Are You a Gambler - Or Just Weak-Aggressive?

Poker players often classify their opponents in four basic categories: tight-passive, tight-aggressive, loose-passive, and loose-aggressive. Although it's generally agreed that there's more money to be made in combining tightness with aggression than in matching looseness with passivity, the pros and cons of tight versus loose, or passive versus aggressive, often boil down to context and degree.

Tightness indicates selectivity, which is good, but rigid adherence to "textbook" play suggests predictability that can be exploited, which is bad. Looseness may indicate lack of discipline, which is bad, but at the same time, it's hard for a loose player's opponents to put him on a hand, which is good. Stir "loose" in the same cauldron with "aggressive" and one may cook up a powerful concoction that's toxic to opponents, which is very good … until its unstable nature causes it to blow up in one's face, which is very bad.

In a similar vein, aggression is generally regarded as superior to passivity, although there are plenty of instances in which extracting extra bets is better accomplished by exploiting an opponent's aggressive tendencies than in exercising one's own. And, of course, aggression is better utilized in some games, at some stakes, and against some lineups, than others.

Nobody ever disses an opponent whose wretched rags have just cracked his pocket aces with the insult: "You, sir, are a loose-passive fool." The words are too clinical to pack the desired punch. Despite their textbook tone, however, terms like loose-passive and tight-aggressive are pretty straightforward and, as such, difficult to evade. Oh, some tight-passive types may kid themselves that they're really tight-aggressive, but a loose-passive player would have to be in serious denial to indulge in the same fantasy. Happily, however, there is one classification that enables the looser citizens of poker nation to forever indulge their romantic self-images, and continue their indiscriminate ways. It's one of the most conveniently misunderstood ideas in the poker realm, and it's summed up in the popular phrase: "Hey, it's called gambling."

I mean, come on – tight? Where's the romance in that? A tight player's a rock, a nit, a piker; a penny-pinching muckworm who won't pull the trigger unless the target's two feet in front of him. He's tighter than three coats of house paint; give him enough time and he'll rub the buffalo off a nickel. Sure, he may drag a tiny pot every week or two, but he'll never get the girl.

But the man willing to gamble, to take a chance, to roll the dice – now there's a fellow who cuts a romantic figure! Someone willing to look doom in the face and laugh, why, that's a force to be reckoned with; lionhearted, a maverick, a man's ideal and a woman's fantasy – martini shaken, if you please, not stirred.

It's somewhat ironic that many of poker's first romantic figures – the riverboat gamblers of the 19th century – were notorious not so much for their willingness to buck the odds, but for their shady shenanigans to engineer them in their favor. Likewise, many of the outrageous high-stakes proposition bets of more recent gambling lore were hardly the 50-50 propositions they advertised themselves to be, but schemes hatched in advance whose chief ingenuities lay in disguising their rigged nature. And yet, both groups enjoy romantic status, not as detail-oriented edge-seekers, but as gamblers.

So, what does it really mean to be "willing to gamble"? Once upon a time, it was a phrase used to distinguish between those who bet only when they have an edge, and the more adventurous types willing to bet without one. A rambling gambling man is one who'll accept a proposition that favors neither party: which cube of sugar the fly will land on, or which raindrop will first reach the bottom of the window. Such coin flips, or their poker equivalents, hold little interest for the profit-minded card player, an edge-seeker by nature – unless, of course, they serve to create a desired image, liven up a dead game, push an opponent's buttons, or some other big-picture consideration that contributes to creating … edge.

What "having some gamble" does not mean is hand-delivering edge to your opponent(s) on a silver platter. Playing bad cards, ignoring pot odds, and taking the worst of it is not gambling – it's charity. But wait a minute, some may say, isn't bucking the odds the essence of a real gamble? In fact, it's the opposite, for the chief characteristic of a true gamble, like the 50-50 propositions mentioned above, is uncertainty. And it's not just in the short term, for betting on flies and sugar cubes will never become predictable unless you rig the game. A coin flip is, and always will be, a gamble precisely because its outcome is uncertain. Bucking the odds, on the other hand, isn't gambling at all, for there isn't an ounce of uncertainty as to the end result for those who engage in its regular practice; they will lose! And yet for many players, the second idea has replaced the first as "gambling's" definition.

The appeal of such interpretation is obvious, for by cloaking himself in the mantle of the "gambler," the loose, indiscriminate player gets to bestow upon himself an image of danger and toughness not associated with rocks and nits. Unhappily (for him), combine his weak tendencies – affinity for poor starting cards, ego-driven decisions, inability to bail when beaten, to name just a few – with the ill-conceived "style-point raises" and "hard, tough play" necessary to fit his romantic self-image, and what you've got is someone who's not so much a gambler as he is a WAG – weak-aggressive. If the term seems oxymoronic, I respectfully submit that weak decisions times aggressive play equals particularly weak results, and it's the results that matter.

Although most WAGS are impatient and ego-driven, there's a new breed whose style owes chiefly to ignorance – those poor souls who try to apply the dramatic, spectacular play of the short-field, high-stakes, no-limit situations they see on TV to small-stakes, full-table limit games in which the spoils usually go to those who make the soundest decisions. It's an understandable trap for a neophyte because, well, the players on TV are the best in the world, aren't they? Alas, while his imitative moves may seem, on the surface, to mirror those of the professional, the difference is that even when they fail, the professional's decisions are calculated, while the WAG's moves, even when they succeed, are often born of boredom, ego, or tilt.

In the end, courage and "heart" are invaluable traits, but being willing to lose it all is not the same thing as playing into an opponent's hands so as to do just that. Confusing loose, sloppy play with "showing some gamble" may fatten the self-image, but it thins the wallet, and can eventually serve as the ultimate blank check for rationalizing any and all leaks.