Woodentops

Well, here I am back in Managua, Nicaragua, a place of which it’s said that, “You’re never more than a ten-minute walk in the wrong direction from dead.” On past visits here, I frequently braved a ten-minute walk (not the wrong one, one hopes) from my flat to the Aces Poker Club, a little homegrown hole in the wall where I could while away a steamy evening wagering literally hundreds of cordobas (literally ones of dollars) at a time. It was with some anticipation that I looked forward to resuming my acquaintance with the club, for never have I seen a playing population so thoroughly shot through with woodentops – players, that is, “oak from the neck up.” Alas, alackaday, in just the nine months since I was here last, the Aces Poker Club has sunk beneath the waves of global economic meltdown. Maybe the club manager couldn’t make the rent. Maybe the players’ bankrolls are all languishing in Full Tilt limbo. Whatever the reason, when I dropped by the club last night, I found that it had been replaced with a hair salon, and as anyone who knows me knows, for this baldo-American, a hair salon is about as useful to me as…uh…as my Full Tilt password.

(Reminds me of a joke: “The screen door on this submarine is about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.”)

So here I am in Managua, managing my disappointment. I can’t play live and I can’t play online. But I can console myself with fantasies and daydreams of woodentops of yore, and I can content myself to know that there are many such enthusiasts waiting for me at the poker tables of my home town, just as soon as I make it back. I can recount to myself my recipe for the care and feeding of the wild or domestic woodentop: 1) find them. 2) nurture them. 3) exploit them.

Finding woodentops is easy. You already know them when you see them. Players who will defend any blind are often woodentops. Those who draw against the odds are woodentops. Out-of-position optimists are woodentops. Loose-passive players – aw hell, I don’t have to draw you a map. You face these players every day.

Nurturing them, though, that’s a different story. As you know, it’s frightfully important not to frighten the woodentops off. But even if you know better than to annoy or alienate weak players, other weak players don’t necessarily recognize the importance of this. Thus you’ll frequently find yourself in a situation where you have two juicy woodentops at the same table. One is a clueless woodentop, happily calling along with slim odds, and occasionally sucking out. The other, though, is an angry woodentop who gets all bent out of shape when the aforementioned clueless woodentop makes the aforementioned suck-out.

What happens next is fairly predictable: The angry woodentop castigates the clueless one for his clueless play. The clueless one starts to feel victimized, self-conscious and bad. He thinks about leaving the game. In this circumstance, you must step in! You must neutralize the angry one’s attacks before the unthinkable happens and the clueless one takes off, taking all that vulnerable, clueless money with him. You must create harmony and fellow-feeling at the table. Keep the woodentops happy. That’s your job.

Why yours? Because you may be the only one who can do it. You may be the only player at the table with enough self-awareness to guide your actions by what’s good for the game (by which, of course, we mean what’s good for your profit). The angry woodentop is defending his ego by belittling the clueless woodentop, who’s just chasing the buzz he came to chase by playing every hand. Remember, woodentops are oak from the neck up. By their very nature, they can’t think straight. You do their thinking for them. Defuse the anger of the angry ones; encourage the vapidity of the vapid ones; buy drinks for the drunk ones. Manage the woodentops, nurture them, because their egregious mistakes put money in your pocket.

At the same time, you need to exploit their weaknesses in a direct and forthright manner. If you know, for instance, that a woodentop on your right has no calling requirements whatsoever, you really have no excuse not to raise with every better-than-average hand you have. When you have the best of it, make the most of it. And don’t fret if you get caught bluffing once or twice; this will only keep the woodentops coming back for more.

You may worry that your own aggressiveness will alienate the woodentops and make them go away. Yes, this is a danger – so you need to lubricate your raises with joviality and good spirit. Let the woodentops think that you’re every bit as out-of-control and devil-may-care as they are. Teach them that your raises are meaningless and not to be feared. This will reinforce their happy tendency to call far too much with far too little.

Okay, then, here’s how the whole package fits together: You’re sitting in a game full of woodentops. On your left is an angry one and on your right a clueless one. The clueless one sticks around with rags and steals a pot from the angry one. The angry one, naturally, directs invective against the clueless one. Here’s where you jump in. Note that everyone has their own philosophy of poker, and everyone has a right to play according to their own clever strategy. Underscore this point by drawing attention to your own random, chaotic play. Then drive home the point by raising once with absolute trash and making sure that the angry player gets to see your cards. Now he will identify you as clueless too. This will deflect his attention and his ire away from the vulnerable clueless woodentop and onto you, a player with sufficient awareness and ego structure to withstand the onslaught of the angry player’s bad attitude. You’ve made everybody happy by giving the angry player a target to attack and by giving the clueless player an ally at the table. Everybody loves you and the party (or, as the case may be, the rout) is on.

One other crucial observation about woodentops: Don’t be one. Remember, you’re playing against the woodentops, and among them, but not with them or like them. If you keep this crucial distinction in mind, you can use the woodentops’ incredible woodentoppery to top off your bankroll every time.

Meanwhile, back in Managua, the best I can hope for is a poker broadcast from this year’s World Series of Poker. Of course it’s in Spanish. Ah, well. Not a perfect world. Still not a perfect world. ♠

John Vorhaus is author of the Killer Poker series and co-author of Decide to Play Great Poker, plus many mystery novels including World Series of Murder, available exclusively on Kindle. He tweets for no apparent reason @TrueFactBarFact and secretly controls the world from johnvorhaus.com.