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Everything but the Cards

published on 05/23/06 at 9:56 am

All too often I will be somewhere, minding my own business, and someone will walk up to me with a specific hand question. The discussion will begin in a usual format “I had XX and was up against YY”… It is at this point that I will interrupt the individual and begin with a barrage of questions: “What position where you in? What position was your opponent in? Who started the action? What was the other players’ at the table involvement in the hand? What were the chip stacks? How has the play been thus far? How many hands has the other player been involved in? What type of hands has he been showing down?” and so on. You would be amazed as to the small percentage of players that were able to offer an answer that would define the “situation” rather than the hand.

I recently decided to conduct a small study of 100 poker players that were playing at a local tournament. When a player was asked to cover their eyes and tell me what position they were in, less than 10% answered correctly. The majority of the correct answers came from those that were on the blind, yet 20% of those players did not even remember which blind they were on. All they knew was they had just put chips in. When asked the size of their chip stack, less than 60% got within 10% of the actual count. Less than 25% were able to identify the chip leader and less than 5% had any clue as to the chip count of the remaining players at their table. One other valuable piece of information that was derived was the fact that the majority of the players that answered all of the questions wrong, are frequent Internet Players and hardly ever play live, unless in an occasional tournament. On the Net, a great deal of this information is provided to you on the screen. Thus, you have little to focus on, besides the cards. In a live game environment, it’s about everything but the cards.

It baffles the mind how one can sit at a table engaged in tournament play and expect to day dream their way into the money. In live play you MUST be conscious of everything going on around you. Especially when engaged in a hand. All of the above information I questioned players about is critical. There is also quiet a few other pieces of information that is a must. For example: How much is in the pot at any given moment? What pot odds does he need to call based on what hand you have put him on? How often has your opponent entered a Pot…from early position…from late position? What percentage of hands has your opponent won? What other reads or information have you accumulated on a player that can be useful on this hand? What information is he giving you now that will be useful later? Is he “scared money” and will fold to a big bet? Has he chased a draw in past hands without sufficient pot odds to do so? Are you up against a calling station? What are the other players doing that are not involved in this hand? Which players not involved in the hand are the ones really paying attention to the action that you need to keep an eye on later? Post hand, what is the players’ reaction to a good hand holding up or a bad beat? The list is never ending.

It is almost inevitable how ignoring this information can lead to disaster when up against a skilled player. In looking back at the 2005 main event there is one particular individual that comes to mind. This guy had showed up to Vegas for a bowling tournament and ended up winning a satellite into the main event. Suck out after suck out, he found himself deep into the money. At a stage of the tournament when information is critical, as the change in payout from place to place varies considerably, he made a critical error. He entered a pot, raising from late position with pocket 2′s. He was called by the big blind with A 10 off suite. The flop brought an Ace and our friend with the deuces pushed all in. He was shocked when he saw the A-10 and could not believe he got called pre flop with that hand at this stage in the tournament. Well, had he been paying attention, his first realization would have been that his opponent had been making very calculation decisions thus far. His pre flop raise was insufficient as it gave his opponent almost 3:1 odds on the hand. With an A-10, there are very few hands that he would be an underdog to with less than 2:1 odds, thus, a call was inevitable. Had he raised 1.5 times the pot, his opponent would have, most likely, laid the hand down. So in conclusion, he got exactly what he deserved. Hopefully he can take something away from this hand and, next time, pay more attention.

So as you can see, Poker is a very demanding game that requires a great deal from its players. Knowing what information is needed and having the ability to accumulate and process this information is critical to one’s long term success as a poker player. Now throw in some much needed mathematical calculations and you will soon realize just how engaged one’s mind needs to be during a hand of Poker.

Let’s face it, at the end of the day you could cherry pick your hands and hope they hold up, but if you plan to have any future in this game at all your first realization need to be that Poker is about everything but the cards.

John “The Greek” Leontakianakos is a professional poker player with 27 years of experience. He is currently in the process of publishing a book on poker and runs his own website called JohnTheGreekPoker.

1. High Cards Are Bad Cards
2. Additional Hand
3. Under the Gun-Part 2
4. Counting Cards
5. Playing from the Big Blind Post Flop Strategy