Mike Caro is Right!

What is my opponent's perception of my play, and what does he think I'll do?

Mike Caro, who is known far and wide as the "Mad Genius of Poker," wrote an article about six months ago that struck me like a bolt of lightning. The fact that Mike wrote an article about poker is not news in and of itself. He writes for a variety of publications, and for years was the top columnist for Card Player. It isn't even the subject of the article he wrote – namely, math – that's newsworthy. Mike has always been a math whiz, as well as a superb poker psychologist. He helped do the math for Doyle Brunson's original Super/System, and has often spoken of the importance of knowing math to solve some of the more complex poker problems. It's what he said about the role of math in poker that makes Caro's article so newsworthy. In fact, it borders on heresy! And I could not agree more with him.



Here is a direct quote from the Mad Genius himself: "In poker, math is meaningless and psychology is paramount. There, I finally said it … and I'm glad. Each time I got close to uttering those words, I lost courage and choked back the sounds. Out came silence, only silence. What made me afraid to speak the truth? Oh, I guess it was mainly a couple poker people to whom mathematics is sacred. If you dare define the real power of psychology in poker or point out the limited role of mathematics in the heat of poker combat, they lash out publicly, insanely, desperately. They hate to hear it."



These are the words that came out of his mouth. He had the courage to say what I have been thinking and saying privately for a long time. Some math is necessary – in fact, you can memorize most of what you need to know – but math all by itself will not make you a great player or even a winning player. You need to get inside the heads of your opponents. Understanding how they think, and how you think they perceive you, is far more important than the odds of this or that occurring. The people element of poker, especially in no-limit hold'em, overshadows the importance of its purely theoretical aspects, including math.



In the book I co-authored with T.J. Cloutier, Championship No Limit & Pot Limit Hold'em, we have this to say about pot odds: "In tournament poker, pot odds isn't always the most important factor in deciding whether to play a hand. It goes out the window a lot of times because you can't go back to your pocket for more chips – and that should be a determining factor in each and every hand. You should take the math into consideration, yes, but if that's all you're thinking about – and you forget about the fact that if you don't win the pot, you either will be out of the tournament or will take a big hit to your stack – you are putting too much importance on it. Your thinking in critical tournament situations has to be different from how you think in a side game."



Some of the top players of yesteryear, the poker stars of their generation, could barely add and subtract. So how did they prosper and win against the toughest competition of their day? With psychology and the ability to understand people.



Players who rely on math and the logic they have mastered, but have no real understanding of the people element, just don't get "it." The "it" of poker is that it's a social game. Even when you are playing online, you must interact with other people. If you don't have adequate people skills, you are limiting yourself and your ability to succeed. There are no truly great players who have mastered only math and logic. There are lots of top players who have lesser math skills coupled with superior people skills. The greatest players – like Barry Greenstein, for example – can do the math and play the player seamlessly, effortlessly. The ability to analyze situations in the heat of battle is not easy to do. The genuinely great players do it all the time.



Now, I admit, I "borrowed" a lot of this material from Caro. But I did so because I agree with it and believe that it's time to wake a few players up. The Mad Genius should not be a lone voice crying in the wilderness. Having said that, I am ending this column with one final quote from Caro: "And that leads us back to the beginning. At poker, math is meaningless and psychology is paramount. Maybe it doesn't sound quite as strange now."



If you and I play our cards right and read our opponents' minds correctly, I'm sure we'll meet one day soon in the winner's circle.



Tom McEvoy is a representative of PokerStars. He is also the voice of ProPlay, a new and innovative way to learn winning poker strategy. Find out more at www.ProPlayLive.com/tommcevoys.