Changing Your Thinking

Poker is psychological warfare. What does he have? What does he think I have? What does he think I think he has? What does he think I think he thinks I have? Ad nauseam. Engaging in this kind of combat at the table can be maddening, and even downright exhausting. But it’s absolutely necessary to learn to think in this fashion in order to be a top player, right?

Thankfully, no. Part of what separates the “math guy” style of poker from the more traditional styles is that, at some point in the psychological battle, the math guys will punt. Rather than try to read an opponent’s mind and stay one step ahead of him, the math guy will worry only about what he himself is doing, confident that a solid core strategy will take his opponent’s chips in the long run.

I’m not saying that one style is right and the other is wrong; I’m merely saying that there is an alternative to the psychological mind games.
Let’s look at a specific hand example, and compare the two approaches.

It’s the first hand of the World Series of Poker main event. You have 20,000 in chips, and the blinds are 50-100. You’re one seat to the left of the under-the-gun player, and you look down at two red queens. You open-raise to 250 and everyone folds to the big blind, who makes it 625 total. You decide to just call. The flop comes 9-7-2 with two diamonds. The big blind bets 850. You decide to call again. The turn brings the K. The big blind bets 1,800. With the second-nut-flush draw to go with your pair, you decide to call again. The river brings the 4, giving you the second-nut flush, but then something strange happens. Your opponent moves all in for 16,725 into the 6,600 pot. What do you do?

A traditional psychology-based player might approach this situation by first looking for all of the tells he can find. Does my opponent look nervous? Is he looking me in the eye? Does he look like a maniac? Did I hear him talking about how excited he was to play in his first WSOP main event? The physical tells alone may provide enough information for the psychology-based player to make his decision. If not, he might move on to thinking about the strategies of a typical tournament player in order to project them onto his opponent. Why would he move all in if he wanted me to call? Or, maybe he wants me to think he’d never move all in with a big hand. Or, maybe he wants me to think that he’s trying to get me to think he’d never move all in with a big hand. Ad nauseam. Once our traditional player settles on the most likely explanation for his opponent’s action, he makes his decision.

The math-guy style isn’t concerned with tells. On important decisions, the math guy only wants to ensure that he’s making a sound strategic choice. The first thing he’ll do is consider the price. He has to call 16,725 to win 23,325. Some readers may assume that the math guy would then say, “OK, I’m getting a little less than 3-2, so I need to win around 42 percent of the time to show a profit,” and then sit there and think about how often he wins the showdown. But that actually falls back on making a read and trying to figure out what an opponent has. That’s not the math guy’s game — that’s the psychology guy’s game. Instead, the math guy will think to himself, “How do I avoid being exploited here?” Or, in other words, “How do I prevent my opponent from being profitable by betting his entire range here?”

That last question is a fairly difficult one to answer, but here’s how the math guy might try. First, he’ll say, “Well, my opponent’s bluff would have to succeed a little more than two times in three for it to be successful here, so how can I prevent that?” How, indeed? The answer to that question lies in our own range! To figure out our best play on the river, we first have to know the universe of hands with which we might’ve reached this point. So, what hands might we have? A-A or K-K? Maybe, although some of the time we will have four-bet preflop, and some other percentage of the time we will have raised on the flop. A Q? Another solid candidate, although some of the time we will have raised the turn. Q-Q to 10-10? We’d probably be gone by this point without the diamond, though we’ll probably have those pairs with the diamond. A-K offsuit with the A? Sure, if we chose to float the flop with that hand. Once we figure out the hands with which we actually could’ve reached the river, we’ll know if calling with our bluff-catchers a third of the time necessitates calling with the Q.

I know what you may be thinking: “Matt, this is just as complicated as psychological warfare! Maybe even more so!” You’re right, but there is one key difference. You can think about hundreds or even thousands of situations before you get to the table, and predetermine a lot of your strategy. Once you reach the table, all of the thinking you’ve done about so many situations will probably help you to make your decisions quickly. You won’t have to tire yourself out trying to read your opponent’s mind.

Notice that I didn’t reach a sweeping conclusion about what to do with your two queens on the river in this hypothetical hand. The traditional guys would say, “It depends on your read.” The math guys would say, “It depends on what your strategy was for all of the previous streets.” Both are right. The final point I want to make is that there is no right answer about what style to play. I use aspects of both. I would suggest that if you’re a traditional player, try thinking like a math guy and see how it works for you. And yes, conversely, if you’re a math guy, try thinking like the psychology-based players do.

Broadening your poker abilities and adding weapons to your poker arsenal can never be a bad thing, no matter who you are.

Matt Matros is the author of The Making of a Poker Player, which is available online at www.CardPlayer.com. He is also a featured coach for stoxpoker.com.