Strategy and Tactics

I have been told that two of the best books relating to strategic and tactical thinking are Machiavelli's The Prince and Sun Tzu's The Art of War. I have browsed through both in the past, and they are on my nightstand for deeper reading. Part of my problem with applying these classic works to my poker game, business dealings, and life is that I have always had some difficulty understanding the difference between strategy and tactics.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary says: Strategy. 1. The science of military command, or the science of projecting campaigns and directing great military movements; generalship. 2. The use of stratagem or artifice. Tactics. 1. The science and art of disposing military and naval forces in order for battle, and performing military and naval evolutions. It is divided into grand tactics, or the tactics of battles, and elementary tactics, or the tactics of instruction. 2. Hence, any system or method of procedure.

The search engine Google states: Strategy. 1. military planning of war: the science or art of planning and conducting a war or a military campaign. 2. planning in any field: a carefully devised plan of action to achieve a goal, or the art of developing or carrying out such a plan. Tactics. 1. Military direction of forces in battle: the science of organizing and maneuvering forces in battle to achieve a limited or immediate aim. 2. Finding means to an end: the art of finding and implementing means to achieve particular immediate or short-term aims.

Tactics is the art of handling troops in battle. Strategy is the art of approaching battle in the most advantageous way. Grand strategy is the art of concentrating forces where they will do the most harm to the enemy with the least harm to yourself. Strategy is the plan to achieve a goal. Tactics are the methods for achieving that goal. The plan is your strategy. Tactics, on the other hand, are often improvised, short-term plans, usually arising in the heat of conflict. Their improvised nature stems from the unpredictability of battle.

Strategic knowledge in poker is often a misunderstood theory. It seems that most poker players look to create sets of rules and follow them faithfully, and think the chips will then come rushing their way. But that is not how the great poker players take down the chips. The best players understand poker and gambling concepts, and have the intellectual ability to relate and adjust them to the current situation. That is what I call tactical knowledge.

I had just sat down in a $15-$30 hold'em game at Muckleshoot Casino, south of Seattle. It had been a long time since I had played poker in my old stomping grounds of the Pacific Northwest. I had the opportunity to watch only two hands before posting my big blind. Oftentimes when entering a game I wait until the blinds have passed and post a single blind. But when you make that choice, you lose the value of three hands for the cost of the small blind. Yes, I understand that you gain position and get into the game cheaper, but if you have a big edge in the game and/or the game is short, you will do better by posting in front. This $15-$30 game was eighthanded, and I didn't want to give up the three hands for the $10 price tag. In this situation, posting in front was a better play.

The field folded to the button, who limped in. Limping from the button after everyone has folded in front of you is generally a bad play. When you just limp, you take away the potential of being able to win the pot without a flop, which could happen if you raise and your opponents fold.

With many hands, picking up the blinds is a better proposition than the expectation of playing the hand out. Never having played with my opponent on the button before, I was unfamiliar with him, but had seen him raise preflop on the previous hand, and he won without showing. Other than that, I knew nothing about him.

In poker, the home field advantage is enormous. Knowing how your opponents play creates many tactical opportunities to outplay them. If you are unfamiliar with your adversaries, you will only be able to make best guesses about their hand quality and playing knowledge. This variable is what makes playing poker in Las Vegas, where the flow of new players is higher than it is most anywhere else, more difficult than playing in an environment where you play with the same people month in and month out.

The small blind threw his hand away, not wanting to put in another $5. Getting 8-1 on a call, he was probably making a mistake by folding. He would have to lose equity after the flop to make any two cards unplayable in that spot. I looked down to see the A 3. Since the button didn't raise, I thought I had a superior hand to his, but I just knuckled my option to raise because I would be out of position throughout the hand.

The flop came 8-7-4, two clubs and a spade. Since I believed the button would have raised with two big cards, I thought the flop highly likely to have hit his hand, and it was a clean miss for me. I checked, looking to see what my opponent would do, and hoping to acquire some feel for where he was at. He checked behind me.

After his check, I planned on bluffing at the pot on the turn, but an ace hit. After his not raising preflop (as I thought he would do with any ace) and checking the flop (where I thought he would bet any pair), I didn't think my opponent had anything. Wanting to get value out of what I now thought was the best hand, I checked, hoping that my opponent would take a stab at bluffing at the pot. The pot was small, making a trapping play for extra bets even more valuable. When you make plays hoping to gain extra bets from players who are trapped for another round, you are taking some risk that your opponents will draw out on you. The greater the risk (the vulnerability of your hand) and the larger the reward (the size of the pot), the more inclined you should be to shut out your opponent from taking another card, and, accordingly, less inclined to try to trap.

To my delight, my opponent bet. I flat-called, hoping he would take another stab at the pot on the river. I thought it very likely that he was drawing either slim or dead to my aces. The river brought another ace, giving me three aces. Thinking he could not have a hand, I checked again, because there were more hands that I thought he could bet with (bluff) than he could call with.

Once again, to my delight, he bet. I hemmed and hawed, trying to induce him to think I had nothing, and then I raised him. Much to my surprise, he quickly reraised! I thought about what hand he could have that made sense here. Did he flop a set and then slow-play it? That would mean he did not raise with a pair before the flop; maybe with 4-4, but not raising with 8-8 or 7-7? That would be a strange play. Did he have the other ace and a better kicker? That would mean that he had flat-called with an A-9, A-10, A-J, A-Q, or A-K on the button before the flop. I thought he was either reraising as a bluff, because he took my bait and did not think I had anything, or had 4-4. I called the extra $30. He showed me A-7 offsuit for aces full.

Needless to say, I had not drawn very good conclusions throughout the play of the hand. Whenever I find myself out on a limb in a hand, I go back and reflect on my decisions in hindsight, and see if I was justified in drawing the conclusions that I did, even if they were wrong. I don't mind being wrong if the decision seems sound in retrospect, but I do mind being stupid (no letters, please).

I still think my tactical decisions made sense based on the available information at the time. Sometimes your best judgments are just flat wrong, even though the premises upon which they are based prove to be correct. As long as I am reading my opponents' hands and pulling the trigger on my decisions, I don't beat myself up for being wrong as long as I can honestly justify my reasoning. My judgment is right often enough to make up for the times I am in error.

Tactical knowledge means recognizing what to do and adjusting when the time is right to do so. You need to learn strategic concepts, and understand when the occasion is right to utilize them: easy to say, tough to actualize. I suspect that either Sun Tzu or Machiavelli might have recognized the danger in my Muckleshoot hand. I guess it's time to crack the books.

Roy Cooke played winning professional poker for more than 16 years. He is a successful real estate broker/salesperson in Las Vegas. If you would like to ask Roy poker-related questions, you may do so online at www.UnitedPokerForum.com.