Attitude

I had a full weekend of poker this past week. I played my normal work days of Thursday, Friday, and Sunday and threw in a visit to my neighbor’s monthly poker league. They take their game seriously but are almost always very polite and encouraging with each other. They even have a traveling winner’s trophy with names engraved on it. You bring it home for the month in between events, put it on your mantle, and brag about it when you show up the next month. A fun environment with plenty of drinks and food to go with along with the poker.

You’ll notice that I said, “almost always very polite and encouraging.” As is often the case in a competitive venture where individuals have differing amounts of competitive drive, some people take it more seriously than others. There were definitely some “How did you play that?” type things going around, and that’s not that big of a deal. What caught me off guard was this hand.

At blinds of 500-1,000 with a 100 ante, there were three limpers to the player on the button who jammed for 5,600. If I hadn’t seen second or third limpers in this game show up with hands as good as K-K, I would have re-shoved with my Q 9 with all the possible dead money in there. Instead, I folded and the first limper called with Q 2 with the other two folding. Our shover had J 10 and the board bricked out, leaving queen high as the winning hand. J 10 guy got up and incredulously said, “I wouldn’t ever want you guys to change the way you play.”

It struck me as an over-serious comment in a mostly friendly game for a relatively small buy-in ($120). The winner of the pot took it in stride and continued to smile as she stacked his chips. I don’t like her original call, but calling a jam in that spot with queen high getting well over 2:1 isn’t a gigantic mistake. His jam is profitable, but incredibly volatile as he’s getting called close to 100 percent of the time and probably never has more than 52 or 53 percent equity. Obviously, having what I’m guessing is a 45 percent chance (I’m not interested in assigning calling ranges to these people, I’m not sure it’s worth it and it would be a headache) to triple up or more is a great situation.

As it sits, maybe she made a small mistake, but who cares. You’re there for a fun environment and a little game of cards. The attitude could keep you from getting invited back. In addition, if you’re so much better than all of these people, wouldn’t it behoove you to keep on their good sides in case they have access to bigger, more lucrative home games? This was a game played in a million dollar house with people who are all sending their kids to colleges that cost $40,000 per year and love to play poker but, in your opinion, aren’t particularly good. Seems like the perfect place to make some friends and some contacts on the off chance they have other friends like themselves who occasionally find themselves playing bigger.

I’m not much of a talker while I play, but I found myself engaging with the people there and enjoying the fun, casual setting while playing in a game that could make me some board game money on an off night. Sounds like a perfect situation to me. Sure, I had to engage in some conversations about what I do for a living, which always leads to uncomfortable dialogue about how much I’ve won or “You can make a good living doing that?” I gave my stock answers and nudged the conversation in another direction, but I tried to keep my attitude upbeat and engaging. Needling others where it made sense (They loved a good needle) and dropping a good, tasteful joke in there every once in a while. Sure, it would be great to make a connection from this game to a game that plays a little bigger with a similar talent level, but that’s not the entire point. The truth is, these nice people invited me into their home to play poker with them, knowing that it’s what I do for a living and it was important to me to show their game and their hospitality the level of respect it deserved.

Perhaps you don’t play in a game like this, you only play at casinos. Perhaps none of your games are casual. Even so, approaching each day of work or play at the poker table with this type of mindset will lead to more enjoyable days for you and those around you and you might find yourself with an invite to a casual game that is worth your while. ♠

Gavin Griffin was the first poker player to capture a World Series of Poker, European Poker Tour and World Poker Tour title and has amassed nearly $5 million in lifetime tournament winnings. Griffin is sponsored by HeroPoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @NHGG