Poker Spring Cleaning

by Daniel Kimberg | Published: Apr 23, 2004

I've always resisted the urge to make poker-related New Year's resolutions. Why suddenly start playing well in January? Why not, say, April? Well, if you're like me and you'd like a second chance this year to turn over a new poker leaf, I have a new concept that I think will help. It's called "poker spring cleaning." It's a lot like making New Year's resolutions, except it comes with less pressure and more of a sense of optimism, especially for those of us who live in places where the weather is just starting to turn nice.

What got me started in this vein was a conversation with a friend who plays low-limit poker, and he recently admitted to me that he's averaged about a $6 per hour loss in $1-$3 stud over the past year. Losing $30 on a Saturday afternoon isn't liable to ruin anyone who can afford to play poker in the first place, so I wasn't too concerned. And with the hefty rake (relative to the bet size) that's typical of those low limits, I thought it sounded like my friend was at least outplaying his average opponent, but not by enough to turn a profit.

But by another perspective, losing $6 per hour in that game is truly dismal. The game is played with no ante and a $1 bring-in. If four rounds are played in an hour, a player expects to average about four bring-ins per hour. You should be able to fold all of your hands, lose just $4 an hour, and read a good book while you're at it. You can think of that $4 as the "Cost Of Sitting There," or the COST. Of course, just sitting there and paying the COST wouldn't feel much like playing poker. But if you're trying to play well and doing that poorly, the argument could be made that you're not really playing poker anyway. This kind of outcome may be more likely at the lowest limits, but there are probably players who do this poorly or worse at every limit. In a typical $10-$20 hold'em game, a $10 seat charge and three rounds of blinds add up to $55 per hour. While many players do better than this at the medium limits, there are certainly some who don't.

You can probably see where I'm going with this. The obvious solution to my friend's problems would be to rebuild his strategy from scratch, starting with a base of folding everything. That would immediately cut his losses by a third, and we could certainly improve on that by adding in some no-brainers, hands that anyone should be able to play profitably (rolled-up hands in stud, big pocket pairs in hold'em). It's not the most exciting prospect – really just a drastic approach to forcing someone to play tighter – but it's probably necessary in this case.

Such drastic spring cleaning will work well when the house is so full of junk that you just have to start over. But what if you just need a little tweaking? Most of us think, correctly or otherwise, that our approach to poker is solid enough to benefit more from minor adjustments than from a complete overhaul. But it's still not a bad idea to take your cue from the change in weather to find something in your game to fix. So, in the spirit of New Year's resolutions in April, here are four suggestions for your poker spring cleaning. I hope they'll help you head into this summer with a positive, winning attitude. None of them will make a huge difference in your game, but I hope they'll help you unclutter the poker parts of your brain, like a good spring cleaning should.

1. Pick a particular starting hand that you think you may be misplaying, or that you think may be causing you trouble, and take the time to become an expert on it – not just an hour some evening, but as much study time as it takes to exhaust available sources on the subject (perhaps the proverbial month of Sundays). Grab all the poker books you can find, and see how their recommendations differ. Run some computer simulations using a program like Turbo Texas Hold'em. If possible, analyze the records of your own play against either real or simulated opponents. Consider starting threads on a few of the popular online forums.

2. Embrace the raise-and-fold. Experienced hold'em players know that the correct way to play pocket jacks is to raise preflop and fold on the flop. While this tongue-in-cheek bit of advice may have limited strategic value, it's true that many of us do get stuck on our raising hands. Of course, you don't want to do this habitually, especially at a tight or shorthanded table. There are good reasons to want your opponents to think you can't be relied upon to fold whenever you miss. Nonetheless, I find that when I'm not playing my best, the ability to get off legitimate raising hands cheaply is one of the first skills to go. When I am playing well, I tend to look back at raise-and-fold hands (or other tough folds) as keys to my more successful sessions. It's helpful to think of the raise-and-fold as a valuable tool in your strategic arsenal, even though you won't win any of the hands in which you deploy it.

3. Allow yourself to quit when you feel like it. You can't always live your life according to a formula for extracting the most money from the poker table. It's no crime to quit a good game to lock up a win, or to stay in a bad game just because you think you can get even. Recognize that it's OK, now and then, to spend some money to make your poker experience more pleasant. It's no worse than having an office job and deciding to work less than the maximum allowable number of overtime hours. If you're really worried you might be making an excessively bad decision, work out some worst-case numbers on the spot. You may find, as I often do, that the difference is often pretty affordable.

4. Be happy playing smaller. There's no magic formula for which table in the room will be the most profitable. Most players tend to gravitate to the highest limits their bankroll will support. There are often good reasons to do so, but at the same time, smaller-limit games can sometimes be more profitable. I was recently the beneficiary of this truism from both ends. I was waiting for a $15-$30 game, while playing in a $10-$20 game that was easily better than any $15-$30 game in the room. A new $15-$30 game never got going, because a group of tough, experienced players decided they'd rather walk around than play $15-$30. Eventually, they badgered the floorman into calling down a short $20-$40 game, which lasted about an hour. Had they been willing to play $15-$30 instead, they could have had a fair shot at my stacks, as well as those of other players on the $15-$30 list, and played in a solid game for well over an hour.

All four of these suggestions have served me well in one way or another, so I hope they'll help you with your own poker spring cleaning. They're less drastic than most New Year's resolutions, but probably a lot more likely to last out the year.