Filed under: Tip of the Week
By my count, this will be my fifty-second essay, making a full year of posts on my website. I want to thank those of you who have been with me through this year. There is some pretty cool poker stuff in the essays, so if you are new and have some time, you may want to read a few.
I got this flattering mail message this week:
Just saw you on a World Poker Conference DVD, really enjoyed your presentations. Checked out your site here, excellent job.
Here’s my question: Why does anyone sit down with you at a poker table? Obviously, you’re quite good, and having a proven winner at the table would be draining more money off the table, aside from the already high rake.
Do people not recognize you? Are they just recreational players and just try to beat a pro?
It seems to me at your level, it would be hard to find a game.
There are plenty of reasons, but it is an interesting question so I decided to deal with it here.
· First, I am far from the only good player in the room. Every table has some good players. I may be a bit more recognizable than some (though about half of each table does not recognize me), but at the limits I play, you can find several proven winners at every table. If you want to play, you have to accept that as fact.
· Poker has a huge luck factor, and on any given hand or session, anyone can be beat. True expert skills, such as recognizing danger and folding to avoid it are almost impossible to spot. Limit poker is designed to have a very high variance, so the skill edge, even if players understand it, does not look like much while playing.
· At a full game, you can generally avoid a specific player or two unless you have an excellent hand. I have played for hours at a table with some experts and perhaps engaged them in one or two pots.
· Some people seek out pros. Recently I was playing at a table with Roy Cooke. One of the other players announced he had selected that table specifically to play with Roy. Clearly, profit was not his motive.
· When I was working on my game and moving up, I also tried to occasionally find a game at the limit I was playing that had some higher limit and tougher opponents. I wanted to see how they played, and I needed to learn how to play with and beat them if I ever wanted to move up myself. I called it “Poker R&D” and I was willing to make the investment. Sooner or later I will do a column on this concept.
· Finally, a very few players do request a table change when I sit down. And I request a table change if I don’t like the line-up as well. Friday night I changed tables twice to get to the game I thought gave me the best chance of winning.
