term winner in this game will be the house. Therefore bad players are vital to the game and to your success. If you continually berate the bad players, you might end up in a situation where the bad players don't want to play against you anymore, and if that happens, you will find out that nobody else likes to play against you, because you make the game bad. Therefore, you should seriously consider working on your people skills. Regardless of who you are and what kind of temper you've got, you should try to work on not letting it out at the table, and always be polite. Below is given a few examples on how this can be done, and how it benefits your game. All the stories pretty much boil down to: Give the man what he wants, and he will give you what you want (all his chips) in return.

The Semi-Pro

Recently in while in Las Vegas, I played against a semi-retired lawyer who now considered himself a semi professional poker player. While he might have booked some big wins at some point, he was a horrible player in this particular game. His main weakness was that he would only raise when he had a monster hand but he would call with any draw and any piece of the board. In other words - a typical calling station - though, I'll have to admit that this guy was somewhat more knowledgeable than most in this player category. A major part of playing against him was folding all hands but the nuts when he raised. He simply got no action on his hands. He was also commenting on the bad play of the loose aggressive players when they took down big pots with bad starters. What he failed to realize was that given the amount of control they had on him, taking a flop was cheap. Everybody knew his tendencies and everybody wanted him to keep playing predictably in this manner. Also everybody wanted him to spend as much time at the table as possible until his convention was over. We treated him really well and as a matter of fact I don't think he ever made it to the convention center.

Now what does this type of guy want in order to stay in the game? A self-styled semi-pro is usually craving to be recognized as a knowledgeable player. Though this guy was a horrible player, all we needed to do to let him maintain his view of himself was to agree with him when he lamented over the bad play of the loose aggressive players when they showed down a start hand that he would never play. You would also have to nod approvingly to the poker lessons he gave at the table every time and then. And you would have to acknowledge that you got very lucky every time you drew out on him, while not commenting when he did the same to you. Finally, you had to respect the fact that this was a man of experience who probably has made more money as a lawyer than you will ever make as a poker player. For that reason alone it seems a little childish to get cocky and start to brag about your own skills.

The General

When you play the biggest game in the house, you get to play the wealthiest players in the house, regardless of the size of the game. I've been playing against an NBA star, the owner of a major software company, and numerous doctors, lawyers and all kinds of businessmen to name a few. Though the stakes of the game might be high for me, it is a fact that most of these guys don't have a bankroll. They have an expense account several times the size of my bankroll. So when these guys come to play they come to get entertained. As they don't need the money, they play first and foremost for the challenge. In his recent book Barry Greenstein tells a story about a businessman calling a card room asking for a high stakes game. When the floor person tells him that they have a really soft game going, he says he's not interested. He wanted to play against the best players in the world -. Nothing less would do.

Now what does this type of guy want in order for him to stay in the game? First off - don't be greedy and don't argue over money. Say there is a time pot and this guy sits out when the time pots are won. Normally you would buy him out of the time pot and let him pay individually. However, if I am the guy putting up the time I will never ask him for the money. I am not going to argue over seven bucks with a guy who tips the dealer 10 bucks a pot. For a guy to whom money is not an issue to feel comfortable, he must feel that everybody has the same kind of relationship to money. If you force him to think about money he is not enjoying himself anymore but will be turning into a "business mode" and will start to play more seriously. If he gets berated for how he plays on top of this, chances are that he will leave. Furthermore, you should acknowledge the fact that this guy is used to giving orders not taking them. Therefore, there should be no table captain giving any orders that are implicitly acknowledged by him. Finally, you should realize that this guy expects you to play as good as you can against him. He usually won't mind if you show him how you outplayed him. Usually he will find this amusing, as long as you don't make him look like a jerk. The more you can demonstrate to him that you are a serious challenge, the more hooked on beating you he will be. This is great for you. Usually the sheer fact that he doesn't need the money will make him a little softer than most, and you want him to play more against you than against everybody else. If you treat him right, you can get it this way. This is also the kind of guy you should get up from your seat and shake hands with when he decides to leave. Let him know that this is an honorable competition, and that you respect the fight he put up, and he will enjoy playing you again.

The Party Animal

Some times a guy will sit down and immediately start to splash chips around the table. I have written on how to play against this fellow elsewhere. But when you encounter this guy, you should realize that this guy is not playing to win either. He is playing to demonstrate that he is a big guy who doesn't have to care about money. Usually people who like to show off their wealth in this way are people who are not used to being wealthy. They have made a lot of money fast, for instance through a stock windfall or by playing baccarat, and now they are here in a poker game to show off.

What does this type of guy want in order for him to stay in the game? The first thing you should realize is that this guy will leave the moment he is made to look like a jerk for splashing chips. He doesn't care about the poker game, but wants respect for having all this money. And to facilitate this you should go out of your way to give him a little loose action, as long as you keep it within moderation. Straddling and blind calling a straddle only cost you 1 big bet, which is cheap when you know that this guy will raise you back every single time when you hit a good hand. If you can show down a few bad starters too, so much the better. You want him to know that you respect his action and you too are gambling more than you are playing (which is an illusion that it is easy to portray without much cost). You also want to laugh a lot. We're having fun here, right?

Afterthought

The main point of this article is to demonstrate how important it is to develop enough self-confidence that you don't need to seek approval in your surroundings. It seems to me that players with an ego problem are slaves to their emotions and constantly have to confront their surroundings in search of acceptance. Most people look for acceptance. And this can be exploited. Personally, I have no problem in apologizing even when I know that I'm right and he's wrong. Because I know who I am and have a rock solid confidence in myself, so I know that I am not giving up anything for myself by giving other people what they want. While this is more a skill of life than one of poker, it most certainly has its value at the poker table also.

Thanks to Leigh Lightfoot-Martin for proof reading this article.

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