Brian

Getting into the minds of your opponents helps you play better against them. Understanding how and why they act might also give you some empathy for them.

I wrote about Brian for my book Free Money: How to Win in the Cardrooms of California more than 20 years ago. You'll see this type of player often in the small games in cardrooms – and sometimes in bigger games when he works his way up. There's not much lowball now, which somewhat dates the material, and clubs don't generally stake players, but the concepts are universal. I changed his name for the story.

To become a successful poker player, you must know your opponents. Here's one you might face.

Brian doesn't play cards very well, which is a shame, because he is a dedicated card player. He lives for cards, any type of cards, for stakes large or small. His favorite game is lowball. Brian is fat and jolly to the point of being a cliché. He rarely gets angry, even when excitable players vilify him after he has beaten them.

Once, Brian got lucky and won nearly $3,000 in a few days. He had a tremendous lucky streak in which the bad plays all worked in his favor. He beat all comers, good and bad, frequently by defying the odds. It didn't take long, however, before he was back hanging around, waiting to be staked by the house in small games.

Brian did so well in the lowball games with marginal hands – which good players handle gingerly, at best – that the rough tens (10-9-8-X-X) became known in one club as "Brians."

Some of the winning players encouraged Brian's bad play with remarks such as, "Boy, you seem to have better luck with the two- and three-card draws than any other living player," or, "You better not raise unless you have a two-card draw; you're not making those one-card draws," or, "That Brian sure knows when to push those rough hands." Someone generally tried to feed his ego right after he won a particularly big pot in which he had all the worst of it. The hustlers knew that if Brian kept up such play, he'd eventually lose his winnings.

The hustlers didn't really have to bother about encouraging Brian's unorthodox play. If Brian had a "feeling" about a particular hand, he'd keep betting it till he ran out of chips. It didn't matter if his hand was pat or he planned on drawing three cards – drawing three cards in lowball against players who know what they're doing does not win very many pots – he considered it a point of honor to always put in the last raise. (We're talking about limit lowball games here, Brian's favorite.) Sometimes he'd get a negative "feeling" about a good hand, and fail to push it very far, and not win as much as possible.

During his lucky streak, all the bad plays worked. He'd put in 10 bets, draw two cards, and beat someone's pat 7 (an outcome that can be expected only about once every 12 times the situation occurs). Then, he'd have a pat 7 himself, get it beat, and lose only two or three bets because he just "knew" it was going to lose. (And, of course, with his usual style of play, he would have lost all of his chips on the play.)

He started his fantastic rush by winning $800 in a $6-limit game in which a few players were just strewing money about the table, killing every pot and playing every hand. (If only a few players regularly kill the pot, it is to the advantage of the others; if everybody does it equally, it is to no one's advantage – it just makes for a livelier game.) Brian played in his usual inimitable style, which was just the way to make a maximum killing off one well-heeled gambler who quickly lost $2,500. Other more conservative players would be afraid to push a rough hand for multiple raises, but Brian would just as soon put all of his money in on a 10 (or a two-card draw about which he had a feeling) as a 6. By that point, the nominal $6-limit game had become much larger. Nearly every pot had two kills over and above the three traveling blinds, making it a $24-limit, and often more. Once in a while a floorman would come by and say, "OK, fellas, let's play a $6 hand now and then, or I'll have to charge you $20-limit time." (This was before the days of a uniform drop.) Fifty players in other games had their names on the change list for that game, including players in the bigger games. "If you keep this up, I won't be able to keep the $20 game filled."

Brian took his $800 to the biggest game in the house, the $80-limit. (In that club, $800 was just enough to get into an $80 game. It's not wise to use all of your money to buy in to a game, but Brian always had supreme confidence.) There, he played with some of the best lowball players in California. For a few days, his two-card draws all came in at the right moment. (The law of averages says that if you draw two cards often enough in lowball – generally a bad play – sometimes you have to have a streak in which many of them win in succession. A good player wouldn't get a chance to test the theory because he doesn't draw two cards very often.)

His lucky streak ended, as it had to. He didn't realize his luck had run out, or didn't care. He just kept playing the same way. He lost the $3,000 – minus a little – in a week. Before he gave it all back, several people he owed money managed to find him, $400 worth.

Brian seems to need action constantly. At the height of his rush, ahead $3,000, he quit his job as an assembler in an electronics components factory to become a full-time gambler, and upped his playing time from eight to 16 hours a day. (Of course, he had already been playing that much on weekends.) He sleeps in his car in cardroom parking lots to be near the game, and because he seems to have no other place to go.

When he's broke, which is most of the time, he hangs around a lot, waiting to be staked by the house in a short game (one without enough players, and in danger of breaking up). While he waits, he plays head-up pan or gin for 50 cents a game with anyone else who wants to hang around that much. When he can find no opponents with time on their hands (and not much else) and the house doesn't need him, he plays solitaire or freezeout pan with himself.

Brian is capable of reasonably good play, which he must use when broke and reduced to playing staked in small games. If he doesn't play his best, management won't stake him. Few players realize that when Brian is short, he's playing with house money, and thinking he's playing his usual style, they give him more action than he deserves. At that time, he manages to make a little money for himself. After the split with the house, he has enough to eat on and enough to buy himself a little "live" action in a small game, where he hopes to start another rush that will carry him through the larger games.

Brian eats cheap food from cardroom bars and hamburger stands, greasy carbohydrates, and he gets fatter and fatter. He sits a lot, which encourages the great spread.

Brian will spend the rest of his life, 16 hours a day and more, in cardrooms. Sometimes he will have a lucky streak and be able to play constantly for a few weeks at a time, until the money again burns its way through his pockets. Most of the time, he will hang around waiting to get staked in two-bit games. When the other players who play in those games give him a hard time (perhaps instead of criticizing themselves, as they should: many play to avoid holding a job), Brian will smile and take it, and everyone will say how good-mannered he is, and how much they love to play with him.

You'll take Brian's money when you play with him, but don't laugh at him. Say to yourself, "There but for the grace of God go I." He's a loser, but he helps keep the games going and the money in circulation. You, on the other hand, are a gentleman or a lady.