Poker News

Annie Duke

This is the third and final installment of Jennifer Matiran’s interview with Annie Duke.

During their initial conversation, Annie said, “I know players that have more talent in their pinky than I do in my whole body and they’re broke.”

“What do you mean?”

Jennifer asked. “They have leaks,” said Annie.

“Leaks, what are leaks?” Jennifer asked curiously. “Leaks are when someone wins at the poker table and then proceeds to bet what they won on something else, and they end up losing everything they won in the first place.”

“Ahh, so you don’t have leaks?” Jennifer said. Annie laughed, saying “my children are my leaks.”

JENNIFER: How does your attitude affects your decisions?

ANNIE DUKE: We make decisions when we are thinking positively. Here’s a case in point. If you are losing at a poker table you are more likely to make a bad decision. You will play too many hands and throw good money after bad.

When you play too many hands because you’re trying to get your money back, it is a bad decision. It is bad mathematical decision-a bad game theory decision

JM: I think I’m a pretty good player, but I don’t recover well from a big beat. What would you advise?

AD: That’s a very good question. Most people can recognize the physiological signs of guilt, blushing cheeks, the heart rate thing, the breathing. If you can’t stop the feelings quickly, get up and walk away from the table.

Don’t keep playing, no matter how good that game is, if you can not stop those physical feelings, and the “why are these things happening to me” feelings. The first way that you deal with these things, especially if you are a new player, is to have a very strict loss limits when you sit down in a game. Not win limits, loss limits.

In a limit poker game, you can set 30 big bets as a loss limit. For example, if you are up 15 big bets and you get down 30 big bets you are done. You are now 30 bets down from your peak.

People at the table perceive you as a loser and will come after you, while you will lose the ability to knock people out of the game. When you are playing with confidence and are winning at the table, it is easy to continue winning.

But you are losing; you may not be the best judge of whether or not you are losing because you are playing poorly or because you are unlucky. None of us-not even experts-when losing is particularly good at judging our own play. When you first sit down, put a control on how we are might be playing if we begin to lose.

In a no-limit game you want to be looking between 50 or 100 big blinds. Now, in terms of overall bankroll management you don’t ever want to risk more than 5-10 percent of your entire bankroll.

You need to be a very good player to risk 10 percent. If you are playing $1-$2 no-limit hold’em, you should have at least $1,000 to $2,000 in your bankroll. That’s much more money than most people think.

When we play from behind we are never playing our best game. And try not to play tired. We have more emotional control when we are not tired. You want to put a limit on the number of hours for your tournament and you want to play tournaments that are no more than 6-8 hours long. In terms of the actual ideation that you have during the game, one thing you can do is get up and walk around until the physical symptoms go away.

JM: Even during a tournament?

AD: Yeah, even during a tournament, I get up and walk around. In turns of the ideation, there is really one good way to deal with those thoughts, whether they are good thoughts or bad thoughts. The bad thoughts are like “I’m so unlucky,” “I can’t believe I played so poorly, why did I let that happen to me?” “Bad things are always happening to me at the table.” The best substitutes for bad thoughts are good thoughts. If a hand was particularly bad, keep a journal and find someone to discuss it with so that you can learn from the experience.

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