Beware of First Impressions

Successful poker players are constantly looking for information, but because information is often incomplete, first impressions can be misleading. Sometimes things are just what they seem, and sometimes they're not at all. It's the same with people. I was contemplating this the other day when an incident occurred that had nothing to do with poker. There was a player at the table whom I'd never seen before; he was well-groomed, well-mannered, and attired in an expensive suit. Everything about his appearance and bearing suggested that he was a gentleman - until he became angry over a bad beat, at which point he bared his teeth and vented his wrath at the first available target, a passing porter whom he accused of taking his drink. She's a very nice woman, and it should go without saying that even if she had taken it, which she hadn't, she certainly didn't deserve to be called "a little monkey." When I told him as much, the fellow stuck to his (pop)guns - even after it came out that the drink had been mistakenly picked up by another player. He then proceeded to "explain" that there was no point in apologizing to a menial worker who probably didn't understand English anyway.

It just so happens that English is only one of six languages that this porter speaks fluently. This "menial worker" only recently arrived in our country and, while waiting for a position more suited to her talents, took the first job she could get to support herself and her kids. That's five more languages than I speak, and five and a half more than the well-dressed bigot, who apparently remains so confused about English nouns that he can't tell the difference between a monkey and a lady. But it's not this rude bully, convinced of his own superiority, who interests me here; his role in this little scene is merely that of a foil for the unassuming porter - after all, it's only natural to take more interest in people who are so much more than they seem than in those who are so much less.

Of course, while it's true that first impressions can be deceiving with respect to the people sitting at a poker table (or sitting anywhere else, for that matter), it is even more true regarding the game of poker itself. This brings me to an e-mail I received a while back from a young man named Wade, who asked: "In your honest opinion, is there really any value in reading poker books? Aside from learning the odds of hitting the various drawing hands, aren't the things you need to know best learned by actually playing? For a person of above-average intelligence who wants to be a good player, isn't experience the best teacher?"

Well, Wade, to be sure, there is no substitute for experience. You could spend dozens of hours reading, thinking, visualizing, and planning, yet no amount of abstract preparation will adequately prepare you for casino poker. It's a virtual certainty that the first few times you sit in a game in a public cardroom, many things will play out quite differently from the way you had imagined. And many situations will arise that you hadn't imagined. There will be a number of things that will confuse you. There simply is no such thing as preparing yourself in a way that will preclude this phenomenon - it's an inevitable part of the process. You've got to jump in and get your feet wet.

Having said that, however, let me hasten to add that contrary to the popular adage, in poker, experience is not necessarily the best teacher. In fact, if it's the only teacher, it can be a very dangerous one. Theoretically, it could be the best teacher - if. What's the "if"? It could be the best teacher if at the time you take your first lessons, the cards are running even. But fluctuation and deviation being what they are, that won't necessarily be the way it is. In fact, there's no chance it will be the way it is, for it's mathematically absurd to imagine that with respect to the entire range of situations you need to learn about, the cards will all be running even - simultaneously. The list that reads, "When Event Z happens during Situation Y, you will be an X-to-1 favorite - or dog" is just too long to imagine that in your first few months of playing, you'll be hitting X on the nose in every one of those various scenarios. More plausibly, you'll be running better than that in some spots and worse in others.

But those first impressions you form in the early, formative stages of your poker-playing experience will leave a deep imprint on your sense of perspective, one that may be impossible to overcome later.

Let's say, Wade, that you start off doing some things that you believe to be correct, and it turns out that your instincts about them are right. Suppose, though, that they backfire, as surely they must at times. If, for your personal convenience, such misfortune were to wait to strike until you were already a seasoned player, you would be able to process the information appropriately, but since it's happening to you right out of the gate, "experience" will try to tell you that those things don't work, when in the long run they do. Because of your current inexperience, however, it will be difficult for you to recognize this, and your short-term poor results will prompt you to stray from the very habits you'll need in the long run. Conversely, let's suppose you start off making some common mistakes, but the cards are running so favorably that the deck is letting you get away with them - for the time being. In this case, your initial conclusion will be that you're doing the right things, and this will be reinforced by the fact that the chips are being pushed your way. Then, when statistical reality sets in, you might conclude that the reason things aren't working out is that now you're running bad, when in fact you're now running exactly the way you should be, given the errors you're committing. What can happen next is cruelly ironic. The more rational you are, the more likely it is that you'll refuse to abandon ship, telling yourself that "discipline" requires you to stick with what was working before, that it will work again as soon as things "return to form." The bad news is that they already have - but "experience" is sending you a different message. You're simply reaping negative results from strategies that have negative expectations.

There's another reason to read. Since poker is an intricate blend of luck and skill, with the former in charge of the short term and the latter governing the long, there are some important winning concepts that are not immediately apparent, even to a relatively astute observer, and it can take quite a while for a nonreader to discover them on his own. Why wait? Why stumble in the darkness to find trails that others have already forged and mapped out for you?

So, take my advice and do some reading, Wade, if you're serious about becoming a good player. In the heat of a competitive activity, early experience is nothing but first impressions, and they in turn are often little more than emotional responses masquerading as observations. "Dammit, if I hadn't folded, I would have won that pot," is a classic example. If your education ends there, you'll never come close to reaching your potential.