Poker News

Tom Leonard

If you play tournament poker then you’re very familiar with “The Decision.” It’s the decision that may send you to the rail, knocked out of the tournament.

Many players will put their tournament life on the line in any perceived coin-flip situation. Of course anytime I’m in a situation which is perceived to be a toss-up I think of one of Murphy’s lesser known dictums. That dictum states that anytime you have a 50-50 chance of winning, there is a 90 percent probability that you will lose. You may well opine that this is a tad too pessimistic but embracing this dictum will make you feel better on the occasions that you prevail, while taking the sting out of the losing times.

I was knocked out of a tournament recently by a player who limped in from early position and wound up holding pocket aces. The fact that he had not raised coming into the pot caught me completely off guard. The reason I was so surprised was that I would not have played the hand as my opponent did.

Many of us believe our opponents think the same way we do. Actually I should say we “assume” our opponents think like we do and we all know the old adage about assuming. So as you attempt to put your opponents on a hand don’t forget to think outside the box. This is why it is imperative to study your opponents and determine who is straight forward, tricky, timid, fearless, a maniac and about a zillion other traits or combinations. Once you figure that out you need to determine if they are always demonstrating those traits or are changing gears. Man, this can get complicated! I have found that after careful analysis of opponents’ tendencies one can err by giving an opponent too much credit or not enough.

When putting yourself in the position of the decision for your tournament life, remember that it is always better to be pushing your stack in and waiting for a reaction than calling all-in. In the first case you have two ways to win instead of just possessing the superior hand.

You’ll rarely see Phil Hellmuth risk all of his chips unless he believes he has no other alternative. If your stack has diminished to the point that you must make a stand by moving all-in. that represents a much different scenario than challenging a larger stack with a very significant stack of your own.

There are certainly different styles of play utilized by various successful pros. Some are very aggressive and find themselves amassing towers of chips or getting knocked out early, while others play much more conservatively and build their towers slowly with less risk of being sidelined. Neither approach is right or wrong. It depends on which style works best for you, your goals, and your emotional makeup. All I advocate is not acting in haste, but taking a moment to realize that if you’re putting yourself in a potential knockout situation, it should be thecorrect time on a risk/reward basis.

I’ve heard many players rue their hasty actions and wish they had the opportunity to re-play a hand. Of course hindsight is always 20-20. So, our goal for this time together is to make it part of our regimen to pause and analyze the ramifications of our actions so we don’t wind up wishing we could have a do-over. We should forget about hindsight and aspire to make our foresight 20-20!

See you next “TIME”

Filed under: Poker News