I Learned My Lesson

"I am still learning."

- Michelangelo, age 80

I am convinced of the following: When a poker player thinks he has learned everything he needs to know about the game, his downfall begins. Even the world's greatest poker players cease to be great once they stop trying to improve their game.

I have spoken in the past about my poker pet peeves. I suppose you could call this one of them: I am bothered when a player in my game (or any player, for that matter) thinks he is God's gift to poker, and knows so much that he has nothing left to learn. If I ever become that presumptuous, I hope someone slaps me long and hard and knocks some sense into me. People ask me if I'll always be a poker player. I give them the simple answer of "probably," but the full truth is that if I ever reach a point where poker is no longer a learning experience, I'll force myself to stop playing. As far as I'm concerned, once you reach that point, there's no place to go but down.

Every game you sit in should be a learning experience, or should at least have the potential to be one. If you're in the beginning stages of your poker career, you are probably learning generalities. Then, you start to focus on your specific hand selection. As time progresses, you learn about particular opponents, keeping in mind that the smart ones are often changing their game, so evaluating them only once is not enough. You need to note their progression, and adapt to that, as well. Finally, you start to recognize specific situations. If you have a good poker memory, you remember what happened the last time a similar situation came up. Then, you can make the correct play accordingly.

Having said all this, let me tell you about one of the earliest (and most important) lessons I received at the tables. It was my first year of playing poker seriously. At that time, I basically stuck to the lower limits and tried like crazy to improve my game. I stayed disciplined, and for the most part played within my skill level and my bankroll, but I took my shots every now and then. So, one day after a relatively uneventful $3-$6 hold'em session, I saw a seat open in the $20-$40 game and threw caution to the wind. I had never played that high before, but I had to know if I could hang with them. And while I didn't get a definitive answer to that question, a hand came up that has stuck with me all these years later.

I was in seat No. 2. Seat No. 3 was the first player who captured my attention. All of his moves were precise; I cannot think of a better way to put it. He had a quiet confidence about him that made me suspect that he was the best player at the table. I made up my mind that it would benefit me to watch his play and see what I could learn from it. In my mind, I had christened him with the nickname "Cool Daddy."

About an hour into the game, a hand came up with a preflop raise from someone in relatively early position, and then the player to my right three-bet it. I had some sort of unplayable hand on the button and folded. Cool Daddy was in the small blind, and he had noticed that I was watching his play. Even though I had never seen him show his cards, this one time he flashed me his 10 10 for the briefest moment before throwing it in the muck.

I was shocked. I had never seen someone throw away pocket tens preflop in a limit hold'em game! In no-limit, I had seen it done only once, and that was with a whole bunch of fanfare – an all-in raise by an opponent, and the player acting as if it was killing him to release a hand that good. But Cool Daddy chucked his pocket tens with no second thoughts and without being bothered in the least. Since it was unlike him to show his cards at all, I was sure he did it to get some sort of reaction out of me. It worked. As the preflop play was finishing up, I turned to him and whispered, "Was that pocket tens?"

"Yes, it was."

"Why did you fold?" I asked almost stupidly.

He shrugged and said softly, "I don't like my hand."

I watched as the flop came down 10-7-3. I looked at Cool Daddy almost in pity, but his face was stone. I had seen players go nuts when they would have flopped a big hand, especially when the pot was large. But, Cool Daddy stayed true to the nickname I gave him. His face betrayed no emotion. He seemed unaffected by the flop. Compared to the emotional players I was used to in the $3-$6 game, this was a brand-new experience for me. It was like leaving kindergarten and going straight to college.

Only the preflop raiser and reraiser were in to see the flop. On the flop, they went for three bets each. The turn card was an ace, which led to a bet and a raise. The river was a jack, for a final board of 10-7-3-A-J. This time, the first player checked, and the second one fired and got check-raised. He called and turned over his suited A-K sullenly. The first player showed J-J and took the pot, having made a set of jacks on the river.

For the first time, I saw the hint of a smile cross Cool Daddy's face, and that was the only emotion he showed. I think it took the combination of two things to produce that smile: seeing that he made the correct laydown before the flop, and watching the poker gods reward him by demonstrating how much money he saved by making that laydown. The player with pocket jacks was one of the looser players at the table. Even if Cool Daddy had stayed in and bet and raised until he turned blue, the pocket jacks were not going anywhere, and Cool Daddy would have lost a cool bundle with his set of tens.

I cashed out the next time the blinds got to me. I can't exactly explain the feeling that came over me, but I sensed that Cool Daddy would be unbeatable from that point on. I had just witnessed from him not one, but three things that were completely foreign to me:

1. He not only mucked pocket tens preflop, he did so without any hesitation or melodramatics.

2. He showed no reaction when a 10 flopped, whereas most players I knew would have been complaining to anyone who would listen.

3. He allowed himself only the faintest of smiles at showdown, whereas everyone else I knew would have been singing their own praises, and telling everyone who would listen how good a preflop laydown they made.

For the first time, I truly felt out of my league. I knew it was time to go back to my normal low-stakes games and resume my poker education from there. Looking back at the situation objectively, Cool Daddy was probably the only player there who was truly out of my league. But as far as I was concerned, that was enough of a lesson for one day. Sometimes I wonder if anyone else learned anything at that table that day, or if I was the only one.