Poker is most often played as a gambling game. As such, an important element of success in poker is having gambling skills - useful assets in any form of gambling - as well as skill in the particular form of gambling being played. There are a lot more players who are knowledgable about poker than are actually successful at it, and being a good gambler is the most essential ingredient of the success source. What does being a good gambler entail? I will discuss this subject here, listing some of the traits of a good gambler.
Objectivity: Gambling is about having an overlay, meaning the odds are in your favor. The skillful gambler has a realistic appraisal of his own assets in the contest in question. Only in this way can he consistently compete as the favorite to make money. There are usually 10 or fewer people at a poker table. Unless you are one of the top 10 players in the world in the form of poker being played, you might be the worst player at the table. To know where you stand, you also must be objective about your opponents. Particularly, you must not underestimate those players who have a markedly different style of play than your own. There are many different styles of play among successful players.
Lack of Egotism: Even if you have an edge, it is still possible that you are in a game in which you do not belong. Players often have a self-image that is based on the stakes for which they play. "I am a $30-$60 player" might be their self-image, and cause them to roost for an entire session in a game that is unattractive, all the while with some excellent $15-$30 and $20-$40 action going on elsewhere in the cardroom.
Ability to Size Up a Gambling Situation: The most common error in sizing up a game is judging it only by how much money is going into the pots. The amount in the pot is only part of the story. If I am playing in a limit hold'em game and several of the players are raising so often that most of the pots are three-bet or capped, I do not care for the game. Put it this way: If everybody anted $5 and all you could bet was $1, anyone would recognize this as a poor gambling situation. The loosies always would be getting a good price on their long shots, the solid players would be putting in too much money with the hope of hitting the flop, and the premium starting hands would constantly be getting cracked. This, my friend, is not a good type of poker game, whether the betting structure is at fault, or a group of hyperaggressive players are cooperating to make a skewed setup in which they have a reasonable chance to win. However, if that money is going into the pot later in the hand, whereby you can see the flop cheaply and make a bundle after you hit, this is an attractive poker game. So, to evaluate a game's attractiveness, don't look at just the size of the pots, but also why they are so large. A good gambler knows what to look for in evaluating gambling situations.
Aggressiveness: I play many games besides poker, and some quite well. I do not know a single game in which the best players fail to show far more aggression than the run-of-the-mill player. You need your opponents to make mistakes, so you must take some chances to put pressure on them. In backgammon, you should not need a near-lock to turn the cube and double the stakes. In chess, you must make threats that deter your opponent from pursuing his own plans. In bridge, you often push the bidding to a high level quickly in order to break the opposition pair's ability to properly communicate with each other. Fortune favors the bold. In poker, you need to know when to overbet your hand, or even stone-cold bluff, to get an opponent to do the wrong thing. All of the good players win a lot of pots that they are not entitled to win on just the cards. (However, aggression is one tool of the trade, and like other tools, it can be overworked.)
This is a good time for me to make a point about pressuring opponents. I have seen many poker writers say that as long as you bet enough to lay the opponent a bad price for calling, you have done the right thing. This is not how I play poker. If you bet only enough to give your opponent a little bit the worst of it if he calls, how can he make a big mistake? He can't; he can make only small ones, mathematically speaking. So, bet enough so that he is getting a really bad price if you have what you are supposed to have. Give your opponent a chance to make a serious error. If he sees what you are doing and changes from a caller into a folder, you can then take advantage by stealing some pots from him. An opponent laying down a winner is also making a big mistake.
Discipline: I believe that this is the most important of all the gambling skills. It is especially needed when things are not going well and you are losing. We all would rather play than not play. That applies to every game; it's human nature. Yet, we often must choose not to play in order to gamble successfully. This applies to sitting in a game, and it applies to folding rather than continuing to play in a hand. There are a lot more bad gambling situations than good ones. If you are willing to take the worst of it, you can get all the action you want. If you want the best of it, you must have the patience to wait for favorable situations.
Frankly, a large number of the top poker players are intemperate people in some other areas of their lives. We eat too much food, or drink too much alcohol, or do too much sports betting. My own deficient area for lack of control is behind the wheel; I drive too fast. However, we have learned to have self-control at the poker table. Many of us have had to suffer for a long time to get the needed self-control to play good poker. For most of us, discipline is not an innate trait; it is an acquired one. My point is, you do not need to have extra-special qualities or personalities to learn the art of self-control in poker. But, learn it you must, to become a good gambler.
Bob Ciaffone has authored four poker books, Middle Limit Holdem Poker, Pot-limit and No-limit Poker, Improve Your Poker, and Omaha Poker. All can be ordered from Card Player. Ciaffone is available for poker lessons: e-mail [email protected]. His website is www.pokercoach.us, where you can get his rulebook, Robert's Rules of Poker, for free. Bob also has a website called www.fairlawsonpoker.org.
