The Evolving Game Of Poker
Poker is a constantly evolving game, and with the plethora of forums and training sites on the Internet the game seems to be changing even faster than ever before. A couple of years back I wrote an article called “Moving Beyond Harrington” that discussed the evolution of poker after the Harrington on Hold’em books came out and some of the adjustments I had made to use some of these concepts against the very players using them. I was looking back through some of my old material and found this article and realized that a lot of the concepts I discussed in it no longer apply as the game has evolved even more since then. But the method of thinking I was using applies now more than ever.
When we fi rst start playing poker we often use crutches like starting hand charts, odds calculators, and other forms of statistical analysis. I think we all go through a phase in our early play where we’re looking for some Holy Grail formula that will help us beat every game out there and make tons of money. The fortunate truth is that there simply is no poker formula. Sure, for some very fi xed structured events, like single table turbo sit-n-goes, you could probably argue that there is a formula, but in general there just isn’t. In fact, poker is such a complex game that the exact same hand could have many different “best” ways to play it depending on your opposition, stack sizes, and numerous other factors.
With that in mind, one of the things I really try to focus on when I’m teaching is training my student to think like a poker player. Sure, I can try and teach people how to play A-Q in different situations, and that might be helpful, but the fact is we’re always going to be faced with situations at the table that we are unprepared for, no matter how much we’ve played or how much we know. If we know how to think like a poker player, we can take these new situations and fi gure them out on the fl y at the table and win.
So what does that mean? Well, often it means knowing how to ask yourself the right questions. One of the questions I often teach people to ask themselves at the table if a particular player or situation is giving them trouble is, “What is it in my play that this player is exploiting?” Once you’ve identifi ed the problem, you can work on fi xing that hole.
I’ll use a super simple example I saw at last year’s WPT championship event. My starting table was stacked with great players (as most tables are in this event) but directly to my right there was one player who was there mostly to have fun (I’m sure he was trying to win too, but he obviously was not a professional). He was a calling station to the bone. He would play probably sixty percent of his hands or so, and if he hit a piece of the fl op, be it bottom pair, a draw, a back door draw, or two overcards, he wasn’t ever folding. We had a well-known, very aggressive pro at our table as well. The pro kept trying to push this player off of pots, one time even betting 18,000 chips into a 6,000 chip pot with eight-high, no pair, no draw. The calling station kept calling, infuriating the pro. If you look at this situation though, was it really the calling station who was making a mistake? Or was it the pro who never bothered to adjust to the calling station’s strategy? They say the defi nition of insanity is trying the same thing repeatedly expecting a different result, and the aggressive pro in this instance was most defi nitely insane.
Some more complex examples of this are dealing with more aggressive players. The player who constantly fl oats you in position is exploiting the fact that you’re continuation-betting far too often. If you keep betting into him praying that this time he will fold, you’re the one who is insane with your play. What about the aggressive three-better who is constantly reraising you? He’s exploiting the fact that you open too many hands and don’t call with nearly enough of them. If you keep raising and then folding pre-fl op, it’s your fault you’re losing chips, not that “crazy kid in the one-seat who keeps raising everything!”
At the end of the day, if you truly think like a poker player, then you will be able to fi gure out what it is that someone else is doing to you that’s giving you such a hard time and why it’s working for them, and then fi x it right there on the fl y. Conversely, if you’re able to recognize similar fl aws in any of the other players at the table, become that annoying player to them! Be the calling station versus the aggressive player who just can’t help bluffi ng. Be the “crazy kid” constantly three-betting if your opponent keeps folding.
If there is one thing I’ve learned in my time in poker it is that the game is in a constant state of change. The way it is played now is vastly different than when I started fi ve years ago, and the way people will play fi ve years from now will be far different from today. My hope is that by constantly analyzing what the other players are doing and why it either is or isn’t working, I will be able to both prevent myself from becoming exploitable to these new plays and know how to properly incorporate them into my game. It is this constant ebb and fl ow of ideas that I fi nd so intriguing about the game and why now, years after I started playing, I still feel like I learn something new every day.
