Poker: A Guaranteed Income for Life

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PART THREE

STRATEGIES

With discipline and objective thinking, the good player takes control of poker games. With the proper strategy, he molds those games to his maximum advantage. His prime strategical tool is deception.

X
Ingredients of Strategy (19)

Proper strategy depends on the game, opponents, and situation. Certain phases of poker remain more or less constant; other phases change from bet to bet, hand to hand, or game to game. The good player bases his long-term strategy on the more constant phases of poker and his short-term strategy on the variable phases. Good strategy contains the ingredients shown in Table 14.

TABLE 14
INGREDIENTS OF STRATEGY

1. Understanding Game (2O)

Long-range (general) strategy develops from an understanding of the game. The good player understands the game by knowing the--

• quality of players
• betting pace
• availability of cash
• credit situation
• general attitude and friendliness
• areas of resistance and resentment
• bluffing attitudes
• reasons for player turnover.

When a player fails to appraise a game accurately, he experiences--

• decreased edge odds
• errors and missed opportunities
• less effective strategy.

The good player continually evaluates the game in order to detect changes and inaccurate appraisals.

All sorts of game and player information are in John Finn's black leather notebook. Every month he summarizes his observations in a section labeled "General Appraisal of Game and Players." Here is a typical summary:

"Monday--7/9. The players have stabilized over the past month, except for the gradual disintegration of Scotty, who gets desperate when losing heavily and then makes poor bets and bluffs. The betting pace is increasing as wild modifications are added. The betting stakes remain stable. The cash situation is good despite heavy losses by Sid, Ted, and Scotty. But Ted is in financial trouble; he runs up large debts and then pays them off with borrowed money. He may soon go broke.

"Resentment is building between Quintin and Sid. Quintin sarcastically questions Sid's honesty. Sid shouts back angry insults about Quintin's stinginess. This quarrel must end before it hurts the game.

"The game is in good shape and yields a reliable and substantial income. No one seems about to quit, except Ted if he goes bankrupt. But the game needs one or two new players . . . Aaron Smith would be a profitable addition."

2. .Knowing Opponents (21)

• personalities
• weaknesses and strengths
• behavior patterns
• motives for playing
• financial status
• betting and raising tendencies
• dropping and bluffing tendencies
• areas of confusion and errors

Classification of opponents is a major step toward understanding them. Poker players usually can be put into one of the eleven classes shown in Table 15A.

TABLE 15A
CLASSES OF PLAYERS

Some players are a mixture of two classes. Also, the class of a player can change from moment to moment or over the long term, as shown in Table 15B.

TABLE 15B
CHANGES IN PLAYERS

The players in this Monday night game are classified as follows:

3. Situation and Position (22)

1. Estimated strength[ 15 ] and statistical value[ 16 ] of his own hand

2. Game

pace

temperament

atmosphere

time (such as first hand, a late hour, last hand)

size of pot

potential size of pot

3. Opponents

indicated strength

attitude

attentiveness

win or loss status

effect of previous bet

4. Position

fundamental

technical

The good player appraises his situation from both a fundamental and a technical position. His fundamental position is the estimated strength and statistical value of his hand relative to other players. His technical position is the strategic and psychological advantage he holds over his opponents at a given moment. An important strategical consideration is seat position.

Seat position is important in nearly every decision. The good player adjusts his strategy according to his seat position relative to the dealer, opener, bettor, raiser, and the strong and weak hands. He considers his seat position in decisions about--

The best seat position depends on where the other players sit. The next anecdote about John Finn shows why the good player likes to position himself as shown in Table 16.

TABLE 16
SEAT POSITIONS

The good player usually gets a desirable seat at the start of a game because his opponents seldom care where they sit. If an opponent is conscious of position, he generally tries to sit behind (bet after) the loosest or wildest player--the opposite position sought by the good player. A player can often pick a good position by arriving after the players are seated and then squeezing into the best seat position. (But continuous late arrival can hurt a game.) The good player can also use the excuse of "changing his luck" to swap seats with a player in a better seat position. That ploy also gives his opponents the erroneous but advantageous impression that he is superstitious.

The dealer has an advantage in hold'em, draw, or any form of closed-hand poker in which he bets last. When the same person always deals (e.g., a house dealer), that advantage is evenly distributed by using a marker, a button, or a buck that passes in turn to each player. Usually the player with the marker bets first, and the player to the right of marker bets last, as would a dealer.

Most regular players get into a habit of sitting in the same position. In the Monday night game, John quietly arranges the seating to his advantage, and then game after game the players sit approximately in the same positions. He maintains this arrangement by preventing the players from realizing that they keep sitting in positions favorable to him.

Ted Fehr's betting is wild, and impulsive. While John can usually read Ted's hands, he can seldom predict his betting actions. By positioning himself so Ted bets first, John can adjust his strategy according to Ted's play. Sid Bennett's betting is even wilder, but is predictable. By betting before him, John can often check his strong hands and let Sid do the betting for him. It makes less difference to John where Quintin (a sound player) or Scotty (a tight player) sit. The ideal seating arrangement for John is illustrated below:

XI
Tailor-made Game (23)

The good player designs poker games to his maximum advantage by increasing the betting pace, the betting stakes, and his edge odds. A major step in this direction is to complicate the game by orienting the action around stud or hold'em variations of poker rather than draw poker. Stud variations offer the following advantages to the good player:

• More skill and effort are needed to assimilate the additional information and variables offered by the exposed cards.[ 17 ]
• Added rounds of progressively higher bets effectively increase the betting stakes.
• Faster and more rounds of bets effectively increase the betting pace.

1. Increasing the Betting Pace (24)

The betting pace is increased by adding modifications to the game such as those listed in Table 17.

TABLE 17
GAME MODIFICATIONS

The good player can usually work many advantageous modifications into most games -- even into games that are not dealer's choice. The following paragraphs describe some of those advantageous pace-increasing modifications.

a. Twist (25)

The twist increases the betting pace. At the normal conclusion of a poker hand, a card or cards may be exchanged (twisted) for a new card or cards. An additional round of betting follows each twist. As players grow accustomed to that modification, they usually become addicted to it and make the twist a permanent part of the game.

A single twist played with five-card stud is the gentlest way to introduce this modification. Most players will accept a twist as a good way to convert normally dull five-card stud into a more lively "six-card" stud game. As players become accustomed to the twist, the good player can further quicken the pace by adding other twist modifications such as--

b. Split pot, high-low (26)

Because of the dynamic betting action between high hands and low hands, the betting pace increases markedly when pots are split between the highest hand and the lowest hand (high-low poker). Many players are initially hostile to high-low poker. Seven-card stud high-low is probably the easiest way to introduce split-pot games. With patience and persistence, the good player can usually generate great interest in high-low poker. Again, the good player can further quicken the pace by adding other high-low modifications such as--

c. Check raise and pick-up checks (27)

Player A checks; player B bets; now player A raises . . . that is called check raising. Player A checks; player B checks; player C makes a bet three times larger than the maximum bet by making A's bet, B's raise, and then his own raise . . . that is called picking up checks. Check raising and picking up checks increase the betting flexibility as well as the number of large bets and raises. But if those modifications cause a defensive attitude among players, a decrease in the betting pace can occur. Also, house rules of many games prohibit check raising and picking up checks.

d. Right to bet (28)

Every player has a chance to bet or raise during each round of betting. With this rule, a player holding a strong hand cannot be shut out of his bet or raise by three minimal raises made in front of him. Right to bet increases the betting pace, particularly in split-pot games. Players seldom object to this seemingly equitable modification.

e. Early bet (29)

An indirect method to increase the ante is to permit a small bet after dealing the first hole card in stud or the second card in draw. The early bet usually holds more players in the game for the later rounds of more expensive betting. But if most players stay or drop on the strength of their early cards rather than on the size of the pot, this modification can drive out potential players and thus decrease the betting pace.

f. Bet or get and blind bets (30)

No checking is permitted with the bet-or-get rule ... each player must either bet or drop. This modification gets players involved early and keeps them in for the big last-round bets. Most players are unaccustomed to this modification and may object vigorously to it. A similar modification is blind betting (and raising) in which the first player after the dealer is forced to bet (and if called for, the next player is forced to raise). Blind betting and blind raising are common in public poker and are very effective for increasing the betting action.

g. Additional cards (31)

An additional sixth card is dealt to each draw hand. The hands are then reduced to five cards during the draw. That additional card keeps more players in the hand, particularly in lowball draw. Players seldom object when this simple modification is introduced.

h. Novel games (32)

Poorer playing normally results when new or novel games are introduced because most players do not understand the changes in play and odds that occur. Novel games may range from simple lowball draw or hold'em stud to a complex game such as "place-and-show-tickets split-pot-with-twist-your-neighbor." (That game is played as follows: At the conclusion of a stud or draw game, each player draws for use in his own hand a card from the hand of an adjacent player. The pot is then split between the second and third best hands.)

A decreased betting pace may result, however, if players become frightened or excessively confused by wild games or modifications that are too extreme or are introduced too rapidly.

i. Wild cards and freak hands (33)

Wild cards can increase the betting pace and loosen up certain games. As players become accustomed to wild cards, their fear of very strong hands usually dissipates. But if so many wild cards are used that hands such as five-of-a-kind and straight flushes become common and any betting strength suggests those maximum-value hands, the betting will dry up.

The bug card (the joker--used in low hands as a wild card, and in high hands as an ace or as a wild card for completing straights and flushes) can increase the betting pace without causing fear of maximum-value hands.

The good player rarely encourages the use of freak hands such as blazes, tigers, dogs, kilters, and skeets. While such hands could temporarily increase his edge odds by adding confusion, the use of freak hands may deter players from accepting other more profitable modifications such as twists and split pots.

j. No-limit table stakes and pot limit (34)

No-limit table stakes and pot-limit betting allow more aggressive betting and bluffing, giving the good player direct control over the betting. But such open-ended stakes can slow down the betting pace and normally cannot be used with split-pot games. In many games, therefore, no-limit table stakes or pot-limit betting (versus high-limit games) would actually decrease the financial opportunities for the good player.

Six years ago, Sid Bennett insisted that good poker players liked only straight draw and stud games. He claimed five-card was the greatest gambling game of all. As John Finn gradually increased the betting pace by adding one modification after another, Sid went to the other extreme:

Sid is winning; his pale lips are smiling. He grabs the deck, shoves his face over the table, and announces, "New game!" He then deals two separate hole cards to everyone.

"What's this?" Quintin says, frowning sourly.

"Seven-stud high-low. Everyone plays two hands. You can even raise yourself," Sid says with a snorting laugh. "And the hand to the left of the highest hand wins high and the hand to the right of the lowest hand wins low."

"I'm going home," Quintin says as he grabs his ante from the pot and stands up to leave.

"Sit down; we aren't going to play that," John Finn says. He then turns to Sid and explains gently, "I know its dealer's choice, but that's no poker game. You can't have hands next to the winners as winners."

"Bunch of ribbon clerks," Sid whines. "Okay, straight high-low ... play your left hand for high and right hand for low. And you can still raise yourself."

"That's more like it." John says.

Sid's toothy grin stretches wider as he continues to deal.

2. Increasing the Betting Stakes (35)

The good player increases the stakes in carefully planned steps. Several temporary increases may be necessary before higher stakes become permanent. But in some games, stakes can be increased immediately and rapidly. Opportunities to increase the stakes occur when players want--

• a chance to get even by increasing the ante or stakes in the late hours or during the last round
• a more equitable relationship to the ante by increasing the first-round or opening bets
• a chance to protect a hand by increasing the middle-round bets
• an opportunity to bet a good hand by increasing the last-round bets.

The stakes are normally easier to increase after the betting pace increases. Opposition to higher stakes and game modifications often diminishes when the resisting player is--

• tired
• losing heavily or winning big for the evening
• on a losing or a winning streak
• upset by some occurrence during the game
• affected by personal problems
• drinking.

A good way to increase the stakes is to let those players who want to double the stakes, for example, play at double stakes whenever they are the only players left in the hand.

When John Finn started playing in the Monday night game, it was already seven years old and the stakes had been stabilized for five years. A dollar was the maximum bet, and only straight draw and stud games were allowed. The chart on page 67 shows how both the betting pace and stakes steadily increased after John took control of the game:

The data in the chart on page 67 show three interesting phenomena:

1. When the stakes increase, there is not a proportional increase in the average winnings or money flow because most players initially play tighter at higher stakes. But an increase in the pace causes looser play and a relatively large increase in the money flow.
2. John's edge odds go up when the pace increases and down when the stakes increase. This is because his opponents play more poorly as the pace increases, but more cautiously at higher stakes.
3. An increase in the pace eventually leads to higher stakes.

The data also show how the increases in stakes and pace affect John's profits. The doubling of stakes after twenty-six months causes his edge odds to drop sharply-- from 60 percent to 35 percent. At those higher stakes, he must spend a greater portion of his income to hold valuable losers in the game. On realizing that, John drops the stakes back to the previous level and brings his edge odds up to a healthy 65 percent. Why the big increase in John's edge odds when he lowers the stakes? After getting a taste of higher stakes, the players bet more loosely and play more carelessly when the stakes are lowered to the old level. Nineteen months later, John doubles the stakes again ... and this time the increase is profitable and permanent.

John usually tries raising the stakes soon after increasing the betting pace. Under the pretense of giving the losers a break, he often increases the stakes during the last round of the game. The following dialogue shows how he advantageously manipulates that last round.

"You're getting blasted again," Sid Bennett says to Ted Fehr. "Must be losing a grand."

"That's only four thousand hamburgers at my drive-in," Ted says, smiling weakly. "Wait till I get the deal. I'm doubling the stakes like we did last week. Got to make a big comeback."

"No sir, none of that," Quintin Merck interrupts as his cigarette falls from his mouth. "Next thing you know, we'll be playing the whole game at double stakes."

"Quintin's right," John says, trying hard to sound sincere. "If anything, we should ban double stakes even for the last round . . . it's too expensive."

"Yeah," Scotty Nichols says while counting his winnings.

Two hours later, John announces the last round.

"Hey, double the stakes for the last round," Ted cries.

"We made a rule against it," John says with a shrug. He then turns to the other players and continues, "We gave the losers a break last week. Ted is stuck bad. Let's double the ante and play a round of high-low draw--for Ted's sake."

"Yeah!" Scotty says as he checks his freshly emptied wallet.

"I'm in," Ted says, throwing his double ante into the pot.

"High-low draw? That's a stiff game," Quintin grumbles while anteing slowly. "That's worse than doubling the stakes."

What does John accomplish with that manipulation? He introduces the fast-pace, high-low draw game. He doubles the ante, which will make the stakes easier to increase at a later date. He creates the impression that he is both helping a loser and opposing higher stakes, while actually setting up conditions for both higher stakes and a faster pace.

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[ 15 ] Estimated strength of a hand is relative to the estimated strengths of opponents' hands.

[ 16 ] Statistical value of a hand is relative to the number of opponents. The statistical value of a hand decreases with increasing number of opponents.

[ 17 ] The good player often adds another variable by inconspicuously altering the order of his face-up cards.

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