Death by a Thousand Cards

/crabbiness on/

Now that the WSOP is over (well, at least until November), it seems everyone and their uncle wants to report on how they busted from the series. It doesn't matter if it was the $10K Main Event or a $200 daily deepstack event-- I've read about a dozen articles and have listened to a number of podcasts about all manner of people that played in Vegas over the past month and a half, and a  majority of them are saying basically the same thing when explaining why they busted from their respective tournament: "I was card dead for hours" or "I had a great table but the cards just didn't come" or "I was blinded down by a cold deck" or "The deck was colder than a witches tit in a brass bra an IRS agent's heart."

This is all fine and good, but these descriptions all strike me as nothing more than glorified bad beat stories. Oh, look at me. I lost because the cards didn't come. Boo hoo.

Is there anything more sad/pathetic/boring than a bad beat story? My old poker coach literally used to demand a dollar whenever/if I whined about a bad beat. News flash: We all get bad beats and coolers. That's just poker, folks. You agreed to the possibility when you signed up for this silly game. Yes, in a tournament a bad beat or cooler often means your tournament life comes to an end-- but again: you knew that was a possibility going in. Quit whining about it. The cards weren't coming, so you made the mistake of waiting until you were blinded down-- and only then made a stand. And then lost. And then had to leave. And then blogged about your bad luck.

I repeat: boo hoo.

The truth for most of these folks is that they let themselves get blinded down waiting for those mythical cards to come. Maybe I'm just cranky this morning, but I really don't have patience for people who blame their tournament bust-outs on being card dead. Cards don't matter (much) in big tournaments. Phil Ivey gets coolered just as often as you do. Phil Hellmuth gets bad beaten just a much-- in fact, probably more often than you. Vanessa Selbst goes card dead just a frequently as you. Annette O. sometimes plays without even looking at her cards.

And guess what? These pros all still manage to go deep and win.

Let's repeat that hidden gem again: your cards really, truly, honestly don't matter much. Seriously.

Uh, okay Bug. What exactly does matter? If my cards don't matter, what does?

Answer: Situations.

The thing the Phils and the Vanessas (and of course the cute-as-a-button Annettes) do so much better than you or I is they wait for situations, not cards. In fact, they actively seek out situations to attack. They aren't waiting for magical cards; instead they're actively probing for weaknesses in their opponents. They're looking for situations, not cards. They're chipping up. They're slicing and dicing. They're paying attention and REDi'ing and attacking and putting their opponents on the defensive. They're doing this constantly while you and I wait for the deck to heat up. The pro's cards don't matter. Instead, what matters are the cards of their opponents. They literally are making their opponents wait for the mythical cards while they themselves build their own stack by taking advantage of situations.

Now let's repeat that gem: They are NOT waiting for cards to come. If they bust, it's because they were situation dead, not card dead.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Now back to your regular programming.

/crabbiness off/

All-in for now...
-Bug

Alas, No Stomach for the Game. Yet.

Mr. Multi has not played serious poker in a few years. He's been off making beer or something-or-other in his copious free time. That's the sad news. The happy news is he recently decided to try poker again, so he bit the bullet and made a modest deposit on an online poker site. He did a few sessions at the play tables to get the rhythm of the game back, and then jumped into a real money cash game...

...and promptly suffered a stack'em bad beat on what I believe was one of the very first hands he played. So he shut down the virtual table and walked away.

When he told me about the experience afterward, I was actually happy for him. "You suffered a bad beat," I said, "which means that you played the hand correctly. The other guy got his money in poorly. Congratulations!" Said another way, bad beats and coolers and suckouts are part of the game. Variance, and all that rot. You have to embrace the beats and think long term. Bad beats shouldn't be whined about in back alleys and barrooms; nay, they should be relished, shouted from the highest mountaintops: "I made the right decision and the other guy just got lucky! Let's do it again 100 times and I'll be rich!"

Mr. Multi, alas, didn't see things quite this way. The sting of the bad beat, well, stung. I'm not sure if he's actually logged back in since that blip beat on the radar screen of poker felt...

...which is too bad. Mr. Multi has some fundamental skills and abilities that make him well suited to the game. He's generally very patient, for one thing, which is something I personally struggle with. He's also smart in the way of the game that software guys tend to be. Logical flow, pattern recognition, and such...

But, alas. He's not played much. In a long time. And ergo he's back to feeling the sting of a bad beat, and not its subtle joy.

The truth is that Mr. Multi needs to decide if poker is a game for him or not. And believe me, it's not for everyone. Not by a long shot. You need both technical chops and mental fortitude, true, but you also need to be a bit of a masochist, welcoming those stings the poker gods inflict, embracing them, loving them for what they really are: money.

Or else you need to find a hobby easier on your gut, like beer making.

All-in for now...
-Bug

You Gotta Have Heart

The 10th and final decree in the 10 Commandments of Poker is: Thou Shall Be Fearless/Have Heart. Heart is also the third (and perhaps most important) of the three Emotional Edges in this Bug's List.

But what the hell does it mean to "have heart" when you play? Great question. I believe it has a lot of different meanings that overlap and compliment each other, as well as overlapping and complimenting other Edges. Specifically, playing with heart means:

• Play Fearless. "If you want to live, you have to be willing to die" in both cash game sessions and tourneys. In a sense, this is an extension of bankroll management, but it's more than that. You can't play scared or be unwilling to pull the trigger. If you are, then you don't belong in that game.
• Trust. You have to trust yourself, your reads, your strategy. This means you have to come prepared to play at the table, and then go through with that game plan. This is poker, so the cards don't always cooperate, but they 100% will let you down if you let yourself down.
• Act! If the correct action (i.e., most EV) is to bet/fold, then do so. If the correct action is to 3bet a bully, then do so. If the correct action is to fold, then what are you waiting for? Muck that hand. This is all related to Trust, above. In an early incarnation of the 10 C's (that was focused on Limit Poker), the Guru included one that said simply "Bet the River," which meant that you have to maximize value when the opportunity presents itself. You cannot hesitate.
• Have a Killer Instinct. Again, this one is related to Act, above. You have to be willing to check raise your own mother if it maximizes your expected value. The time for niceties is off the table; on the table is akin to being on a field of battle. Don't ever let up-- because your opponents aren't going to.
• Never Whine. You voluntarily elected to play a game that is rife with short-term variance. Whining just proves that you had no business being in that game in the first place. A great quote from the otherwise non-great film GI Jane was taken from DH Lawrence's poem on self-pity: I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself. Be the bird. Don't tell bad beat stories. Ever.
• Be an Ambassador to the Game. Don't lecture. Don't berate. Don't gloat. Don't be an asshole. Instead, be the player that the others at your table don't mind losing their money to.
• Never Give Up. We've all heard the legendary Jack "Treetop" Strauss story of a chip and chair. It happens more than you think. Hell, Greg Merson was on the brink of elimination in this past WSOP ME halfway through the event, but came back to win it all. Too many players take a beat, throw up their arms, and then say, "F it, I'm shipping it all in..." when they don't have to. Rage against the dying of the light.
• Play Patiently. This is an adjunct to the whole Discipline Edge, but it also belongs here. Poker is a game of the long run. Pick your battles; don't force the action; don't try to swim upstream against a strong downstream current. The cards will come back your way, but sometimes you simply have to wait for them. Patience, grasshopper, patience.

Yes, I know. These bullet points all sound like bullshit pop psychology words. Trust yourself. Act! Be one with the game. Blah, blah, blah, right? Wrong. At the heart of poker is, well, having heart. It's a game that you voluntarily elected to play. So why aren't you' playing it to the best of your abilities? Why aren't you accepting of the the bad along with the good of the game equally? A huge part of this game is, quite simply, in your head. It's about your mental attitude. Studies have shown that people can tell themselves to be happy-- and then are happier in the long run. Why not apply this to your time at the poker table? Don't worry; be happy... and have heart. Your pocketbook will thank you.

All-in for now...

-Bug

Bug's Poker Tip #15

Don't Tap the Glass.

Don't teach, berate, lecture, or insult your opponents at the table, especially the ones who put bad beats on you. Don't tap the aquarium glass, or the fish will scurry away and hide. It's fine to discuss strategy and teach away from the tables, but doing it during play only serves to take away your edge (by fixing a leak in your opponent's game) and/or driving them and their money away. An old boss of mine once chided a coworker after a particularly stupid, antagonistic thing this person said at a meeting. My boss turned to the coworker and asked simply, "What exactly were you trying to achieve by saying what you did? Because here's what happened instead..."  Ask yourself what are you trying to achieve by telling a player who just bad beat you that they made a big mistake playing the hand the way they did? Help them not make this same mistake again? Shame the fish into leaving? Show the rest of the table that you're pissed and tilty? Remember that taking a bad beat should be a badge of honor you wear; it means you played the hand correctly and made the right decisions, getting your money in good. Your opponent didn't. So why try to correct that mistake in their play? Tapping on the glass usually means that you're the real fish at the table.

All-in for now...

-Bug