A Poker Makeover

Boy, if there's one phenomenon that jumped up out of the blue to become television's next big thing, one that's even more popular than poker on TV, it's makeover shows. Turn on your TV anytime, day or night, and you'll see houses made over and closets and unkempt rooms organized, and you'll watch people get everything from a new hairdo to an "extreme makeover" that comprises just about every form of cosmetic surgery and dentistry you can think of. Not only that, there are weddings planned and shown, brides made over so they are almost unrecognizable, and even regular, everyday kinda dudes get their chance on a show where five putatively hip gay guys take a straight male with ostensibly no fashion sense and help him rearrange his digs, show him how to dress and what to do in order to look, act, and appear oh-so-much-more appealing to the opposite sex.

I could probably use a makeover myself. After all, when you write books and magazine columns for a living and spend much of your spare time in a poker room – not exactly the place to go if you're in search of the ultrahip, terminally trendy, and sartorially splendid – you don't figure to be the point man for a nouveau chic lifestyle. And there's no need to dress for success, either – especially when your office is a spare bedroom and no clients ever show up at the door – as evidenced by my wardrobe of sweatpants, an "Alaskan Outfitters" T-shirt, battered sneakers, and a yellow "Tyler's" ball cap.

But if makeover shows are the newest and best thing on TV, with poker shows running a close second, why not combine them into a brand-new show? We'll call it The Poker Makeover, and play it on one of those channels in dire need of ratings, and if they have enough money available to fund the production of a pilot, who knows – maybe it'll be the hit of the season.

The show begins with our poker makeover team arriving at your cardroom and plucking you unceremoniously out of your seat after showing the viewing audience what our hidden camera has already uncovered: a load of flaws in your game. There's nothing mysterious here, as our Poker Makeover cameras have uncovered the "usual suspects," and if you, dear reader, have been losing more money and more frequently than you think you really should, perhaps this makeover is for you, too.

• Are You Playing in the Right Game? If the players are too good, if the game plays too big for your bankroll, either because it is too big for your wallet or is so aggressive that it plays like a much bigger game than it really is, you need to get yourself into another game. Perhaps you should move down in limits, just change tables, or go play seven-card stud or Omaha/8 instead of hold'em. There's no sense beating your head against a wall, and if the players are too tough or the stakes are too steep for you, there's not much else we can do at this point to rescue you.

• Are You Playing Too Many Hands? If you're losing, it's usually time for lots of traction and not much speed. Gear down – way down. When you're being battered from pillar to post and back again, you're not going to scare your opponents anyway, so don't play marginal hands, don't make "moves" if you don't have the cards, and as for bluffing – fuggedaboudit. You've got a weakened image at your table, so the best course of action might be to change tables. And while you're making your table change, you might just pick up a rack of chips so that you come to the new game with enough ammunition to look formidable. Someone changing tables with a beaten down appearance and only a stack and a half of chips usually looks like a slaughtered lamb as he approaches the table.

• Are You Playing Too Deeply Into Your Hands? Most hands are junk. It's an unalterable fact of poker life. Even when you start with good-looking hands like A-Q but don't catch part of the flop – and you'll fail to hit the flop two-thirds of the time – you really need to release these formerly fabulous holdings whenever there's a bet and a call or two before it's your turn to act. Your poker makeover requires that you change your mindset and refrain from thinking you'll go on to win with two overcards that are drawing dead to all but poker's modern miracle: runner-runner. Playing overcards that didn't hit the flop is one of the bigger leaks you'll see at the poker table. It doesn't mean you can never play overcards when the flop is ragged and misses you completely, but when there's a bet and a call in front of you, what do you think the caller has? While it's entirely possible that the bettor is trying to steal the pot, the caller has to have something. After all, you can't bluff by calling, can you? When there's a bet and a call in front of you, your overcards, pretty as they might have looked before the flop, are now toast.

• Are You Too Fancy for the Game You're In? If you're in a game where most people are there to have a good time and gamble it up, you're nuts if you build your playing strategy around too much aggression, too much bluffing, and plays that are too fancy. After all, when your opponents have come to play, all they're going to do when you try bluffing is call when they have a good hand. You want to bluff someone? OK, try bluffing me. I'm easy. I'm a lot easier to bluff than most players in a low-limit game. Bluff me and I'm going to surrender a marginal hand most of the time, although I'll make up for it by playing back at you when I have a good one. Bluffing works better in higher-limit games against good opponents than it does in lower-limit games against passive players who call far too frequently. If you're in one of those games, you might not want to bluff at all, but predicate your game on betting for value and making all of your opponents – you know the ones, the guys who call far too often – pay for the privilege of calling with weak hands.

• Are You Failing to Get Value From Your Good Hands? If you're not raising with big hands, or raising too frequently with weak ones, you're not getting enough value from your hands. Moreover, failing to bet draws aggressively when the relationship between the money in the pot and the odds against making your hand support such a bet is tantamount to leaving money on the table. Good hands don't come around all that often, and you have to earn as much money as you can on good hands to offset those times when you have terrific draws that fail to pan out. Too many players fail to milk a hand for every penny they can, and it's a big leak in their game. What's worse, it's a leak they don't see, and they don't see it because they just won a pot and are stacking their chips. What they don't see is that the pot could have been bigger, and they'd be stacking more chips if they'd only been a bit more aggressive.

I guess that'll do it for this episode of The Poker Makeover. The cameras are pulling back and the crew is making ready to leave the cardroom. We'll have to see if one of the cable networks ponies up the bucks to produce The Poker Makeover on a regular basis. But before they do, they'll have to have one of their style mavens run me through a shopping spree in Beverly Hills. After all, one glance in the mirror tells me I'm not quite ready for prime time – not yet. But just you wait and see – stranger things have happened.

Raise your game with Lou Krieger, author of Poker for Dummies, at http://www.royalvegaspoker.com. His newest books, Internet Poker: How to Play and Beat Online Poker Games and Winning Omaha/8 Poker, are available through Card Player, and all of his books can be found online at www.Cardplayer.com.