Be a Sponge

There are many ways to improve your poker game – reading books, talking with successful players, analyzing hands with friends, and so on. There is one other valuable tool you can use to improve your game that I think has been overlooked in general. It isn't as concrete as good fundamental book learnin', but it is definitely something that couldn't hurt.

When I started playing poker back at a private club called Check N' Raise, I didn't know what the odds of hitting a four-flush after the flop were. I didn't know that Q-10 was playable in late position, but not under the gun. I didn't know that I shouldn't call an under-the-gun raise with K-J.

At that point in my life, I never read any poker books that dealt with that kind of thing, and I didn't know anybody who played "great" and was willing to fill me in on that sort of thing.

So, I was left with listening to the table banter for my only source of poker knowledge. Man, was I lucky. I was 17 years old at the time, but I learned some valuable information just listening to what my opponents had to say. Little did I know, but there was some world-class poker talent playing at that club. It's where I met Rob Gingras, Howie Goldfarb, and "Stubsy."

Rob, of course, I've mentioned over and over in past columns, but Howie and Stubbs are players you may not have heard of. Howie is a successful businessman who finished second to Dan Harrington in the championship event at the World Series of Poker. Stubsy was a successful pro poker player for most of his life, and eventually parlayed that success into an outstanding stock portfolio. He now plays high-limit poker just for kicks. Both are well-off, happy people.

Anyway, back to the point. I was a scrawny 17-year-old kid, playing in games I didn't belong in whatsoever. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but that would soon change, thanks to the table banter I would absorb.

Actually, most of the fundamentals I absorbed weren't from the players I just mentioned. They were too smart to give away that kind of information. It was usually the guys who tried to prove how much they knew about poker who actually wised me up. "There was only $40 in the pot and you called $40 to hit a flush? You were more than a 2-1 dog; that was a bad call." Well, thank you, sir. Now that I know that, I won't make that same mistake twice. Moron!

Of course, I probably heard some banter that was inaccurate, but that didn't mean I didn't learn anything from it. More important than that, though, was the "good" information I received from the winning players who felt they needed to prove their superiority.

Eventually, I checked out some books and confirmed some numbers for myself.

Still, though, I wanted to know what the likes of Stubsy, Gingras, and Goldfarb knew that they wouldn't share. The others seemed to know everything about poker, but they weren't in the same class.

So, I watched. I watched, and watched, and watched until I felt like I was Howie. I watched how loosely he appeared to splash his chips around, understanding later that they were all calculated risks rather than reckless abandon. I wanted to be inside his head, and really understand why he would show his hand, why he would show a bluff, why he would raise with a particular hand, and what he was trying to accomplish.

Once I finally answered those questions to my satisfaction, it was time to move on to the next player. I spent weeks studying Howie, and I would spend months studying Stubsy and Gingras.

I'd later learn how effective brute aggressiveness is from Gingras, and how important finesse and confusion are from Stubsy. Each player had strengths that I desired – Howie "the goofball," Gingras "the solid, scary guy," and Stubsy "the chameleon."

All of those lessons helped me to shape my game to be what it is today, and they are lessons I could never learn from a book. There are so many intangibles to playing great poker that are impossible to illustrate in a book.

I've learned more from watching successful players and trying to understand what makes them successful than I could from any book.

The next time you play, watch the winners. Try to understand what makes them consistent winners.

I used to get so involved in watching that when I "studied" an opponent for a week, I subconsciously stacked my chips as he did, and even threw my chips in similar to the way my "subject" did. I'm not saying you need to get that involved with it, it was just something that worked for me. I became somewhat obsessed with "figuring" everyone out.

Of course, these days there is no reason for you to rely on that alone. Learn your fundamentals from the great poker books out there, as well as the great software. If you find a poker mentor, that is ideal. If not, keep your eyes open and your ears peeled while you play. You never know what valuable information will leak out of your opponents' mouths. Just shut your mouth, and be a sponge!