The money to be gained or lost in a home tends to mean next to nothing, and everyone at the table plays almost every hand to the end. The dealer’s choice games are often nonstan—dard, even bizarre variations (often fun) where, for example, deuces, black kings, or one-eyed jacks (or all of them) are wild, In this type of poker game, people just put their money in the middle (in the "pot") and hope to make the best hand.
Often, there doesn’t seem to be much strategy or thought involved. When the evening winds up, everyone seems to agree that "]ohnny sure was hot tonight!" You don’t hear anyone saying, "Boy, did johnny play great tonight. I sure am afraid of him at the poker table."
One reason why luck has such a big role in home-style poker games is that many of the skills we use in pro-style games just don’t come into play in a home game. For example, three of the more important skills that we use are being patient in determining which starting hands to play, blufhng, and reading people.
Patience, like discipline, is a virtue in many areas of life, and poker is no exception. It is in the nature of professional or tough high-stakes poker games that it is mathematically correct to fold a lot of hands right away If you are playing too many hands (which equates to too many bad hands) in a tough poker game, you will often End yourself “drawing mighty thin,” that is, trying to win by catching particular cards that are in short supply.
The plain fact is that if you play too many hands in a pro-level poker game, you just cannot win, certainly not in the long run and probably not even on just one given night, no matter how lucky you are. But if you’re playing a lot of hands in a home poker game, you may be in good shape anyway, because the sheer size of the pot will wind up offering you odds sufficient to draw to an inside straight (add a nine, for example, to your 7-8-10-] hand) or another "unlikely to hit" hand. You’ll usually lose, but when you do manage to hit the card you need, you’re going to win a huge pot.
Further, the number of cards that can complete what you need in the late rounds of a hand in a home game is often larger than one sees in the pro game, because the dealer has designated various wild cards or rules that allow you extra draws or give you chances to buy another card or replace a card.
Because you don’t see these big pots and people paying you off with weak hands in a pro poker game, patience is crucial there. In the traditional home-style poker games, patience not only is not as important but may actually clash with the "spirit" of the game—that "We’re all here just to have fun and gamble."
Playing a more technically informed style may win you more money in a home game, but it might also mean that you’re not invited back the next time the game is held! In a casino poker game or an online poker game, of course, you don’t need to be concerned that you might not be invited back.
Another key difference between home poker games and the games that the pros play is that bluffing actually succeeds in the pro-style games! In a home game, it’s extremely hard to pull off a bluff, because you usually can’t bet enough money on the last bet to get your opponents to fold. For 25 cents, someone who is convinced he is beaten is nonetheless willing to throw the two bits into the pot, just to see what you have, and, oops, there goes your attempted bluff. In fact, in most situations in these home games where there is a "bet on the end" (in the last round of action in a given hand), someone is always egging someone else on to be the "sheriff." "Bill, you call that boy and be the sheriff this hand! We can’t let him bluff us!"
In the pro game, blufhng is a sound strategy, because in the late stages of a hand there aren’t many people who haven’t folded. If you’ve been playing very few hands (that is, patiently), and have seldom been caught bluffmg during a day of play then when you do bluff, it’s hard for those remaining in the hand to "call you down" through the last bet. Long live the bluff! Bluffing well is an aft form, and I will be addressing it at various points throughout this book. The bluff is one of the poker crafts-man’s tools that is seldom available to players in wild, friendly, low-stakes games.
Another important element in pro poker games is reading your opponents. Are they riding on “hot air” or the real thing?
In a lot of home games, there is just so much money in the pot,relative to the size of the final bet, that it makes sense to call that bet. (What do you have to lose?) In pro poker, there is enough money involved, and enough actual thought processes are being utilized, that many situations come up where you can take advantage of a good read—which might arise either from your ability to detect weakness or strength in body language or from your ability to assess the implications of the betting pattern on the hand—and make either a good call or a good fold. But it’s hard to read someone who hasn’t really been thinking about the hand and can’t possibly be nervous about losing SSI.75! The skill factor in poker is much higher in the pro game.
There is just too much at stake for anyone to rely solely on luck.
Let’s take a quick glimpse at the high-stakes poker world, an enterprise that yields several of my friends over a million dollars a year! At this level, too, luck is a factor on any given day, week, or month, but what’s different is that if you play better poker than your opponents do, pretty consistently, you’ll End that over almost any two-month period your winnings have exceeded your losses. Furthermore, if you play better poker than your opponents over a six—month period, your results will have moved very solidly in the winning direction. Making a few well-timed bluffs each day will add up to a lot of money each year!
In fact, if an inexperienced poker player were to sit down for a few hours with a group of world-class poker players, he would have virtually no chance to win over even an eight-hour period. This very fact is why Eve or six top pros might be willing to sit down in the same game with this fellow and each other: the money that even one amateur is likely to contribute makes it worth their while t0 do battle with so many respected opponents.
This is why so many of the top poker players today drive fine cars and live in palatial homes. Right now, as you’re reading this book, there is a $600-$1,200-limit poker game at the Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas and a $400-$800-limit poker game at the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles. There is a $200-$400-limit poker game in Tunica, Mississippi; a $100-55200-limit game at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City; and a $200-$400-iimir game somewhere in New York City. They’re playing no—limit poker in San Francisco at the Lucky Chances Casino and high—stakes pot-limit poker in London at the Grosvenor Victoria ("The Vic")
and in Paris at the Aviation Club de France. In Vienna, at the Concorde Card Casino, they’re playing $75-$150 Seven-Card Stud.
If that’s not enough action for you, four nights a week in Los Angeles, there is a $2,000-$4,000-limit Seven-Card Stud game at Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club Casino, with Larry himself often playing. In the $400—$800-limit poker game it’s easy to take a $25,000 swing in one hour. In the $2,000—$4,000—limit game, where movie sta rs, former governors, and billionaires play, it’s not uncommon for someone to win or lose $250,000 in one night. In these "nosebleed” poker games (the term refers to the altitude of the stakes), strategy discipline, calculation of the odds, and practiced observation contribute to a game that involves much more skill. Better play wins more hands in the long run.
Imagine yourself facing down Larry Flynt in the $2,000-$4,000 Seven-Card Stud game at the Hustler Club Casino.
You’re sitting there trying to figure out if he has a strong hand or is full of hot air (bluffing). If you decide right, you will win $25,000, but if you’re wrong, it will cost you $25,000. What do you do? You make a good read—of the situation, of the odds, of your opponent—and make an educated guess, rather than a plain old boldfaced guess! The chief difference between your home poker game and the games of the big players is the preponderance of luck in the one and the preponderance of skill in the other. In a game (the Flynt game) where winning just one $4,000 bet a night would mean an income of $16,000 per week (this game runs four days a week), one carefully earned bet can make a great deal of difference.
That’s the way things look into the high-stakes "side game" world at large, but there is even more evidence that skill is present and important in high-stakes poker tournaments today (When I say “side-game" world, I mean the nontoumament poker world.) Why do the same people, by and large, keep winning poker tournaments year after year? They win because they apply finely honed strategies and tactics, calculate and recalculate the odds, read their opponents well, avoid becoming predictable, and know how and when to make a good bluff.
Some of the most famous poker players in the world today have made their names in poker tournaments. Doyle "Texas Dolly" Brunson has eight bracelets (titles) from the World Series of Poker (WSOP) at age 66. I have seven, and so does johnny “The Oriental Express " Chan. “Amarill0 Slim" Prest0n—whose name is known even to the general public—has four or five WSOP titles, depending, as Slim himself would say, on "who does the telling."
I’m proud to say that I was the all-time leading money winner in WSOP history in 2001, having won more than $2,800,000.
(Unfortunately for me, johnny Chan and T. j.Cloutier both passed me in 2002. But there is no one within $600,000 of the three of us.) As I write this in 2002, only six people have won more than $2 million in their WSOP "careers" (that is, on the all-time list); and johnny Chan just crossed the $3 million mark in 2002. (He beat me there! But I’ll win the race to $7 million!) Although the same people don’t win all the poker tournaments, by the time year’s end rolls around, the same people always seem to end up having won several tournaments, year in and year out. This is one of the appealing aspects of poker tournaments: the record is out there for everyone to see; some players are consistently successful, and others are not. (The side games, though very lucrative, keep no records.)
If serious poker were a game where luck predominated, this would not and could not happen. Everyone involved would win about the same number of tournaments as everyone else (as tends to happen in slot tournaments or craps tournaments), and no one would make (or lose) any serious money. But that’s not what years and years of proven, recorded results show.
One last note: Beware of playing in the small stakes poker games in Las Vegas or other casinos. No matter how good you are it is very hard to beat the "rake" (the money that is taken out of every pot each hand). lt’s best to avoid the $2-$4 limit games and below, and watch the rake--if it seems like it‘s too much, then play with shorter money in a higher limit game that is beatable.
Play Poker Like the Pros (Phil Hellmuth)
