Poker News

John Vorhaus

Sometimes I amaze myself with the brilliance of my play but then if I examine the circumstances closely, I find that my play isn’t all that brilliant, but only really relatively better than the grossly stupid play I’m playing against. This is not news. It’s a proven poker fact that we make most of our money from the incorrect play of others. What’s worth noting, though, is how smart the stupidity of others can make us think we are. And how much trouble that leads to.

Case in point: my own silly self.

I had just gotten done playing heads-up against, truly, the last float on the clueless parade. This guy made every no-limit mistake known to man. He chased too much, raised too little, revealed his weakness by checking, never check-raised to neutralize that perception, repeatedly made big calls against made hands, and ultimately bluffed off all his chips in a hopeless spot. I dominated and crushed, and by the time I was done, I felt like the Lord High Mayor of Smartville.

Then I went and played heads-up against a totally different opponent. This guy, sadly for me, was not so dumb. He was pretty crafty, in fact. He raised and check-raised and reraised with appropriate frequency, made some tricky bluffs and some savvy laydowns. With all of that, though, I might have beaten him, were it not for one tiny problem: I wasn’t playing against him.

In my mind, I was still playing against that other guy, that last float on the clueless parade. Playing like the Lord High Mayor of Smartville, with all the arrogance and ignorance that implies, I made myself an easy read, and a very easy target. By the time I wised up to the fact that my foe was totally wise to me, it was too late. I needed to get lucky to win, and when that didn’t happen, I was done.

It didn’t have to be that way. My second foe was good, but he wasn’t that good. I made him much better, that’s all, by playing much worse. The strategy and tactics I had used to crush a bonehead had no chance against a skilled opponent, and because I failed to adjust, I had no chance, too.

Buckaroo Banzai said it best, “No matter where you go, there you are.” When we forget this simple truth, we lead ourselves astray. In the best case, we always have a skill edge over everyone we face, and when we have that edge, we exploit it to the maximum. But if we’re only relatively brilliant and not absolutely brilliant, we must have the awareness and the honesty to face that fact. Otherwise, we’re doomed. Or at least our money is.

Look, everyone plays stupid some times. I did it just now, and it wasn’t the end of the world. Next time I’ll do better. Specifically, next time I’ll do better at recognizing if I’m up against someone worse. To win in poker, you don’t have to be the Lord High Mayor of Smartville (sometimes that’s the worst thing you can be). You can even be the second-to-last float on the clueless parade. So long as there’s someone with money behind you.

[JV?s latest books, POKER NIGHT and THE KILLER POKER HOLD?EM HANDBOOK are available now in bookstores or through www.vorza.com.]

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