Winning Poker
LEARN FROM WINNING
by: Lou Krieger©
Philosophers, teachers, parents, and poets have always pointed
out that one learns best from mistakes. I suppose that holds as
true for poker as for any other endeavor. After all, who among us
has not grown moody and introspective after a losing session, as
we dredge and drag instant replays of hands lost and opportunities
squandered across the vast expanse of our consciousness in a furtive
attempt to learn from our failures, and eliminate their recurrence.
Losing, after all, is a ticket to another day at the School of Hard
Knocks, where experience is the only teacher, and brooding morosely
upon one's failures is often seen as the only road to enlightenment.
When you're in a poker game it's easy to tell the winners from
losers. Losers are quiet and introspective. Winners are expansive
and extroverted, as they recant tales of their poker prowess to
the entire table. Losers, on the other hand, lean heavily on two
tired old mantras: If they're not droning on about their most recent
bad-beat, you can hear them holler, "Shut up and deal!"
Until recently, I wasn't much different. With a big win under my
belt I'd leave the card room thinking I was the best hold'em player
I'd ever encountered. While I abhor bad-beat stories and never tell
them, I would replay every hand over and over in my mind whenever
I booked a sizable loss, trying to find some glittering nuggets
in a landscape otherwise dark with gloom and despair.
But I've lately taken to analyzing my successes. When I do something
right, I don't want to have done it unconsciously. I want to be
acutely aware of what I did right, so I can do it again and again
- as often as opportunities present themselves.
Instead of trying to simply solve problems associated with poor
play, I've decided to capitalize on opportunities. Solving a problem,
after all, simply gets you back to ground zero; you haven't lost
any ground, but you haven't gained any, either. Capitalizing on
opportunity gives you a chance to fly and soar, to create, to innovate,
and to place yourself firmly on the leading edge of winning play.
Never mind that even when you do book a big win, you probably didn't
play perfect poker, and there are some things you could have done
to make that win even bigger.
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What's surprising is that until recently I've never analyzed my
successes, and I'm not altogether sure why. Perhaps it's human nature.
Winning, after all, takes us straight to the bottom line, where
the only question is "How much?" But losing is so distasteful
that it can be tough to swallow. We seem to have a need - almost
a compulsion - to dissect our losses, not to look for excuses, but
to discern the underlying reasons for our failures. "That way,"
we tell ourselves, "I may have to swallow a bitter pill now,
but I'll learn from my mistake and won't make it again."
I recently had a big win in a series of $15 - $30 hold'em side
games at an out-of-town tournament, where I found myself competing
against opponents I had never seen before. There were some solid
players in the game, although most called far too often and went
too far with weak hands. There was also one very aggressive player
who bet almost every time a hand was checked around to him. When
I analyzed my play during the drive home, I made the following judgments:
I held reasonably good cards during the game, though by no means
would I have claimed "...the cards were running over me."
Since most of my opponents were there for the action, they called
with a frequency that essentially obviated bluffing as a money making
strategy, and I correctly refrained from doing anything fancy. Instead,
I played simple, straightforward, solid poker. On the river, I never
bluffed; but I bet every hand that figured to hold up if it was
called.
I also managed to change my seat so that I could act after the
overly aggressive player. Because he tended to bet and raise much
too often, particularly whenever there was a flop that didn't look
threatening, I began to reraise anytime I had a hand that I normally
just would have called with. He released enough of his hands to
make this play successful, although in retrospect, I believe I could
have taken even greater advantage of his style by bluff raising
when he bet into a checked flop when it didn't appear likely that
he held a strong hand.
While this might have been the only tactical mistake I made during
these side games, I probably cost myself as many as three or four
pots over a three day period. With each pot being worth approximately
$200, I should have come away a bigger winner that I did.
If I had not analyzed my play, and instead had gone straight to
the bottom line to exalt in what was a sizable win in spite of some
opportunities I clearly missed, I would have lost the opportunity
to learn how I could have done even better. If, as most of the poker
literature suggests, good players win at the rate of one to one-and-one-half
big bets per hour, then the additional three pots I could have won,
but didn't, were worth $600. In a $15 - $30 game, with a win rate
of between $30 and $45 per hour, those three pots that I left on
the table will take an additional thirteen to twenty hours of play
to recoup.
I learned a valuable lesson. By scrutinizing my winning sessions
I believe I can add as much to my game as I can by analyzing my
play when I lose. Don't get me wrong. Although I'm still introspective,
frustrated, embarrassed, and angry with myself when I lose, and
like most players, tend to be expansive when I win, I don't believe
that feeling miserable is a required condition for constructive
critique.
The key to continually improving your game is surprisingly simple.
Just dissect wins as thoroughly as losses. Not only will you find
errors to correct, you might also find that opportunity has been
loudly knocking. But if you're too expansive, and haven't been listening,
you might never hear it.
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