Switching From Online To Brick & Mortor Poker

Part I said that relying on software had made online players neglect four important live game skills:

1. Acquiring information.
2. Retaining it.
3. Retrieving it quickly.
4. Seeing relationships to other information such as drinking.

Part II listed fourteen steps to develop these skills:

1. Understand and work within your limitations.
2. Beware of your biases.
3. Play shorter sessions.
4. Use many information-acquisition techniques.
5. Hesitate and look left.
6. Take good notes.
7. Use checklists.
8. Exploit mutual reinforcement.
9. Constantly look for patterns.
10. Take enough time.
11. Narrow your focus.
12. Practice when you’re not in the pot.
13. Separate information from conclusions.
14. Propose, and then test hypotheses.

Parts II-III discussed the first seven steps. This article will discuss the next four.

Exploit Mutual Reinforcement

These steps overlap and reinforce each other. For example, writing notes to retain information also increases the amount of information you acquire.

Checklists help to retrieve information, but they also remind you to acquire information, improve retention, and help you to see relationships between information.

Constantly Look For Patterns

Since you play so many hands, they become a blur. Clarify the picture by looking for patterns and labeling players. It’s easy to identify the Maniacs and Rocks, but harder to label the less extreme players.

The Psychology of Poker recommended rating players from one to nine on two dimensions, loose-tight and passive-aggressive. A Rock is 1,1, a Maniac 9,9, a Calling Station 9,1, a Stone Killer 1,9, and an average player 5,5. Less extreme players have numbers like 7,3 and 4,8. If I wrote it today, I’d add a third dimension, straightforward-tricky.
Other writers use different systems such as animal names. Any system is helpful if the labels help you to read and adjust to opponents.

Labeling can make you ignore differences between identically-labeled players. For example, some Maniacs are always wild, while some apparent Maniacs play well post-flop. They may win at no limit because they lose many small pots, but win enough big ones. Use labels to select your general approach, but constantly look for cues about when, how, and why this player breaks the pattern.

Whenever you see inconsistencies (such as a Maniac’s playing well post-flop or anyone’s acting out of character) get more information. Let’s say a normally tight-passive player is much looser and more aggressive than usual. Probe for the reason. You could indirectly ask, “John, I was surprised that you raised with king-nine offsuit.” He may say, “I’m stuck two racks and can’t win with good cards!” When you realize he’s on tilt, you can adjust your strategy now and plan to keep track of how much he loses in the future.

Take Enough Time

Even if you take all of these steps, you will still make unnecessary mistakes if you don’t admit and adjust to another limitation: You don’t think as fast as you believe. Online players obviously think faster than B&M players, but you relied on software. Now you have to do more analysis.

A brief pause will let you ask yourself: “Why have they checked, bet or raised?” “How does what they just did relate to what they did on previous streets?” “How does it relate to what I know about this player?”

If you doubt the value of pausing, just remember the times you acted quickly, made a mistake, and then wondered: “Why did I do that?”

Everybody has made serious mistakes by not taking enough time to remember and thoroughly analyze the information. Only a supercomputer could thoroughly analyze all the complicated and ambiguous information in the few seconds you normally take to make decisions.

Most players don’t allow enough thinking time because they:

• Overestimate their mental speed.
• Want to look smart and fearless.
• Don’t want to irritate impatient opponents.
• Had a time clock when they played online.
• Are afraid that hesitating will give away information.

None of these reasons is valid. Overestimating any ability or worrying about how opponents see you is destructive. You don’t have a time clock any more. Hesitating may give away information, but you gain more by thinking carefully.

Once again, I’ll refer to Roy Cooke. He’s famous for being an excellent player and writer and for being extraordinarily slow. He frequently goes into “the Roy Cooke Huddle” to review the action and plan his play.

He knows it affects his image and irritates some people, but he reluctantly accepts that reaction. He wants to make good decisions, and he knows he can’t make them without huddling. It’s another case of understanding, accepting, and adjusting to personal limitations. Roy knows that he needs time to retrieve and analyze the most recent information and relate it to whatever else he knows about this opponent. Instead of worrying about what people think, he takes his time and makes great decisions.

You may think faster than Roy when you have software to assist you, but not without it. Since you need and are allowed more time, take it!

*Narrow your focus *

If you try to develop one skill while you’re involved in a hand, or try to develop several skills or study too many players simultaneously, you’ll become confused. You’ll develop skills faster by focusing on narrowly defined topics and by studying only one or two players.

Let’s say you want to improve a difficult and important skill: reading tricky players. Decide, “today I’ll concentrate on Joe, the trickiest player.” Then tune out everything and everyone else (except when you’re in a pot against them), and intently study Joe. By focusing narrowly, you’ll learn about Joe and develop your general reading skill.
Make mental or written notes about anything that might help you understand what Joe is thinking and doing. Most actions won’t tell you anything, but you don’t know what’s important or unimportant. So make many notes and look for patterns. For example, when he checks, make notes about:

• What’s the basic signal? Does he say anything or just signal with his hand? Which hand? Are his cards in the hand making the signal?
• His hands: With which hand does he usually bet? Does he ever bet with the other hand? When he checks, is either hand touching or holding chips? Touching or holding his cards?
• His cards: Are they in his hand? Which hand? On the table? Where?
• His posture: Is he relaxed or tense? Sitting up or slumped? Paying attention?
• His words: What are his exact words? “I check” may mean something different from “check.”
• His eyes: Where do they look? Does he stare intently or move his eyes from place to place?
• His voice: Is it loud or soft? Tense or relaxed?

See what he does and which cards he shows down, and correlate all that information. If you ignore everything else and concentrate on just one player, you’ll often see and decipher signals you missed before. ♠

Do you often wonder, “Why are my results so disappointing?” Ask Dr. Al, alan[email protected]. He’s David Sklansky’s co-author for DUCY? and the sole author of five poker psychology books._