How winning is your poker?

Volatility Addicted

Volatility is the keystone of poker.

It keeps the vital flow of losers going, by preventing them from getting back-to-reality feedback. Anyone can book one or several nice winning sessions, and ego being what it is, they are invariably put down to skills. These winning sessions are like a drug that keeps people from looking at the deficiencies of their game, and the impact they have on their bankroll. They are high while they are falling down, essentially funding the gambling industry - which purposedly arouses people’s craving for their dose.

The fondamental step to stop the fall is to refuse to take one’s fix anymore. One cannot improve his game if his mind is not clear. You’ve just won a huge pot in a ring game? Good - but how did you win it exactly? Your AJ stood up against TT? Hmmm, looks like a good chunk of those chips (about 50%) will move back to your opponent sometime. You can defer that to a later time by getting up and take your winnings, but this just means you will give that 50% back to someone else, another day. This does not necessarily means that the play was pointless, just that you did not really win all those chips.

If you win another huge pot with set over set, now that’s not a coinflip anymore. One will surely acknowledge that he has been lucky, but well he did deserve that pot, according to the odds. He deserved those chips. Real winnings? Not really. It is best again to put down the syringe and consider what you did to win these chips. Not much, right? What will happen when you will be at the other end of the stick, holding the lower set? Won’t you give back what you won today?

Those are not winnings; they are an artifact of volatility. Imagine you could play against yourself - same qualities, same weaknesses. Your “clone” may sometimes bust you, but by definition the both of you are equally skilled. Who got the cash at any given time is irrelevant; they “technically” both own half of the total cash in play. Looking at poker from this perspective basically negates the effect of the drug you’re enticed to take. No more easy satisfaction, you must now work to get it. Welcome to the real world.

Earn It

So how do you earn real winnings? By playing better than your opponent. That is, you must lose less than he would in the very same situation, and you must win more than he would when you have him beat. This implies knowing what buttons to push to extract maximum value, and when to fold to quickly cut your losses. The “deltas” between your winnings/losses and his in the same situation are real winnings. They are generally much less than the amount of chips you got from that pot, but the sum of these deltas are a huge part of your long term winnings.

Making plays that your opponent would not make is also very important, because the winnings are net - there is no delta, as your opponent will never be in the same situation, since he doesn’t make such play in the first place. Calling with relatively trash hands when the price is right in deep money is an example. If your opponent doesn’t do it, because he doesn’t understand deep money or can’t evalute what is a correct price, then what you win in this situation is net. There are many such “net opportunities” in big bet poker, and that’s why a good player can crush a poor one (in the short term for NLHE, and in the mid/long term for PLO, which has been designed to give frequent fixes to the unwary player).

Therefore, an important part of a serious poker player job is to spend time to find new ways to obtain more expected value. This can lead to playing more hands in the right circumstances, making seemingly more dangerous play etc. But that’s precisely because they look wrong and are difficult to master that the average player will not make them, and that’s what we’re looking for.

To Be Addicted Is To Be Exploitable

On the psychological side, the good player knows how to exploit the state of his opponent. The typical losing player wants his shot. He doesn’t realize the risks he entails doing so, and why it makes him lose on the long term. The good player knows the favorite moves of his opponents, those that will give them maximum pleasure, and ensnare them while they pull it out. Similarly, the good player knows when to brandish the threat of a loss that the losing player doesn’t want to take. It threatens far more than the chips in play. It threatens the very goal of the player under influence: booking winning sessions, and show the cash to his friends or wife.

Of course people are never black or white. Some losing players are sometimes fairly smart, and probably won’t keep losing for long. Winning players cannot always shake off all their bad habits, and consequently keep several weaknesses. The great players have very few, and know a lot more ways to gain expected value than the average player.

This contrasts with the Rocks, who have only one way to gain expected value (better cards), and they win only when their opponents lose in situations that would not happen the other way around (because the Rocks don’t play these hands). In big bet poker, the Rocks just miss too many opportunities, which cannot be offset by their standards alone. They are not “addicted enough” to the Winning Sessions Syndrom though, and are not the type of opponent you like the most if they are in a environment that suits them (eg. not a deep money NLHE game).

The best opponent for you is the player totally hooked to winning sessions/big pots. He realized that playing aggressively builds big pots, and can amount to huge winnings when he’s lucky. He therefore raises a lot, tries to bet you out and walk over you, often shows his bluffs, and can even be pretty successful against players who cannot handle him. His bankroll has many ups and downs, but against a good player he will unavoidably lose critical pots and will probably lose it all. But he’s too addicted to change the way he plays, and he will come for another dose later on.

Wanted: Losing Player

There would be no poker room without losing players. If everybody assessed their game properly, one would quickly find out when he’s playing against a better player, and would not burn significant cash playing against him. The losing players are the oxygen of the industry, and it always wants more. Delusion is their weapon, and they will do everything they can so that you believe you are at worst a breakeven player.

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