A change of perspective
When I learned to play Go, as a graduate student, my mentor refused to allow me to play anything other than lightning games for the first few months. The reason for this was that, given that I was going to be making ludicrous mistakes regardless, it was better that I make them quickly (and analyse them later), rather than spending inordinate amounts of time thinking, and then making a ludicrous mistake anyway. It was much more important to develop a reasonable amount of experience in the initial stages of learning, rather than trying to develop ones skills while playing.
Particularly for an analytical (emphasis on the first two syllables) type like myself, this was extraordinarily good advice, and I've subsequently tended to apply it wherever it was practical. Of course, playing poker is one of those areas and almost all my play to this point has been of the "lightning Go" variety.
My New Year's poker resolution, though it's really too vague to be calling it that, is to move beyond the point where I'm simply playing for experience, and to begin taking my play more seriously. A particular part of this resolution is to fold when my instincts or reads tell me to fold -- rather than calling (which in the experience phase is frequently the only way to check whether the instinct to fold was correct!)
Here's an illustration from an MTT (or is it "a MTT", I can never remember the rules about articles before acronyms) last night:
Blinds still at 10/20, I (1450) get A♦A♠ on the button. There are three limpers in front, two who have me covered, and one who is all in. I raise to 80, the blinds fold, and the limpers call. The pot is 290, and the flop is 2♣5♥6♥. The first limper bets 200, and the other active limper raises to 400. Oh my fur and whiskers! I fold the aces (8♦6♠ and 6♦5♦ -- the first is clearly certifiable, since he continued to bet unimproved through to the river).
Of course this one was easy, particularly as the all in limper meant I'd be able to see the outcome regardless. Still, you don't fold aces all that often, and in any case, each journey begins ... (or choose your favourite cliche here).
Particularly for an analytical (emphasis on the first two syllables) type like myself, this was extraordinarily good advice, and I've subsequently tended to apply it wherever it was practical. Of course, playing poker is one of those areas and almost all my play to this point has been of the "lightning Go" variety.
My New Year's poker resolution, though it's really too vague to be calling it that, is to move beyond the point where I'm simply playing for experience, and to begin taking my play more seriously. A particular part of this resolution is to fold when my instincts or reads tell me to fold -- rather than calling (which in the experience phase is frequently the only way to check whether the instinct to fold was correct!)
Here's an illustration from an MTT (or is it "a MTT", I can never remember the rules about articles before acronyms) last night:
Blinds still at 10/20, I (1450) get A♦A♠ on the button. There are three limpers in front, two who have me covered, and one who is all in. I raise to 80, the blinds fold, and the limpers call. The pot is 290, and the flop is 2♣5♥6♥. The first limper bets 200, and the other active limper raises to 400. Oh my fur and whiskers! I fold the aces (8♦6♠ and 6♦5♦ -- the first is clearly certifiable, since he continued to bet unimproved through to the river).
Of course this one was easy, particularly as the all in limper meant I'd be able to see the outcome regardless. Still, you don't fold aces all that often, and in any case, each journey begins ... (or choose your favourite cliche here).
posted by Michael Albert at 1:20 pm
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