Poker News

Ashley Adams

If you’ve read this column before, or read my book Winning 7-card Stud, or read just about any serious poker literature, then you’ve certainly learned about the importance of record keeping. I won’t go into much detail here, but the bottom line is that you want to keep track, carefully, of how well you do overall and in different game situations soyou can see, at a glance, whether you are winning or losing. By looking at how you are doing and how you have done you will get a better sense of what is working and what isn’t working with your game - whether you are in fact employing a profitable strategy or not.

Even so, let me offer up the possibility that there is another valid way to approach the game.

I have a good friend with whom I began my journey into serious poker. She, as I, was determined to learn the game, get good at it, and win money. She succeeded and then moved on to bridge - something she now enjoys much more than poker (perhaps because this is how she met her husband - her regular bridge partner now). I don’t see her in the poker room anymore, but I do see her father - who comes down from Maine weekly and plays at the $1-5 stud tables at Foxwoods. He is a very amiable guy and we chat occasionally about our favorite game - a game he really took up after his daughter became enamored with it. He enjoys poker as much as I do. I ask him from time to time how he’s doing. He answers, almost sheepishly, that he knows he should keep records - he read my book he hastens to add - but that he just doesn’t care enough about the bottom line to do so. He thinks he’s about even or maybe even a little ahead of the game - which is some feat in theheavily raked $1-5 game at Foxwoods.

He has a wonderful time at the game - concentrating some on the cards while also enjoying the sociable nature of the players at the table. It is, I suspect, a nice escape for him from all of the other parts of his life.

From his perspective there are more important things for him to do than keeping track of his overall wins and losses for the year or for his lifetime. He’s semi-retired. He doesn’t miss the money he loses nor need the money he wins. As he put it, “What do I really care if I’m ahead or behind - I’m having a good time and enjoying the game.”

For a while this rankled me a bit, though I never let it show. I thought that an intelligent person should always be working to master the game of poker - and keeping track was the only way of doing that. Playing poker without keeping track of your overall record of money won or lost would be like playing baseball or basketball without scoring the runs or the points. What would be the point? Perhaps I’ve softened in my middle age - or perhaps I have just learned to see his point. Poker is not only about the long term score. It is about the pleasure of the game, the excitement of the bet, the anticipation of the turning of the cards and the interestingdecisions that must be made in the play of the hand. Poker for these folks is more like playing catch or jogging or doing a crossword puzzle. It’s about the activity in the moment it is being performed. They derive pleasure and satisfaction from it immediately. And that is enough. For many, and maybe even for most, poker is surely not about the long run bottom line at all. It’s about the moment of play, of decision making, and about the experience in general. When the game is over for the evening or afternoon or night it can be forgotten, the slate wiped clean, and a new game started on the next visit to the casino. This may well go against my grain as a serious poker player. But I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just another way to approach this great game. And if it makes people happy not to focus so much on the bottom line - well who am I to disagree?

Filed under: Poker News