Discipline: Part IV

You would think that there was no need to explain to anyone who aspires to become a professional gambler that they need to play games where they have an advantage. Strangely enough, there is a steady stream of gamblers who continually make the mistake of gambling with the worst of it.

There are many expressions for having the best of it. Here are a few: having an advantage, having positive equity, having positive expectation, having an earn, and so on. In many situations, your overall equity is positive, although you occasionally play when it isn’t. For example, during a blackjack counting session, a counter goes through periods when the house has the advantage (lots of low cards remain), when the deck is neutral (slightly more high cards than low), and when he has the advantage (there are significantly more high cards than low). His winnings come from betting bigger when he has an advantage and smaller when he doesn’t. Some players leave a table when the count is bad or try to sit down when it is good.

Similar situations often arise in poker. A bunch of good players start a game expecting weaker players will show up. The late Chip Reese once expressed this as, “If you don’t open the store, how are you going to get customers?” Mixed-game players may find that their advantage comes in one or two variations, and that they break even or lose a little in the others. You sometimes have to be willing to gamble with the losing players. It has been said, “You have to give action to get action.” It is, however, essential that you figure out when you really have the best of it, and try to invest as much time and money in those situations as possible. Obviously the flip side of the coin is to avoid spending your time and money in spots where you don’t have an advantage.

Unfortunately, it is often very difficult to know if you have an advantage. In theory by seeing what your results are over a long period of time, you can tell if you have the best of it. Large field, low buy-in tournaments are notoriously difficult to judge. The house takes a relatively high percentage of the prize pool. The skill levels of the opponents are constantly changing. Even medium buy-in tournaments, like the World Series of Poker $1,000 and $1,500 tournaments, are virtually impossible to judge. A sample of a thousand tournaments might not be large enough to tell a player who rates to lose ten percent of his entry fee from one who rates to win 25 percent. If you have a bigger advantage, it will manifest itself in a smaller sample. Your results will eventually be a good indicator of your average earnings, but in the short run, they aren’t. Is there another way to figure out if you have an edge?

There are games where you can (or at least a computer) can calculate if you have an edge. For example, casino games give an advantage to the house. At craps, that is around 1.5 percent of the amount bet. At roulette, it is more than two percent. If someone offered you 2 to 1 on a fair coin toss, you’d rate to win one unit for every two flips (win two then lose one for a net win of one for two flips.) It is impossible to do this at poker, but fellow Card Player writer Ed Miller has suggested a useful exercise in the new book Excelling at No-Limit Hold’em. In a future column in this series I will discuss more on the discipline required to improve as a player. One of the excellent methods is by reading the best material available, and I will discuss this book in more detail then.

Ed’s exercise begins with the idea of figuring out what is the source of your profit in the game you currently play. (He goes on to discuss what to do if you are thinking of moving up to a bigger game.) If you can’t find a reason why you’re winning, you may not have much of an edge. Here is a hand I recently played in the $2-$5 no-limit hold’em game at Bellagio. I had just sat down, bought in for $500, and played a few hands. An unknown player raised to $15 from first position. Everyone folded to me on the button. I had A-K offsuit and reraised to $50. He called. Flop came A-9-6 rainbow. He checked, and I bet $70. He called. The turn was a deuce. When he checked, I decide to apply a little pot control and checked. On the river, another deuce, so now the board was A-9-6-2-2, and he bet $100. I called and he showed A-10.

His under the gun raise was a little loose. Calling my reraise was very, very bad. I rate to have something like the top five percent. This would be big pairs and A-K, suited or not. Preflop, my hand will beat his about 75 percent of the time. I rate to win $25 from the $50 he put in preflop. (I win 75 percent and lose 25 percent for a net win of 50 percent the preflop amount.) He then threw away more money after the flop, but leaving later mistakes out, I know I rate to win at least $25 from this player in this situation. My profit comes from his playing too many hands, and playing them badly. One example never proves much, but I know I will consistently beat players who play the way he did. I will continue this discussion of having the discipline to play in games where you have an advantage in the next column. ♠

Steve ‘Zee’ Zolotow, aka The Bald Eagle, is a successful gamesplayer. 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.