How Could I Lose to That Idiot!?

In the early 20th Century, Aron Nimzowitsch was a top chess player. He was a major innovator of the hypermodern style. As he developed and experimented with this new style, his results were sometimes not as good as they should have been for a player of his skill level. What does this have to do with poker?

The two most important factors in your success as a poker player are how well you play and how well your opponents play. We’ve all heard the story of the tenth best player in the world, who unfortunately liked to play against the top nine. Obviously. his results weren’t very good. I give my readers credit for being smarter than that. I am sure you seek out games with players who are worse than you are. You do, don’t you? If not, please start at once. In fact, substantially worse players are the most desirable opponents you can have. You should make every effort to seek them out. Strangely players, especially reasonably strong players, have trouble recognizing the quality of their opponents. At the middle limits and higher, most regular players are at least competent. Yet, I continually hear echoes of Aron Nimzowitsch, “How could I lose to those donkeys?”

When he has his inner demons in check, Mike “The Mouth” Matusow is a very, very strong player. But he is also notoriously bad at evaluating the quality of his opposition. When you hear him describe a great player or a consistent winner, you’d think he was talking about one of the worst players around. How can someone play well, and yet be totally incapable of evaluating the skills of his opponents? There is a rational explanation for this type of misjudgment.

To illustrate why players consistently underrate their opponents we need to make two simplifying assumptions. First, assume there are one thousand types of mistake a player can make. (In reality, there are a lot more.) Second, assume that all mistakes have the same cost. (In reality, some are very expensive and some are relatively cheap.) Player A makes 150 mistakes out of the thousand possible ones. Player B makes 200 mistakes. This means they are both pretty good players. They have eliminated a lot of the mistakes they might make. Player A and Player B have 50 mistakes in common. They both make those mistakes. They each also have mistakes that they make, but the other doesn’t. From Player A’s point of view, when he sees B make one of the 50 mistakes they have in common, he doesn’t think it’s a mistake. When B makes one of the 150 errors, he doesn’t make, he sees it. He thinks, “Boy, Player B just made a big blunder.” Over the course of a few hours or a few sessions, A sees B make a variety of the 150 mistakes he doesn’t make. By the end of that time, he is convinced that B is real donkey. Then we look at it from B’s point of view. When A makes a mistake they have in common, he doesn’t notice it. But when A makes one of the 100 mistakes that B doesn’t make, he thinks, “A just made another error. I don’t know how he manages to survive.” Over the course of a few hours or a few sessions, Player B sees A make a variety of the 100 mistakes he doesn’t make. By the end of that time, he is convinced that A is great to have as opponent. In summary, Player A is a little better than B. But both A and B become convinced that the other is clueless. From A’s point of view, this is bad, but not disastrous. He makes fewer mistakes and will still show a profit against B, although he may sometimes underestimate him. B really has a problem. He is looking at someone who plays better than he does and thinking that player is much worse. This can be very expensive when he is deciding what game to play in. If they play heads-up.

What should you take away from this? It is crucial to play against bad players. Second, don’t underrate the opposition, especially those who are regular, winning players. They are doing some things right that you may not notice. You don’t want to be on the rail moaning, “How could I lose to those morons?” ♠

Steve ‘Zee’ Zolotow, aka The Bald Eagle, is a successful games player. He has been a full-time gambler for over 35 years. With two WSOP bracelets and few million in tournament cashes, he is easing into retirement. He currently devotes most of his time to poker. He can be found at some major tournaments and playing in cash games in Vegas. When escaping from poker, he hangs out in his bars on Avenue A in New York City -The Library near Houston and Doc Holliday’s on 9th St. are his favorites.