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Along with the dramatic increase in
popularity of poker in general, and
Texas Holdem in particular, comes a tidal wave of new players
who may not be newbies to poker itself, but definitely are beginners
in comparison to experienced players. These beginning players have
been influenced significantly by what they have seen on television.
While this is cool and all, from a practical standpoint it has some
disastrous implications for the beginners.
To be blunt, if you watch Tiger Woods hook a three iron around a
dogleg, over a sand trap, and then stop it on a dime on the green,
well, don't try this at home, kids. That's not to say that all poker
shown on television is Tiger Woods-like. Far from it. Some of the TV
play is hopelessly bad -- if only because even the best players
sometimes make terrible plays.
The thing newbies need to remember is that the poker hands we see on
TV do not well represent what makes a great poker player. First and
foremost, the truly great players in all game disciplines master the
fundamentals. Ted Williams, Magic Johnson, Earl Anthony, Cheryl
Miller, Joe Montana, Martina Navratilova... all these folks spent
hours and hours on fundamentals even AFTER they were superstars. In
fact, great players devote much of their time to improving at those
fundamentals they aren't particularly good at.
Like any other game, Texas Holdem has fundamental/basics that aren't
very flashy or readily apparent, but must be mastered (and
continually mastered) before excellence can be achieved.
Discipline. No skills matter if you don't have the wherewithal
to follow through. If you know you shouldn't tilt, but tilt anyway,
you suck at discipline. And, you suck as a poker player compared to
the poker player you could be. You may still be better than average,
but you are a shadow of what you should be. It is almost impossible
to work too hard on your discipline.
Bets.
The bet is the atom of poker. Chips are electrons and protons,
but the bet is the building block of everything good and bad that
takes place in poker -- if you play for money, that is. If you play
to satisfy
ego urges, rather than to win money, then you have different
priorities, and you've blundered onto the wrong website. All ring
game poker concepts revolve around the bet. (Tournaments are
different. Surviving and being the lone winner are
tournament concepts that don't transfer to ring games.) You are
not trying to win pots. You are trying to get the best of it
on bets. You are trying to wager money, make bets, with a
mathematically favorable expectation. This involves having as a
coincidental goal the winning of pots, but that is not the main
goal, and certainly not the focus of our efforts. We simply want to
get our money in with the best of it. Win or lose, good luck or bad
luck, that really is not the point. Let the bad players fixate on
the results. You should fixate on doing the right thing.
Having the discipline to do the right thing all the time (more or
less) is the basic of the basics.
The blinds. Poker is a thinking person's game. When bets are
made without thinking, either by bad players or when "forced" via
game rules (as blinds or antes), this is the fundamental money at
stake in the contest. Thoughtful play must significantly focus on
the bets that are made thoughtlessly. Attack the bad players, and
attack the blinds. Thoughtful players have an edge over
semi-thoughtful players, but thoughtful players have enormous edges
over bets made without thought (again, either by thoughtless/bad
players or by any player because they are forced by the rules to
make the bet).
Limit versus No Limit. Most of the
Holdem on television is No Limit tournament poker. This is about
as different from Limit ring game poker as two things of the same
species can get. Many of the winning tactics used in No Limit
tournaments are either useless or counterproductive in Limit Holdem
ring games. Chainsaws may cut most things better, but butter knifes
are more appropriate for some tasks. Just because you saw a skilled
lumberjack cut down a tall oak tree with one doesn't mean you should
use a chainsaw to cut butter.
Fundamentals win ballgames and poker games and games of every sort.
Let the suckers try to buy lunch with their egos. You should focus
on the basics of making thoughtful bets when you have the best of
it, and then you can focus on buying lunch with your profits --
profits courtesy of the bad players, the ego players, and the
players who simply don't work on the fundamentals enough. |
