Let’s Take Some of the Flaws Out of Your Game

Hi. Come on in. Enjoy some of my justly famous split pea soup while we speak of our beloved game of poker. Pass the crackers, please.

I know, you don’t think you have any flaws in your game. It’s all of those other players in the room who don’t know how to play. I often look around a poker room with the realization that every player there thinks that he or she is the best player in the room. (I know that I feel that way.) If that is so, why are we playing here instead of at Bellagio against the big kids? (The big kids at Bellagio scare me.)

To begin with, you play too many hands, and you take them too far. But the fun is in the playing, not the watching. A tourist didn’t fly 2,000 miles to fold — he came to play! He has $500 to play with, and if he loses it, oh well, he had a good time and has some stories to tell about how he played with the “pros” in Las Vegas. (He’ll probably tell of a win or two against some “name” players.) No harm there.

You probably would like to get a piece of that $500, so stop playing so many hands! Out of 169 starting hold’em hands, I’ll bet that you play about 50. But the players who do the winning will play only about 25. And if they don’t catch a major piece of the flop, guess what? They fold. Then they study the other players while they are out of the hand.

How is your “tilt” factor? What ticks you off? For me, it recently was the donkey who put me all in with his pair of sixes against my pair of aces in a $1-$2 no-limit game — and then caught a 6 on the river. (I have since “forgiven” him.) But a hand like that has sent more than one player heading out the door instead of to the cashier’s cage to pick up his winnings.

Do you have control of your game, or is another player controlling you? Do you have a line on the other players in your game, or do you just sit down to have a good time, and if you win, that’s fine, and if you lose — well, you’ll just tell your spouse, “I lost a few dollars, but those donks just got lucky.”
Are you playing when the pot odds are in your favor, or “when it feels right”? Do you even know about pot odds, implied odds, and reverse implied odds? There are books that will explain all of this to you. Or, are you too busy to read poker books — or the good advice here in Card Player?

Are you playing while in a good mood? “Roy’s Rule Number One” states: “Play Happy or Don’t Play.” When I enter a game full of players with long faces, I make it my business to “happy up” that table. Why? Because happy people don’t mind losing as much as unhappy people do. They’re having a good time. Then when they get home, they tell the wife, “Well, I lost a few bucks — but there was a guy there telling jokes, and he got me distracted.” My advice to you is, become the one who distracts the others.

Assuming that you are playing a good game and winning, do you loosen up? Or, if things aren’t going so well, do you loosen up when losing? Don’t loosen up in either instance! Stick with your solid game, what writers like to refer to as your A-game. Poker is a game best played for the long run. As I am fond of saying to my students, “Poker is a marathon, not a sprint.”

If you are a limit player and sometimes go to a no-limit table, do you play the same at each table? If so, that’s incorrect! Example: In a limit game, it is often correct “to call for the size of the pot.” In no-limit, that can cost you your entire stack! You’d rather give up on chasing a small pot than lose your stack trying to win a big pot. (No-limit players love to see a limit player sit down at their table.)

Do you know how many “outs” you have in the hand you are playing, and how to compute the drawing odds of those outs? Or, do you just not bother with all of that drawing odds stuff? After all, you came just to play and have a good time. It might be a good idea for you to be in one of the poker discussion groups around Las Vegas or in the town where you live. Give me a call and I’ll put you on to a couple of discussion groups in Las Vegas. It will be time well spent, and you’ll make some new friends.

And how about position? Do you take that into account when deciding whether to play a hand? Or, is that just another bother (you simply want to play as much as possible)? Some hands play better from the back row than from up front. You should know which hands are which. The winners know, and play accordingly.

What is your image at the poker table? Do you even think about your image? If not, you should, because if you understand your image, you can develop playing strategies to take advantage of it.

That pea soup hit the spot, even on a hot night. Take some home for breakfast, and kill the light on your way out.

Roy West, poker author and teacher, has been giving his successful poker lessons in Las Vegas and on the phone for more than 20 years to locals and tourists. Ladies are welcome. Contact Roy at [email protected], or (800) 548-6177, access code 03, or (702) 873-7574.