GameMaster Online is very pleased to introduce our newest gaming contributor Dave Scharf. Dave is the publisher of Canadian Poker Monthly. He resides in the Canadian west with his wife Heather, son Arthur, two dogs and three cats. For the past two years Dave has earned a substantial portion of his income from playing hold'em in western Canada. He has joined us to educate you in the games of chance & to answer any & all Poker questions put to him. AND YOU WERE TOLD YOU CANNOT LIVE ON POKER WINNINGS? Well, we have the proof for you.

Make No Mistake

In poker, as in life, you will be faced with a series of decisions. In life of course, your decisions are very complex and involve far reaching and significant consequences – you may have to choose to change jobs, get married, get divorced, have children, take a holiday etc etc etc. As a matter of fact, in life the list of possible choices is very nearly endless. In poker, the decisions are rather simpler to categorize. In fact, when the dealer gets to you and says, “Your action sir,” you really have but few choices: should you check or bet (if there has not yet been a bet) or should you fold, call or raise (if there already has been a bet). Similarly, in poker, as in life, we all make mistakes. The difference here is that in poker it’s easy to identify a mistake (this is not so simple a matter in life, but enough about life – we’re here to talk about poker). In poker a mistake is choosing to fold, call or raise when one of the other options would result in more profit (or less loss).

An Example

Suppose for a moment that poker was played face up. You find yourself in a game of Seven-stud. The player to your immediate left has three deuces (of course, that leaves him with a deuce for a door card making him the forced bring in – even though you can see all his cards). He brings it in for $1. All of the other players fold and it’s your turn. You look down and you see A§K§Q§. Do you call? I hope not. You are not favoured to win and you are in a heads up confrontation. As a matter of fact, if you took your high suited connectors against his trip deuces to the river every time you would win only about 19.81% (based on a 500,000 hand simulation using Poker Wiz). Even if there was no more betting, after 100 hands you would be down $40 (ie. about 20% of the time you would finish the hand with $40 and the other 80% of the time you would finish with $0 for a loss of $80). If you call, you are making a mistake.

Now suppose the same example, except that the hands are not face up. Your opponent shows only a deuce. He brings it in for $1 and everyone else folds, now what do you do? I should think you at least call if not raise. In the first case with all the cards face-up you would never make an error. In the second case, you will almost assuredly make a mistake because you don’t know that your opponents has three deuces. This illustrates some fundamental aspects of the game of poker: (1) It is a game of incomplete information; (2) Making mistakes costs you money; and (3) You will make mistakes.

Three Aspects of the Game

Consider those three points for a moment. The first is obvious – poker is a game of incomplete information. Of course it is – you do not know what cards your opponent has. You may suspect, you may believe, you may even “have a feeling,” but until you see’em you really cannot say for certain what your opponent’s hand is. Thus, you do not have all of the information. Although this seems obvious, it is important since this single point is the very foundation of the game. If we knew each other’s cards then nobody would ever make a mistake and the game would be reduced to the equivalent of the child’s card game of War. If we always knew what our opponents held, and they us, then poker would be more than a tad boring.

The second point is equally obvious – making mistakes costs you money. But this is important too because what this means is that making mistakes also costs our opponents money. If you are to be a winner, then there must be a loser. Losers make mistakes – otherwise they wouldn’t be losers. Simple right? In other words, if there are to be winners and losers then there must be players who make mistakes since if nobody ever made a mistake then nobody would lose money and everybody would break even (actually, of course, the house would win since they rake the pot and the loss would simply be split amongst the remaining players).

The third point is, perhaps, not as obvious but it is inevitable – you will make mistakes. I have no deductive proof of this. However, I have noticed something whilst playing poker: I make a lot of mistakes. Lots and lots. Tons and tons and tons of mistakes. Every time I play I make mistakes. Have you ever called on the end and lost? If you have, you made a mistake. You lost money that you need not have lost. That’s a mistake pure and simple. You will read poker theorists that will tell you “If on the end, you have a 10% chance of winning and the bet it $10 and the pot is $200 then you should call.” While this is true before you call, once you call and find out that you are a loser then calling was definitely a mistake. Before you knew your opponents cards it may not have been a mistake, but once you lose… you made a boo- boo: you lost $10 that you need not have lost.

Yeah, so what’s the point?

So far we have not learned very much have we? Well, here is the point: To improve your profits at poker reduce the number of mistakes you make. Make less mistakes – make more money. Make less mistakes than your opponents and you will win their money. Make more mistakes, and they will win yours. This seems a negative take on things. Perhaps I should say “Be a better player than your opponents and you will win their money” but the idea of “being a better player” is more difficult to understand than the idea of “make fewer mistakes.”

Poker and Tennis

How do we reduce the number of mistakes we make at the poker table? For a moment, let’s compare poker to tennis. In tennis they talk about “unforced errors.” Unforced errors are a player’s own fault. The opposite, of course, are errors that are the result of his or her opponent’s stellar play. So for instance, Pete Sampras smokes a blistering forehand down the line and Andre Agassi is forced to run all the way across the court to attempt a return. If Agassi’s return drifts out of bounds this is not an unforced error. Agassi might have made the return, but the fact that he didn’t was primarily a result of Sampras’ excellent shot in the first place. On the other hand, if Sampras lobs a nice easy shot into the centre of the court and Agassi winds up to clobber it but drives it out of bounds – that is an unforced error. He should have successfully returned the ball.

Now, suppose that Pete Sampras were to play tennis against me (I am not a tennis player by the way). Who would win? Sampras of course. How many unforced errors would he make? Probably none at all. Sampras would simply play a basic game and I would make so many unforced errors that he would clean my clock. He would not need to risk any unforced errors to beat me. I would make enough all on my own. In the previous example, when Agassi returns the lob and it goes out of bounds it is an unforced error, but he can lay part of the blame on the fact that Sampras is such a formidable foe that Agassi needs to do better than simply return the ball. He has to return it in such a way that Sampras will have difficulty re-returning it. Lost? Let me put it into poker terms.

At low-limits against little skilled opponents, your opposition will make all kinds of errors. They will call with hands they should muck; they will call with hands that they should raise; they will even raise with hands they should muck. None of this will be because of your stellar play. No. It will be because they are poor players. They will make unforced error after unforced error and you will win their money. All you need to do is play a basic game, they will do the rest. You do not need to attempt to force them into errors by making tricky plays (i.e. attempting a cross-court backhand). All you need to do is eliminate the unforced errors from your own game. They will make enough errors on their own to give you their money.

Eliminate unforced errors

Thus, the first step in developing a successful poker game is to eliminate unforced errors. Do not make mistakes that are easy to avoid. If you’ve read any book you know that 7§2§ is a terrible starting hand in Hold’em. Nobody is forcing you to play those two cards. In fact, nobody is even putting any pressure on you to play those cards. Throw them away! If you do not, you are committing an unforced error. You are giving your money to your opponents. You are not even making them work for it. They are lobbing you the ball and you are hitting it into the seventh row of the bleachers for no reason at all!

Here is a non-exhaustive list of unforced errors that most new or little skilled low-limit players make:

(1) Coming into the pot with poor starting hands (there is not the scope here to address the issue of starting hands – for Hold’em I would recommend Lee Jones Winning Low Limit Hold’em or Richard Allen’s FoolProof).

(2) Following through with poor draws (inside or ignorant straight draws, small pocket pair, over cards, three to a flush etc etc etc). If you have a thin draw and the pot is small – fold! Nobody is forcing you to make the mistake of calling so why do it?

(3) Bluffing. Too often new players get a romanticized idea about the importance of bluffing and they bluff too much. If your opponent is the kind of player who will call with anything then do not bluff. You either have him beat or he will call so why bluff?

(4) Calling when you know you are beat. There has been six way action all the way to the river in Hold’em. The board finished with four flush and four to a straight. You hold two pair. Do not call. You are beat. Save your money for the next hand. Make them get your money from you by beating you.

Those are only four examples. Low-limit, little skilled players will make many, many more. They will make so many errors in the course of a night that you will lose track. Do not make them yourself. Nobody is forcing you to. Nobody is even asking you to.

Resolve today to eliminate unforced errors. Do it and you will find yourself making more money and being better equipped emotionally to deal with the bad beats that those little skilled opponents will be putting on you (they put them on all of us). When the poor opponent goes runner runner to draw a flush and beat your flopped set ask yourself: “Did I make any errors in that hand?” When you can honestly say to yourself, “No I did not,” then you will be able to smile and shake your head when your opponent stacks the chips. You may even find yourself able to say: “Nice hand sir.” You will get him next time. And the time after that…

3/24/98

Regards,
Dave Scharf
Publisher - Canadian Poker Monthly

Free issue offer at http://www.canadianpoker.com
email: dave@canadianpoker.com
tel:(306) 244-0790
fax:(306) 652-0633
Saskatoon,SK