Play Right Now

If you play enough poker, you’re bound to encounter a lot of adverse outcomes; bad luck, they call it. Bad luck’s not so bad by itself, but we all know what bad luck can cause: tilt, a cascade of bad decisions. A poker player’s life is a never-ending struggle to find and implement effective countermeasures against tilt. Here’s one that I’ve been using lately: Instead of thinking about how stinking unlucky I am, I look for something else to do with my mind, and the thing I choose to do is … choose.
Poker choices are really pretty simple: call, raise, fold, and that’s about it. If we focused on just choice, we’d be fine, but we don’t focus on just choice. When, for example, we get a string of unplayable hands, we stop thinking in terms of “What’s the right way to solve these puzzles?” and start thinking in terms of “Why is the universe so unfair?” We feel deprived of the chance to participate — so deprived that we forget the other chance that we’ve got, the chance to choose, and choose correctly; the chance to make a quality decision. This chance is afforded to us on every hand that we’re dealt.
If you’re dealt 2-2 in early position in a full ring game, the right decision is probably to fold.
If you’re dealt 2-2 on the button in a full ring game with lots of loose-passive callers in front of you and loose-passive blinds behind you, the right decision is probably to call.
If you’re dealt 2-2 on the button in a full ring game with no openers in front of you and tight blinds behind you, the right decision is probably to raise.
Funny thing, huh? Those humble deuces give you the same opportunity every time that you see them — the opportunity to make the best possible decision based on the best available information. It’s the same opportunity afforded by A-A, by 9-8 suited, by K-J offsuit, by 7-2 offsuit — in fact, by every single hand that you’re ever dealt.
Can you seize this wonderful opportunity? Can you free yourself from the awful crippling sense of resentment and entitlement that may now be hobbling your play? Let’s find out.
You’re playing in a shorthanded game online and pick up 9-5 offsuit on the button. The other players have been pushing you around up until now, but this time, everyone has folded except the blinds, so you figure that this is your opportunity to do a little pushing back. You know that 9-5 is a garbage hand, but that’s not the issue right now. You have position and circumstance on your side, and you know that you’re right to raise.
So, you raise — and face a reraise from one of the blinds.
Oops! What’s up with that?
The guy is attacking you, right? He’s punishing you, right? He’s taking the blind that you deserved to steal and is stealing it right back, right? How dare he? Who does he think he is? A sense of self-righteousness wells up inside you as you raise him back — take that! — and raise him again on a ragged flop and a ragged turn. By the time that he bets out on the river, it begins to dawn on you that maybe he’s not just screwing with you; maybe he has a real hand, so you just call — and lose to pocket aces. Sad you — sad, sad you.
Or, let’s say that you’re the one with the aces, those beautiful pocket rockets that you’ve waited so patiently (or maybe not so patiently) for. You raise, of course, yet somehow manage to attract three callers. Now, the flop comes 8-7-6 in suit, and all hell breaks loose. The action goes bet, raise, reraise, and now it’s on you. How good are your aces now? Good for nothing, right? Not exactly. They’re still good for a good decision, a handsome laydown.
That’s the chance that you have, the one that you always have — the chance to make a good decision, without expectation, without resentment, and without ego. Can you do that? If you can’t (or if it just doesn’t come naturally), take a whack at my mantra; all the cool kids are using it:
Every hand is like every hand.
Every hand is a chance.
A chance to make a decision.
A chance to make the right one.
Call, fold, raise, reraise.
Without expectation.
Without entitlement.
Every hand is a chance.
A chance to play right now.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Nobody beats us nearly as badly as we beat ourselves, and we beat ourselves the same way over and over and over again:
• By making loose calls that we know we shouldn’t make.
• By getting into raising wars because our ego is engaged.
• By failing to bet because of fear.
• By letting our need for action overwhelm our desire to win.
• By failing to update our choices in light of new and persuasive information.
• By filtering new and persuasive information through the prism of hope rather than the prism of fact.
• By letting self-indulgence get its atavistic little meat hooks into us.
• By playing should poker instead of is poker.
• By caring about outcomes and carrying feelings of entitlement.
• By making wrong choices when the right choices are staring us in the face.
Listen very carefully now, because here comes the shocking truth: There are no good hands. There are no bad hands. There are only the hands that we have. We don’t deserve pocket aces. We don’t deserve 7-2 offsuit. We don’t deserve anything other than exactly the two cards that we’re dealt, and exactly the attendant opportunity to make the right choice. If it’s call, call. If it’s raise, raise. If it’s fold, fold. Relax. Be patient. Detach yourself from the outcome. Another hand and another critical decision will come along in just a moment. Take pride in getting your choices right. Take great pride in seizing the opportunity to play right now. If you do that one thing, you’ll probably be a net winning player for as long as you play the game.
And if you don’t do that one thing right, you’ll probably go broke and then decide what to do instead of play poker. So, you see, you get to choose either way. ♠

John Vorhaus is the author of the Killer Poker book series and the poker novel Under the Gun. He resides in cyberspace at radarenterprizes.com. Photo: Gerard Brewer.