|
If
there was only one winning style of poker, there would
only be one type of winner. That’s the great thing
about this game of ours: the human element is such a
large contributing factor that we have countless kinds
of people playing completely different styles, all in
search of the same goal. All the top players, however,
have learned to play all styles and can adapt to each
individual table. If you’re able to make adjustments
every time you sit at the table, you’ll find it
much easier to make money.
I’m a big fan of analogies, so let me throw one
your way. Let’s compare poker to Major League
Baseball. There are plenty of guys who made good money
throughout their careers hitting fastballs, and there
are guys that made their money hitting curveballs. But
wouldn’t you rather be the guy that can hit both
and make all the money? In poker, you don’t want
to be the guy that can only beat a certain kind of game.
You want to be able to switch gears and have a different
gameplan for anything your opponents throw at you.
Example one: Say you start off a tournament and the
table is full of faces you’ve never seen before.
You are pretty sure that the competition isn’t
too experienced, so it’s a perfect opportunity
to step on the gas and put some pressure on your opponents.
You will want to get in there and mix it up a little
to try to accumulate some chips.
 Example
two: The Table of Death. You sit down and you look across
at John Juanda, Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu and Howard
Lederer. The same gameplan isn’t going to work
at this table. These guys will pick you apart and spit
out our bones. You will have to dig deep in a situation
like this. These players aren’t going to let you
take flops and they certainly aren’t going to
let you control the pace of play. You have to do your
best to make the great players gamble. If you find yourself
at a death-table, find a spot where you think you have
a 50/50 proposition and go with it. This kind of table
is no place to inch up. Yes, you are extremely unfortunate
to have found yourself here, but do you really want
to butt heads with these guys all day and watch their
chip stacks pile up? I know I don’t!
We’ve heard it a million times, but no two situations
in poker are exactly alike, and the player who’s
able to recognize that, and adjust accordingly, is the
player who’ll overcome each situation and find
himself on top more often than not. Let’s face
it, we all don’t have the incredible ability of
guys like Phil Ivey and Doyle Brunson; we aren’t
able to take their kind of game to every table (man,
wouldn’t it be nice if we could?). This is why
we have to be great planners and be as prepared as we
possibly can. I’m sure Phil and Doyle don’t
really care what style of table they sit at, they’re
going to dominate it regardless. It’s very important
that us pigeons prepare as much as possible. I call
it the Craig Counsel theory: he’s a guy with half-decent
athletic ability, but he comes to the game with his
game-face on; he has prepared better than everyone out
there, and is able to compete with the guys in the major
leagues day-in, day-out.
I want to give you guys one more example before I stop
rambling. I play in a little $3/$6 no limit game online
at bodog.com, and if you were to watch, you would think
that I was the biggest sucker in the world. I raise
virtually every hand. Do you think that the top players
would let me get away with play like that? Hell No!
They would punish me for playing the amount of hands
that I do; I would get reraised on a regular basis.
But online, I get a bunch of guys just calling, trying
to sneak up on me – and that’s an OK philosophy
to take – but I promise it’s light-years
away from what the top players would be doing. Great
players never let you control the pace of play, so when
you find yourself sitting across from them, be that
thorn in their side; be a speed-bump – slow them
down, don’t let them control the pace of the game.
|
