Poker Wisdom

Sorry to keep you all waiting so long. (Oh, who am I kidding, no one's been waiting.) I've been busily hustling to get some advertising for my student magazine, getting ready for Fall quarter, and playing a fair amount of poker on the side. Poker teaches you a lot about people, and a lot about life, and I don't mean how to deal with adversity (though it does that too). So here's a little list of the things I've learned through poker:

1. You can't win if you don't play. In poker, and specifically Texas Hold 'Em, the cards come second to your ability to assess the strengths of the other players and their cards. I've seen far to many people grousing about how they aren't getting any cards. Finally, it was suggested that if they just get themselves into a few hands, their luck might turn around. Luck is a byproduct of action, and all inaction will do is cost you your ante, and slowly wear you down.

2. Don't just think you have the best hand ... know it. The only time your hand can't be beat is when you actually have what you think you have. The biggest mistake people tend to only make the one time, is to think they have cards they don't actually possess, getting beat by a better hand. Check what you've got and take time to think about what can beat you.

3. "You can shear a sheep many times, but you can only skin him once." That's a quote from "Rounders", but I'm using it to mean something a little different. It means to stay humble. When you're winning, it's easy to get a big head, and start rubbing people's faces in it. The only way people are going to continue to hand their money over to you is if they're having a good time, so don't make choices that are going to cause people to not want to play with you again.

4. Pick the right opportunity to go All-In. You can't double up if you don't go All-In, but you also can't double up if you can't back it up. Putting everything on the line is always a risk, so you have to choose the right cards, the right time, the right table position. They call it a calculated risk because it takes thought, and you can't just throw everything in and see what happens, because that frequently means that you've already lost.

5. The only decision to make is to force others to make decisions. This comes down to knowing your opponents. Sometimes you have to get them into the pot, and that means knowing that your check will make them bet. Sometimes that means never letting someone into a pot for free, making them pay to see a flop. It's a lot easier to play when you're making someone else make the hard decisions, giving you time to analyze the players rather than analyzing yourself.

6. Limit your opposition. It's easier to figure out one or two opponents than it is to figure out all of them. This ties back into the previous point, but when you force people to pay to play, many will stay out to wait for better hands.

7. Learn from your beats. When you lose, take a breather, sit out a few hands, and think about how it was you lost. Did you bet with a marginal hand, did you misread the board? Knowing how and why you lost is the only way to keep it from happening again.

8. Take a chance. Sometimes, you just have to take a shot. Gus Hansen is famous for playing the cards that the pros won't play, and he's made a career of it. Why? Because if everyone is holding out for Big Slick, it's likely that the board will be loaded with lower cards, and not everyone is going to be able to make a full boat. The best time to take a chance is when weaker players are going to let you play for free, or on the cheap.

9. Defend your position. When you're "in position" it means you have the benefit of acting last. Frequently, the best thing to do in that position is to go "over the top", and make everyone else put their money in play. Exception: Don't defend your position when two players are All-In behind you. No matter how good your cards are, they're probably not good enough (unless they're pocket Aces). When two or more others are betting the farm, you're probably not going to be able to win, so it's best to just get out of the way, because your competition is about to get much smaller.

10. Know the pot odds, and know when you're pot committed. Sometimes, the right play is to bet when you've already got so much in play, that a little more won't make a difference, unless you win it back. At the same time, it's frequently smart to know when you can force others to keep betting into a pot they can't win. Bet too much, and you'll force them out, but if you bet just enough, you can keep them playing even if they don't want to.

There's a lot more, of course, because poker is a constant learning process. But that's life for you.