Mind Over Poker

I’m writing this column right after the AFC Championship game between the New York Jets and the Indianapolis Colts. Leading up to the game, there was a lot of press about Super Bowl III, when the New York Jets of the upstart American Football League pulled off one of professional football’s biggest upsets with their victory over the then Baltimore Colts. I came across the following Joe Namath quote: “If you aren’t going all the way, why go at all?”

I find that phrases like that really don’t have a whole lot of relevance to football. There are, of course, those coaches who play not to lose instead of playing to win. They are paralyzed by fear and conservatism, which keeps them from truly going for the win. However, I think the quote has a lot of applicability to poker — especially no-limit hold’em tournaments. I see way too many players all too willing to just try to survive as long as they can. Or, they are content to just make the money instead of wanting to go on a deep run. As everyone knows, the big money in tournaments is found at the very end. So, to borrow from Joe Namath, “Why enter a tournament if you’re not going to play to win it all?”

Seriously, why? Think about that simple question. Are you totally committed to going all the way? If you’re not, you are wasting your buy-in. Don’t look at this as a frivolous question. Even if you think you are always playing to win it all, take another deep, fresh look inside yourself. Are you doing everything you can? How often do you play? Do you ever operate out of fear? How do you feel when you are eliminated from a tournament? Do you dwell on what you could have done differently to survive?

Think about your play. How often do you accumulate a big stack? When you are all in your first time, are you usually covered by your opponent? If you typically have trouble accumulating chips, you aren’t playing to win. You are playing only to survive.

Do you usually fire one bullet, two, or three when you are going after a pot? As Namath would say, “If you’re not going all the way, why go at all?” Now, there may be reasons to put on the brakes, but if you typically fire only one bullet, you’re wasting chips. Why go at all? With today’s big fields in even daily tournaments, winning it all may seem akin to hitting the daily number. However, I’ll leave you with this: In most tournaments, only a fraction of those playing are truly playing to win. If they are your true competition, the numbers are not nearly as daunting. The next time that you pay your buy-in, remind yourself that you are playing to win it all.