While reading the online Wall Street Journal this morning, I came across a link to a story at another website that caught my eye: Requiem For a Poker Game. An excerpt:

But this is not the same game that once was America’s Friday-night kitchen table staple — a group of guys and gals gathered over chips, beer, cigars and swaggers, laughing and bluffing. Poker now bears little resemblance to serious cash-game poker once played in a dimly lit Las Vegas backroom by a Damon Runyon-esque collection of high-octane gamblers, bookies, off-season oil riggers, rodeo champs, denizens of the underworld and slumming celebrities who gave poker its color. That was a time when the best players were those who knew both cards and people, sly self-promoters like Amarillo Slim and Stu Ungar who lived off their wits and cunning, including peddling the romantic image of the professional gambler.

Back then, those of us who loved poker would fly to Las Vegas to learn the game from the best, patiently watching and gathering experience, studying how Johnny Moss or Jack Strauss played a particular hand, until we had our personal memorized database of what was thought to be optimal play. Experience was considered a form of wisdom; improving one’s game required much face-to-face poker playing, observation of players’ styles, patterns of betting, tells, and sharing of stories and strategies. Poker was a social game; good playing required an understanding of probabilities and psychology. Equally important were the social skills that would attract lesser (losing) players.

Not anymore. The vast majority of new young players have primarily learned to play poker online. They have honed their skills with the aid of computer simulations and data mining — complex software programs that monitor the play of their opponents and provide a detailed categorization of each style of play. This new breed of successful players comes from the virtual arena; they are likely to spend most of their playing time either alone or with similarly inclined computer geeks. As people do in the digital community Second Life, players develop virtual personas, fictitious avatars and cartoonish social skills, and are seldom accountable for their behavior. Other players aren’t colleagues, comrades in crime or even casual social acquaintances; they are obstacles to be overcome on the way to the big score.

The massive popularity of tournament poker has irreparably altered the tenor of the game by introducing the lottery aspect of the big win. Unlike cash games in which you can quit whenever you want, in tournament poker, all entrants pay a single entry fee. You cash out only by beating at least 90 percent of the field; only the top 1 percent of participants get a significant payout. To create exciting megaprizes, tournaments are structured to pay huge sums to the top few finishers, while leaving the rest empty-handed — a sharp contrast with traditional poker games, in which a single table can host multiple winners.

Last year, in bed delirious with the flu, I entered and won a $39 online satellite tournament to the 2006 WSOP main event. A couple of days later, still feverish, I found myself at a table with nine strangers. No one introduced him- or herself. Few bothered to make eye contact, preferring dark glasses and baseball caps, as though hiding in plain sight. During the first day — 15 hours of grueling play — I did not hear a single joke, an engaging story or even collegial banter. Once, when a player was criticized by another for endless badmouthing, the player responded by saying, “Hey, I’m not here to make friends. This is all about money.”

Today, in casinos and card rooms across the country, the social dimension of poker has been dismissed in favor of computerized playing strategies. Consider the following: In a live game at a casino, a dealer will deal 30 to 40 hands per hour. Online, where the cards do not have to be gathered or shuffled, hands are dealt at a much higher rate — 80 to 100 hands per hour. Because there is a lot of downtime in poker (you get relatively few playable hands), most online players play multiple games simultaneously. The result is a dramatically compressed experience; the number of hands you might have played in a 10-hour live session can easily be played in one hour online. In a few months you can see combinations of hands that it would take years to see in person.

One of the most popular software programs, Poker Tracker, can keep track of every hand that you and your opponents play. It can provide detailed statistics on how the hand did against other hands, and even how it did dependent upon your table position when you played the hand. It will tell you how well you did with a pair of eights when you are the first player to act, versus playing the hand after several players had already folded. Quickly, you can build up a set of algorithms that determine optimal starting hands dependent on your table position and the playing characteristics of your opponents. Such programs also give you extensive information on what hands your opponents are likely to play. You can set the program to project your opponents’ statistics directly over their screen icons, and players soon become known by their statistically determined playing habits rather than by their first names. You do not need to see a player’s facial expression or how he or she shifts in the chair; you already know from your data analysis when he or she is or isn’t likely to call or raise a hand.

Now, I’m not going to sit here and say, “Yeah, poker sucks now because I have to wade through all of these amatures at the World Series, I tell you!” but this article still does speak to me in a profound way that I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s worth thinking about – I mean, we all like to win when we play and you can’t win if you don’t take every advantage that you can get, but the internet game is just so much different than the beer poker we used to play in college and even after college just 7-8 years ago. I remember that I would look forward to poker night not because I might win – but because it was fun to get everyone together and have some beers and order some food and socialize. Hell, even the Friendship Social Club was kind of social, and I hated talking to 90% of the people there.

Now, it’s just lingo and mouseclicks and flashy people trying to score something – read all of the big blogs and they are are a bunch of discussions about playing 8 hands at a time on Party Poker and trip reports going to Vegas to look for fish at Caesar’s Palace.

I also think that the comparison to Sklansky’s “experiment” described in his tournament poker book is very shrewd, too. (Talk about the game being different, Sklansky and his books are practically artifacts these days… esepcially when it comes to all of his advice on beating a middle limit cash game game…)

But yes, I think the point is made and I do indeed agree that somewhere along the way poker has lost a lot of its social aspects. It’s just not the same.

Recently I read a book called “Why You Lose at Poker.” It’s a good book and I recommend it because it gets you thinking about your own game.

I decided to sit down and start a list of the reasons why “I” lose at poker. Over the next several posts, I’ll talk briefly about some of those reasons, and why I think they matter in my game. They may not all apply to you, but I’m sure some of them will. Here’s my first one:

1. NOT PAYING ATTENTION

Those that know me will all agree that I have ADD. I struggle to pay attention sometimes, and it certainly carries over to the poker table.

But when I talk about “not paying attention,” I’m not referring to watching the TV, day dreaming about living Dr. Fro’s life, or nodding off to sleep (all of which are important subjects). Rather, I’m referring to not LOOKING at what’s going on at the table, whether you’re in a hand or not.

When I was a kid, I was terrible about making eye contact. I’m better now, but I still have problems with it at the table. I find it incredibly difficult to look people in the eye in the middle of the hand. It doesn’t matter if I have the nuts, or I’m on a stone cold bluff. I just can’t do it.

So I look down at the board. I stare at it. Or I glance off to something outside our ring game. It doesn’t matter what it is. What matters is that I’m not watching what’s going on.

Now this problem of mine is not just happening when I’m in some big pot. It happens all the time. It doesn’t matter whether I plan on folding or raising. I constantly look down at the table, and away from the players and their faces.

I miss the classic tells that are there for even the biggest novice to pick up: i.e. complaining about a 3rd spade, shaking head when a 4 card straight appears on board, looking down at chips immediately when the flop is dealt, holding the chips that they plan to bet before the action is to them, etc.

These are all so easy to recognize, and in turn, so easy to miss if you’re staring down. In my quest to avoid eye contact (i.e. visual confrontation) I miss that which is in plain sight.

The biggest example of how that stung me happened about 2 years ago in Lake Charles. I flopped a Q high flush, and got into a raising war with some old blue hair at the other end of the table. I was so excited to have this hand, that NOT ONCE did I even look up at him. In fact, I can’t even tell you what he looked like. Well we ended up all-in on the flop (after 3 raises), and of course, he had the nut flush.

After the hand was over a guy next to me leaned over and said, “Man you should’ve watched him during that hand. He was shaking so bad I thought he was going to fall out of his seat.” A 2nd player agreed with him.

Ouch. If I had been paying attention, and not staring down (in some feeble attempt to avoid giving off a “tell” about my monster Q high flush) I would’ve seen this. I would’ve picked up on the fact that he REALLY liked his hand. I might’ve just called him down, and saved an enormous amount of money.

About a year ago, a friend of mine who is a very good player pulled me aside and told me that I was losing because I wasn’t watching the table. I didn’t see that the player I was “giving action to,” hadn’t played a hand in 2 hours. He told me that one of the biggest ways I could improve my game was to watch what was going on: how someone bets, how much someone bets, how anxious they look, how disinterested they look, how mad they are about losing a hand 5 minutes ago, etc.

You don’t have to be an expert in poker tells. You don’t have to turn on a mental recorder and memorize every little nuance that happens. Just watch. Just pay attention. It’ll help you get a feel for the “rythm” of the game so that you can recognize when something changes (a player suddenly sits up in his chair, a player who normally watches the game, is suddenly totally uninterested in the hand, a player is very reluctant to call your bet).

I really need to work on this. One way to do it is to play shorter sessions (subject of a future post about why I lose at poker). If I play a 3 hour session, I can concentrate on paying attention, and force myself to watch the action. Any longer, and I risk falling back into old habits.

Another way I can help myself is to wear sunglasses. I know it sounds weird, but because I have trouble with eye contact, the glasses give me a feeling of protection. People can’t tell who I’m looking at, and more importantly, they can’t see my eyes. It allows me to watch the action with more confidence, and not be concerned about any tells I may be giving off. Wearing sunglasses helps me more psychologically than it does cover my eyes. And if something helps you in your own head, do it.

At the end of that day, poker is a game of incomplete information. If you had “complete” information, you would always know what to do, with absolute certainty. But this isn’t the case. You don’t always know what to do. Therefore any additional information (to aid in your decision making process) can only help you. The more information the better. And if you just pay attention to what’s going on around you, you’ll see that there is a world of information just waiting to be digested. Sit up. Watch the game. Look at the players. Win some hands.

I recently discovered a new card room that’s located about 5 min from my house. To say it was big is an understatement:

15 tables
Tournaments 7 days a week ($40 freezeouts everday AND $220 freezeouts on Fri/Sat)
Cash games @ 5pm on weekdays (and 12pm on weekends)
$1-$2 NL and $2-$5 NL and $5-$5 ROE
Food, waitresses, massage, etc.
Separate smokeroom
Very professional and well run

I have been twice and both times there were over 100 players.

If you want directions/details, just send me an email.

Playin heads up

Oh, why the hell not post this?

I like Fro’s post below so much that I will make a rare in-blog response, which will actually make it an even rarer poker post from me. Next, I will post a picture of the Bigfoot that I saw in my backyard this morning.

I agree with the conclusion about playing pairs versus a reraise, but not with how long it took to get there because I don’t think it’s a very complicated situation. Middle and small pairs (JJ down) are not particularly strong hands pre-flop and need to be folded against just about any action that comes back at you and I think this is Doyle’s point – he seems to be axiomatic that he automatically will fold every time in this situation and not bother thinking about it.

Aside from the standard advice of always opening with a raise and never limping from early position, my personal feeling is that JJ and TT might be worth an opponent-specific raise if there are limpers in front (i.e. if I were playing against myself, because I am a pussy… but you all already know that), otherwise I see any pair other than AA, KK, and QQ (and only sometimes QQ) to be drawing hands, pure and simple: try and see the flop for cheap and then you either flop a set or make some sort of raggedy hand or you fold as soon as there is action.

Preflop play in poker is the easiest part, no doubt.