A Game I Can't Beat

Here’s the pickle I’m in. There’s a “Hollywood home game” that happens every week not too far from my home (actually not too close to my home — it’s a real commitment for me to make the drive there every week.) It’s a fun game, full of interesting people, strong personalities, even a notable name or two from among the good and great of good ol’ Hollywood. Playing in this game gives me a chance to rub shoulders with these interesting and famous people, and it’s fun — lots of fun. I laugh, learn things, upbond with people of higher profiles than mine, and generally have a wonderful time. It’s a perfect situation in every respect but one.

I can’t beat the game.

There are several reasons for this. For starters, it’s a big game by my standards, and while I can put together adequate funds to play in the game, I’m never not aware that I’m playing with far too high a percentage of my bankroll, and therefore increasing my risk of ruin. (If you don’t know anything about the relationship between bankroll size and risk of ruin, please check out Decide to Play Great Poker by Annie Duke and myself; it does far better justice to the subject than I can do here.) Worse, since I’m playing above my normal level, I always run the risk of playing scared — of playing to protect my stack, rather than to maximize my earn. So that’s already two strikes against me: I’m playing too high, and I know it.

Wait, it gets worse.

The fact is that I’m so charmed by the players’ (professionally charming) personalities that I tend to get a little distracted — no, very distracted — by their jokes, pronouncements, opinions, and exploits. I guess you could say I’m star-struck, and I’m so busy being entertained by the players that I don’t concentrate properly on playing correctly. So that’s another strike against me. Even if I weren’t violating good money management practice by playing too high, my lack of focus is exposing me to heinous mistakes.

In a game that’s too big to begin with!

It’s also worth noting that these are some pretty great players. If I ran into this lineup in a public card room, I’d run straight to the sign-up board looking for a softer game. They all have skills and great poker awareness. I’d have to bring my absolute A-game to beat any one of them at any time. And here I am challenging a table full of top players. How do you like my chances in the game? Not so much? Yeah, me neither.

Now, like I said, this is a weekly game, but I play in it only infrequently. This, of course, makes my bad situation even worse, for these other folks are playing regularly. They’re battling each other week in and week out, keeping their games sharp and fresh. Me, I’m dropping in from time to time with my thin bankroll and my insecurity and my state of distraction. I’m pretty much always playing at my worst against foes who are playing their best. It’s a disaster!

Worse, it’s a vicious cycle. Let’s say that next week I decide to go play, and I lose. Maybe a lot, maybe only a little. Either way, I leave the game feeling snakebit and forlorn — “I let those guys beat me again!” This makes me put off returning until such time as I can afford to play again and as I have recovered (as I hope) my confidence. So then I play again, get spanked again for all the same reasons, and run home with my tail between my legs. Fun? It’s the polar opposite of fun.

But I still want to play in the game. I like the conversations and the jokes. I like the personalities and the Hollywood war stories. I like rubbing shoulders with such modest stars as they move through my orbit. If I weren’t at a poker game with these luminaries — if I were at a cocktail party, say — I’d be happy as a hot dog at a vegetarian barbecue (the happiest possible kind). I also believe that, for what’s left of my half-hearted Hollywood career, the professional contact might do me good. But what price am I paying for that contact? More than I can afford to pay, that’s for sure. More than gives good value.

I’m reminded of my brief foray into the profession of poker room proposition player. I thought it would be such a great way to make money — play profitable poker and get paid an hourly wage on top! But I was a horrible prop player. I had no strategy for beating the games I was in, the short-handed, challenging games that props are always in. I lasted three days. It was a job I literally couldn’t afford to keep, so I quit.

So do I quit this Hollywood home game? I think I have to. What’s the alternative? To profit in the game I would have to take a completely no-nonsense approach, find some way to be a robot of perfect poker at that table. But that would defeat my purpose for being there in the first place, which is to socialize and have fun. Nor would even perfect play address the problem of playing in a game too big for my bankroll. As long as I play in that game, risk of ruin will loom, negatively affecting my state of mind and hampering my ability to play correctly. If I could get them to play for smaller stakes, that would be great, but for this group of players, these are small stakes. Their bankrolls can handle the variance; mine can’t.

Okay, well, my mind is made up. I’m going to leave the Hollywood home game. I’ve done an objective analysis and concluded that the costs outweigh the benefits. I’ve been honest with myself about my bankroll, capability, and prospects for the game. I’ve made the sensible decision to withdraw from the fray. It’s axiomatic: sometimes your best poker decision is the simple decision not to play. It’s a hard decision to make, but I find that I can make it.

How about you? Can you stay away from games that aren’t to your advantage? I hope so. It would please me to think that you can learn from my dumb mistakes.

Maybe even please me enough to take another shot at the game. ♠

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.