Posted by Dr Fro 1:36 PM
I think it was 1999. I was playing poker at the Friendship Social Club. This was long before Chris Moneymaker changed the face of poker, and it was rare to spot a young buck like me in a card room. The rooms were full of retirees and middle aged businessmen types. When I would walk in, they would salivate.

I was playing $5-$10 Limit O/8. I just scooped a big pot off of a guy that was surprised to see me win. He then turned to his buddy and said, "It looks like the rabbits are hunting the wolves today."

I said to him, "Do you think I can't hear you or do you think I am too stupid to understand what you said?"

He replied, "I wasn't talking to you."

I said, "I didn't ask who you were talking to. I asked if you thought I couldn't hear you or if you thought I was too stupid to understand what you said."

He got all sheepish and later made a crack about "being seen and not heard."

This was my first but not my last exposure to players openly criticizing other players at the table. It didn't make any sense to me then and it doesn't make any sense to me now. First of all, it is rude. Second of all, if you criticize a fish, you may embarrass him and he may never come back. Third, if you embarrass a player for playing too loosely, you may scare him into starting to play better. Last, you have just given away information (specifically, your perception of another player); poker is a game of incomplete information, and the less you give out, the better off you are.

After my kick in the nuts on Thursday, I returned to Jackie's on Friday to play for a couple hours before Jane landed. Everything went my way. I got AA, AA, KK, JJ all in the first 30 minutes of playing. I was firing out bets commensurate with these hands and people were folding right and left. These big bets coupled with a hand very early in the game where I bet (and got a call and won!) with middle pair gave the overall impression to my opponents that I was a maniac.

The Friday night crowd (for the $1-$2 game) is a different crew from Thursday night (for the $2-$5 game). I know the Thursday guys pretty well. We play often with each other and are all quite familiar with each others' tendencies (which is exactly why I decided to call Isaac's bet in Hand #1.) I found it interesting that all the table banter on Thursday of which I was the subject went like this:

"Uh-oh, Mr. Scotland bet. He never bets, he must have something good. I fold"

"Wake over there, kid. There's a poker game going on."

"You know, it's ok to play something other than Aces"

Contrast that with the comments being made on Friday about me:

"That's brilliant" (sarcastic) "Bet $45 into a $35 pot."

"Of course you bet, you have the nuts again" (sarcastic)

"You play a lot online don't you?" (That one was a favorite of mine. I don't think he knew that I knew what he was getting at.)

I don't wake up one day and decide to play very differently that the day before. I play my cards and I play my opponents. So the reason why the comments were so different over the course of 24 hours is due to the inaccurate, one-dimensional, too-quick-to-judge sort of analysis that you get from novice players.

Mike Caro advises that you should not decide on an image before you sit down. You should just play your cards for 30 minutes and pay attention to the image that is developing. You should then go out of your way to reinforce that image. Once your image is firmly implanted in your opponents' heads, it will be hard / slow to change. So that's what I did on Friday.

I didn't take offense like I did in 1999. I went along with it. I even made an illegal bet on purpose just to make it look like I didn't have a clue. Not a soul at the table knew me from Adam and I was putting on an Oscar-winning performance. (Insert Brokeback Mountain joke here)

So, one of my critics raises the $5 minimum bring-in to $20 and I look down to see AK. I dropped my promise about not raising with AK a few days ago (separate post on that), and I decided that a very big bet here would probably get called by an inferior hand. In fact, my guess was that he could have had AQ or AJ in which case I would be ahead by a mile. Even QQ-22 would be a coin toss. My biggest and most open critic goes all in for $110. He is completely steaming and has been accusing me of theivery all night. The original raiser went all in for about $150 and I called. Original raiser has QQ and Steamer has rags.

This is beautiful. I am getting 2:1 on my money and I am only a 1.5:1 (40%) dog. Although there is a lot on the line, I am in a profitable situation. The situation was only created by virtue of my playing a role. I only knew to play that role based on the comments of my opponents. When they came all-in, I knew it was because they thought I was stealing with junk. If this were Thursday night, I would have folded because such a raise into me would likely have only been from AA or KK.

So my opponents gave away information and paid for it. I got an Ace and won with top pair.

So here is what I have learned: If you must speak at the poker table, don't talk about poker (not your hands, not your opponents, not nada). You give away information and then you will give away money.

1 Comment(s):

Posted by  Johnnymac, at 5:47 PM, February 20, 2006  

Ahh, the FSC! I remember those days.

__________________________________________________

Post a Comment