A Three-Part Column

This column consists of three parts: a movie review, a rant, and some important advice.

The Review: Michael Moore’s new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, is a humorous semi-documentary that retells the financial collapse and the $700 billion bailout that followed. It is an enjoyable look at a tragedy, if such a thing is possible. In one memorable scene, Moore wraps yellow crime-scene tape around various Wall Street icons. There is no need to rehash the financial disaster. We all are painfully familiar with it. Moore concludes that the evil villain capitalism is responsible, but that the hero democracy will come to the rescue and save us. I strongly disagree with this conclusion. In my mind, capitalism is not only very good, but also much better than the alternatives of socialism or communism. Anyone who doubts this needs to go to the Czech Republic or Hungary and see the wonderful transformation that switching from communism to capitalism has produced. No, I think the villain is democracy, at least as it is currently practiced in the United States.

The Rant: It is hard to imagine that Americans have been stupid enough to continually elect leaders who are corrupt and immoral. Can you believe that they actually gave away $700 billion to a variety of companies run by overpaid, underperforming fat cats without getting either a clear plan of what the companies would do with the proceeds or how they expected to pay them back? But then, I have always agreed with the statement that 99 percent of the politicians give the rest a bad name.

At least I am starting to feel that it is more likely that online poker will be legalized. Why? Not because it is a game of skill, and helps develop a variety of useful abilities and maintain cognitive functioning. Not because it is a popular, enjoyable pursuit. Not because it is the right thing to do. Not because the majority of American citizens feel it is their right to play at home. (Jim McManus has written that it is poker, not baseball, that is the national pastime.) No, they will legalize online poker because the more prosperous websites will contribute to pro-poker politicians. And we will soon see that those candidates who were neutral, or even opposed to legalization, will want to get on the gravy train. If pharmaceuticals, insurance companies, and doctors have managed to donate enough to stall and probably cripple a much needed health-care reform bill, the sites should certainly be able to contribute enough to get poker legalized.

The Advice: My anti-politicians rant has caused me to digress. My point in mentioning Capitalism: A Love Story was to use this film as an example of attributing a disaster to the wrong cause. This is a mistake that poker players frequently make after a big loss. Let me give you an example. A friend and I had been discussing the difficulty of making the correct big laydowns on fourth street and the river. We had just watched an episode of High Stakes Poker in which a flush came on fourth street. Doyle Brunson bet a 10-high flush and Jamie Gold check-raised with a 9-high flush. Doyle correctly read Jamie for having what he thought was the winning hand, and folded. Unfortunately for Doyle, Jamie had misevaluated his hand, and was raising with a loser. My friend then recounted a hand she had played recently, and complained about her failure to make a big laydown. She had been in a $1-$2 no-limit hold’em game in Atlantic City, and held the A J in the big blind, with a stack of around $300. A tight player in early position had raised to $12. Everyone folded, which is somewhat unusual for these small games, and she called. The flop was A 8 4. She checked, he bet $25, and she called.

The J arrived on the turn. Again, she checked. He bet $50. She now raised to $150. He looked sad, sighed, and moved her all in for her last $115 or so. After some thought, she called. He showed a set of aces, so she was dead. She proceeded to berate herself for not saving that bet. I agree that it was probably right to fold, especially based on his table actions, which indicated a big hand. On the other hand, she was getting nearly 3-1 for the call. He might have decided to overplay A-K, especially the A K, since he wasn’t going to fold on the river anyway. Failure to make a big laydown on fourth street wasn’t the problem; the real mistake occurred earlier.

For some reason, players in small-stakes games seem to raise much more proportionally than those in bigger games. Here, the raise was six times the big blind. In a big game, the raise would normally be 2.5 to 3.5 times the big blind. If the blinds had been $100-$200, I would have expected a first raise to $600, not $1,200. If you play in these games, you must tighten up your starting requirements quite a lot. This first raiser is risking $12 to win $3, and is creating a big pot from early position. You also must be more careful about calling raises with speculative hands, like suited connectors, and trouble hands, especially when out of position. The pot is going to get too big, too fast. She made a clear mistake in calling with a classic trouble hand, A-J offsuit. Hands like A-J, A-10, and K-Q are called trouble hands for a reason. In deep-stack poker, they can get you into deep doo-doo.

Making big laydowns on fourth street or the river is more of an art than a science. If Doyle Brunson, the best cash-game no-limit hold’em player for the last 40 years, can make mistakes, you and I can make them, too. And, we will. We’ll call when we should fold, and fold when we should call. Avoiding getting involved with trouble hands, especially for a large opening raise with bad position, takes no particular poker skill except discipline, but it will have a bigger impact on your bottom line than making the occasional great laydown or the heroic bluff-catching call. And, it is a lot easier to do correctly.

Steve “Zee” Zolotow, aka The Bald Eagle, is a successful games player. He currently devotes most of his time to poker. He can be found at many major tournaments and playing on Full Tilt, as one of its pros. When escaping from poker, he hangs out in his bars on Avenue A — Nice Guy Eddie’s at Houston and Doc Holliday’s at 9th Street — in New York City.