The Value of Studying Poker part four

For every action there is a reaction and if your poker opponents know what your action is then it makes it much easier for them to plot a reaction. You need to prevent this from happening by playing in such a way as to prevent your opponents from knowing what you are doing.

This applies in warfare, imagine how costly it would have been had the Germans found out during the war the real location of the allied landings. In fact had they found out then it is highly doubtful whether the allies would have succeeded at all. But many people play poker in such a way as to be almost playing with their cards turned up. Book play will kill you but it is this that nearly all of the players out there aspire to when they learn poker.

If you have AK in early position then what is wrong with limping in? You are in early position so your position is bad. But a call conceals the strength of your hand and you haven’t committed yourself to the hand yet unlike a raise.

Lets say that you make the book play and raise with the AK, you get two callers. The flop comes ragged rainbow and it is you to speak. Your opponents only called and they probably have failed to connect here. There is only two opponents so a bet may move them off the hand. You bet about two thirds of the pot, the first player folds but the second player calls.

Turn card…nothing much. You think that a bet will take the pot if you can get past this one opponent and if you check now then they will know that you are weak. So you bet about two thirds of the pot again because you dare not bet any less because they will not respect it.

They call again, now you don’t know what to do. You have no hand but are torn between carrying out what is turning into a very expensive bluff and wimping out with a check and letting your opponent take it away from you.

What a mess you are in and all because some poker book says to raise with big slick. You find out that your opponent flopped a set and had been sucking you in but you basically trapped yourself here by playing conventionally.

Too many players understand conventional poker these days but you must respect another human beings ability to play what I call “instinctive poker”. When I first started out as a pro, I must confess to having no respect for my opposition.

How could they possibly know more about poker than me because of all the work that I had put in meant that I was great and they were a mug who were only there to make me a living.

This was my attitude and it was no surprise that I had my ass handed to me once or twice when I first started playing NL Texas Hold’em poker. What I learnt and quickly was that reading hundreds of poker books did not give me a divine right to beat these people. Looking back I shake my head and wonder who the hell I thought I was.

When I learned game theory it suddenly dawned on me that much of this studying was pointless and even counter productive. Knowledge of something doesn’t always equal money or success unless it is specific type of knowledge.

Back then I was like you, reading lots of stuff but no one to guide me. Game theory taught me about all things being connected with each other. I now realised that because poker was a massive combination of millions of different interlocking things, this meant that people who had never read a poker book in their entire life could be superior to me in poker.

They were superior because of other skills that they had picked up simply going through life that were proving immensely valuable in a poker environment.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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