Bringing Your 'A' Game

No one's always at his best – not doctors, not athletes, and certainly not poker players. We all have days when we don't feel quite as sharp as we usually do. Even Tiger Woods admitted to playing only his 'B' game a few years ago (in the context of a win, of course). Although poker (much like golf) rewards discipline and concentration, it's nearly impossible to arrange to play only when you're within a stone's throw of your absolute best.

The traditional wisdom is to avoid playing when you're feeling subpar for whatever reason. If you can't play your best, you'll be contributing to players who can. But in truth, circumstances may prevent you from sitting down exactly when you prefer. If you're a morning person, have a day job, or live three hours from the nearest cardroom, you may have good reason to play when you don't have your 'A' game. Fortunately, many of your opponents will be in the same boat, for their own reasons. As long as you can still play with an edge, you're still better off playing than not. Of course, you may find it more difficult to find a good game when you're not at your best.

Most critical when you're not at your peak is a sense of realism about your expectation in a given situation. The games may look just as soft as usual, and they will be. The difference is that you won't be playing as well, so you may need to find a slightly softer game than usual just to maintain your usual expectation. The converse also may hold. It's reasonably common at the middle limits to find games full of players who know how to play poker reasonably well, but just don't happen to be doing so at the moment. All of these players probably think they're good poker players, with good reason – but one solid player on his 'A' game will have the best shot at the money. So, although it's not always possible to plan these things perfectly, if you can arrange to show up with your best game more often than your opponents, you'll tend to have the skill factor in your favor, even if your 'A' game isn't the best at the table.

With online poker, the issue gets a little harder to evaluate. You'll rarely be able to note that a particular opponent is having trouble keeping his eyes open or has been wearing the same clothes for three days. You don't get to see opponents pound the table in exaggerated frustration after taking a routine beat. Although we may suspect that players are no more responsible about sitting down at the table in tip-top shape online than in real cardrooms, it's at least possible that nobody plays online unless he really feels up to it.

In fact, that isn't completely crazy. One (just one) of the reasons people often play when they shouldn't in brick and mortar cardrooms is that they can't control when and where the game is. Prime time for poker, depending on where you live, tends to run from 2 p.m. to about midnight. If you want the best selection of games, that's when you'll play, even if you're feeling a little off. Luckily for me, that's when I tend to be most alert. But when I travel west (for example, to Las Vegas), I'm immediately at a three-hour disadvantage. Unless I make special arrangements (that is, take afternoon naps), everyone else is playing his 11 p.m. game and I'm playing my 2 a.m. game. If I could talk people into playing more morning poker, I'd really clean up. But when I wake up in the morning, most of the games have broken.

Online poker is on a much less rigid schedule. The games go on around-the-clock, and it's common to find yourself at a virtual table with players who at least claim to be in four or five different countries. Although people may still play when they shouldn't, no one has to play during his personal off-peak time just because that's when the games are. You may tend to outlast the other players in your local cardroom, but in online poker, it's like new shifts are being bused in hourly. An East Coast player might play his neighbors until midnight, then West Coasters for a few hours, and at 3 a.m. switch over to play against early-rising Europeans. Although it's unlikely you'll run into these kinds of worst-case scenarios, it underscores the importance of playing only when you have good reason to believe you can bring your 'A' game, especially when you can't tell how tired your opponents may be.

There are other ways in which playing online interacts with your need to play your best. Online poker is incredibly convenient, making it easy to play when conditions aren't quite ideal, but also making it easier in principle to create ideal conditions. With a laptop and wireless networking, you can take the game with you. Some players might see that as an opportunity to do their online playing in more amenable settings. Others might just be thrilled they don't have to miss a few hands to catch the end of the game, take a bathroom break, or mow the lawn.

No one brings his 'A' game all the time, live or online. Instead of thinking of playing subpar poker as a serious error, I tend to think of it as a necessary companion of playing. You can't always be at your best. So, your goal shouldn't be to have perfect timing, but to bring the best game you can, given all the other constraints on when you can play. As long as you avoid sitting down when you're severely subpar, or at least do so less often than your opponents, you should be able to survive a few hours with your 'B' game now and then. If you're lucky, you might even be able to find a table full of players on their 'C' game.