So you’re doing great. You’re at the $2/5 no limit table and you are ruling. You sat down with $300, doubled up in the first ten minutes when your AK improved to top two pair. You had someone call you down on your shove on the turn, and the river was a blank. Then just four hands later, when you were on the button, you got to be the fifth one in for a limp, with a suited ace. Two of your suit came up on the flop and you called for $75. On the turn it was checked to you. You semi-bluffed with a $200 bet with your four-flush, got a big stack caller, then hit your flush on the river. The card gave him trips and you nearly doubled up again as he called your over excited bluff-looking shove on the river. In fewer than 30 minutes you are sitting with over $1100, having started with $300. Not too shabby.

But novice and even intermediate poker players beware. Nice as it is to begin your poker session with a rush like this, there are risks involved. Inexperienced and moderately experienced players can be thrown by the early win in a way that threatens to steal back their gains and then reach into and dispose of the rest of their playing bankroll.

The risk is simple – though not necessarily easy to avoid. It is the risk that the newly enriched stack, large as it is, will affect your judgment by distorting your ability to see what is really important when making critical strategy decisions at the table. Let’s continue the story above and see it as a cautionary tale.

Having started with $300, due to a couple of quick and large wins, you’re now up $800, with $1100 in chips. You are the big stack at the table. You are giddy from your success. A tight player in early position with a couple of hundred dollars raises to $25. Everyone folds to you. You have Q 7. Though you would normally fold this trash, you figure you might as well call, with all of those chips in front of you. Who knows, you might catch Q7 on the flop and take this guy’s stack too.

Sure enough, the flop is helpful. Q J 3. You’ve flopped top pair. He checks, you slide out a couple of green chips for $50. He shoves in his stack for another $175 more. Even if you lose you realize that it won’t make a huge reduction in your wins. Before you have a chance to really think about things you hear yourself say “call”. He immediately flips over QJ. The turn and river don’t help you, and you’re stack is now down to $900. You say to yourself that you’re still up $600.

You tell yourself that you have to tighten up – not get too loose, so you’re assured of not depleting your big stack. So you tighten up some – folding a few hands in a row. But your big stack and your earlier rush is still getting to you. You’re impatient. You get J J, raise to $25 in early position and get re-popped from the cutoff to $75 by the big blind – a very tough player with a big stack. You call, not to be intimidated and hoping for trips. You figure you’ve still got over $500 to play with and still be even for the session. The flop is Q 6 2. You are afraid of the Queen but don’t want to show weakness or give a free card. You bet $75 and get raised to $200. You think that this guy is trying to run you off a hand. You will still be up $325 even if you lose. So you call. The turn is the 6. You figure you better check, in case he has a Queen. He bets $400. You figure you could still win with another spade or a Jack. You’d still be close to even if you lost. So you call again. You have him outstacked, you realize, with about $100 more than his stack – about $425 to his $325 or so. The river is the 3, making the board Q 6 2 6 3. You’ve hit your flush. You shove, and get called instantly. He flips over his two black Kings, showing his winning flush, and you’re left with $100.

You can’t believe you just went through not only your huge winnings but nearly your entire stack. You’re disgusted, grab your few chips, and rage off.

Of course the specifics may be different from your experience, but I’ve seen this very story unfold in front of my eyes on more than one occasion. Let’s look back and see what went wrong.

The primary error was that the actor in the story repeatedly made decisions based on his stack size – judging whether to call, fold or raise not on his thoughts about the hand itself or on his opponent’s motivation for betting, but rather, based on how much he thought he would be up or down for the session. At first he decided to call with a hand he should have folded – just because he had a lot of chips. Mistake. Then we saw him repeatedly think about his stack size and winnings when deciding whether the risk was worth the cost of a call or a raise. This too was a mistake.

While it’s important to consider relative stack size when figuring implied odds – or when pondering the psychological effect of a bet on an opponent – how much you may or may not be up for the session is practically irrelevant. Yet repeatedly, this guy was looking at proper strategy through the distorting prism of his newly increased stack size. This lens magnified the irrelevant, diminished the important, and distracted from the significant, causing him to reach the wrong conclusions.

The way to fight the potentially toxic affect of a large early win is simple – though it may not be easy for you. If you are not yet experienced, thick-skinned, or otherwise mentally tough enough to resist the distractions of a large early rush, I suggest that you leave the table for at least a short while – to consider what has happened and to dedicate yourself to playing solid poker. Leaving the table will give your emotions and good judgment the time necessary for them to reset back to their normally stable condition. So “normalized” you can come back and continue to take advantage of players who, under normal circumstances, are relatively easy pickings.

Related posts:

1. The Risks of Losing at Poker
2. Winning the Big One
3. Winning Poker Tournaments – Perspectives on Volume & Variance

I go to Las Vegas every year to participate in the World Series of Poker. I find even the thin possibility of winning a World Series of Poker bracelet to be a sufficient lure to justify the relatively large upfront expense and the relatively small chance of success. It also gives me an opportunity to reunite with my many friends and associates in the poker world. The World Series is kind of like a convention for poker players. I haven’t missed one for over ten years.

I typically aim for the $1,500 to $2,500 stud and H.O.R.S.E. events rather than the Main Event. They suit my pocketbook, my skill set, and my schedule. I tell myself that if I win one, I’ll use the winnings to buy myself into the main event. That’s the only way I can really justify taking the time off work, flying my wife out to Las Vegas, and spending the $11,000 or so for the entrance fee and the expenses connected to staying in Las Vegas for a week or two beyond my expected departure. This longshot parlay possibility keeps alive the dream of ultimate poker glory.

Not so this year. This year I decided to alter my plans. I aimed higher.

The prize I sought this year was nothing less than leaving a good impression on my younger daughter Hannah. She was a university student in Philadelphia who had recently turned 21. I decided that I would do my best to impress her with a trip to Las Vegas during the poker-rich time of the World Series of Poker.

Accordingly, I decided to go first class – well, at least in a slightly more elevated style than my typical low rent way of going to Las Vegas. Instead of looking for the cheapest room, I booked one right at the Rio – ground zero for the WSOP. I wanted us to be where the action was so I could conveniently show her around, introduce her to my many friends in the poker industry, and have her fully appreciate the thrill of world class poker.

Instead of booking a super-cheap sub-compact car I splurged for the next size up. Though I typically do not distract myself with any of Las Vegas’ many forms of entertainment, this time I indulged myself by buying seats for both the spectacular aquatic Cirque de Soleil show at the Bellagio and Penn & Teller at the Rio.

Similarly, when it came to food I avoided my typical poor man’s rations of Roberto’s tacos and Vietnamese noodle soup. My daughter and I dined instead at the lovely Bellagio Café, at a fine Indian Restaurant at the Rio, at a great all-you-can-eat Sushi restaurant in Las Vegas’ wonderful Chinatown, and at a fine Ethiopian Restaurant. I wanted my daughter to have, literally, an excellent taste of what Las Vegas had to offer.

When it came to poker, I decided that the typical $1,500 stud event in the World Series of Poker would not do for this trip. I wanted something better, richer, and more meaningful for us to experience. I wanted an event that we could both enjoy and that I actually had a fair chance of at least cashing in. Better to enter a small tournament, with relatively weak opposition, in an environment where my relatively inexperienced daughter would not be overwhelmed or intimidated.

And so, I entered us into the smallest poker tournament I could find – the 6:00 PM no limit hold’em event at Poker Palace. Never heard of the place? No matter. That’s what I was looking for – a place that few if any experienced tournament players would come to. I wanted a place frequented by beatable locals who play to have fun, get free drinks, and get out of the house.

Such a place is Poker Palace. It is in North Las Vegas in a largely Mexican community that appears forgotten by those focused on the glitzy strip or even the somewhat rehabilitated Downtown. The casinos on this side of the city are largely unheard of by the tourists or even regulars who are seen at the more popular poker rooms like the Bellagio, Caesar’s, the Venetian, or Binions. These places have names that are, at best, only vaguely familiar: The Opera House, the Silver Nugget, Jerry’s Nugget and of course Poker Palace.

We arrived early, signed up, got our seats, and found ourselves among 40 contestants. I spoke briefly with the floorman right before the event began. Sure enough, every single player but my daughter and I were regulars. They were friendly, drinking, happy gamblers out to have a good time. They were just the type of opponents I wanted for my daughter’s first poker tournament. They might also be the type of opponents who would give me a legitimate chance to do well and impress Hannah.

The first pleasant surprise was that with four tables nestled closely together, I got to watch my daughter play! She was seated facing me, just one table over. She looked intimidating, sitting erect in her chair, her serious expression remaining immobile on her face as she played. She seemed to do great, folding weak hands and betting purposefully when she entered a pot – usually for a raise. She lasted through the first break, her stack at slightly higher than par. I did okay myself, with about the same stack size as she.

Though we were told that the event usually lasted just two hours or so, they didn’t consolidate down to three tables until just about 150 minutes into the event. Hannah remained an active and moderately successful player throughout. Thirty minutes later when we were reduced to two tables, she was moved to my table, four seats to my left.

My stack continued to grow, as I knocked out a couple of the old timers. My daughter departed in 17th place – beating the five other women who entered the tournament and 18 men besides. She took her place on the rail where she conversed with a couple of the guys who had been knocked out but who were remaining to watch their friends.

At four hours we were reduced to a final table. I had a median stack and proposed a chop – eager to end the game so I could spend time with my daughter. All but the two large stacks were willing. So we played on. Over the course of the next fifteen minutes I knocked out two players, re-proposing a chop each time. At least one player objected so we continued to play on.

Finally, at four hours and twenty minutes, when it got down to just three of us, and our stacks were relatively even (I had slightly fewer chips than either of them), I proposed a chop again. One of my opponents, a sulking local chap, declined. On the very next hand, with two deuces, I shoved in my entire stack. Each opponent called. The first revealed AJ, the second KQ. The flop, turn and river didn’t help them. I tripled up and left my two opponents with barely enough chips for the next round of antes and blinds. Though I was almost surely going to win the $350 first place prize, to show that I was still eager to end matters quickly, I once again offered to chop – $250 for me and $200 for each of them. They both accepted.

Just as I was starting to second guess myself for not playing it out and taking the entire first place prize, my daughter congratulated me. She had been paying attention. She was pleased that I had won. But what really seemed to impress her was my willingness to consistently make the offer to end the tournament rather than change my tune when I had the large chip advantage. She told me that she really enjoyed the fact that I was seemingly more interested in being consistent and offering a chop to my opponents than in extracting the maximum amount of money by insisting on playing it out – once I had the large chip lead. She saw that as taking a principled position – one that she told me she respected.

It’s true that this was the smallest tournament in Las Vegas and a distant cry from winning a WSOP bracelet and all of its attendant glory. But in winning this tiny $20 tournament at Poker Palace I won the biggest prize imaginable, my daughter’s admiration and respect.

Related posts:

1. The Risks of Winning at Poker
2. Winning Poker Tournaments – Perspectives on Volume & Variance

We all know the obvious risk of losing at poker. The risk is you lose your money and go broke. Big revelation. Some insightful poker theorist I am. But there’s more – much more to consider when it comes to the risks of losing.

Aside from the most obvious, I have identified three distinct risks from losing that may affect your poker game – and then their antidote. Let’s take them all in turn.

#1. Loss of self control (steaming):

Self control is one of the twin towers of winning play (the other being correct poker strategy). Knowing the correct move for the situation is absolutely irrelevant if you don’t have the self control to execute it. If, for example, you have a well defined and winning list of starting hands to suit your situation but you are too impatient to fold the hands that aren’t on your list, then it hardly matters if you have a list of correct starting hands in the first place.

Losing puts that self control at risk. In its most apparent manifestation a player loses a lot and then goes on tilt – unable to keep his inner demons from corrupting his optimal game. The deeper he sinks into the red, the less self control he has. He enters what I call a “death spiral” of bad decisions, more losses, and decreasing control – ending only when he has run through his entire bankroll or leaves the room.

Antidote: Loss Limit

A loss limit is the setting of a predetermined amount of money that, once lost, is a trigger for you to leave the game, no matter how good or bad you believe the game to be. So, for example, if you are a $2/5 no limit player, you might set your loss limit as two complete buy-ins of $500. If you lose $1,000 you leave – no matter what.

Admittedly, this goes against the strategy that has you continue to play poker as long as you gauge the game to be good. But it acknowledges that when you have lost this amount of money you may not be good enough to beat the game.

Not everyone falls victim to a loss of self control when they have lost a considerable sum of money. A small percentage of us are experienced, even tempered, or skillful enough to be able to maintain our best game even when we are losing. For these players this antidote doesn’t make sense. Stay as long as the game is good, play your optimal game, and all will be well. Still, for the rest of you, setting a loss limit makes sense – to stem the losses before a lack of self control has you losing everything you have..

#2. Futility

This is a variation of steaming, but it has a unique flavor. Losing sometimes triggers a sense of futility. Once you lose a lot of money, you become more willing to shove in your remaining money even if you know it’s not likely to be profitable for you to do so. Here’s a real world example of what might happen.

You bring $1,000 to a $2/5 no limit game at your friendly neighborhood poker room. You optimistically buy in for the maximum of $500. You’re tight at first, and hit a long string of hands that you deem unplayable. Your stack sinks to $450 or so in the first 15 minutes as you literally fold everything that isn’t a blind. But you’re no rookie – so you’re not worried.

You finally get a playable hand – two black Queens in early position. You raise to $25 – perhaps a little too exuberantly because of your early drought. You get a caller on the button – and the big blind calls too. The flop is A J 3. The small blind checks. You hesitate a bit as you wonder if either of your opponents has an Ace, and then you bet $75. Both opponents surprise you by calling. The turn is 9. The board is now A J 3 9. The big blind bets $100. You wonder why he makes such a small bet. The growing pot, now about $400, tempts you. You think about whether he might be pushing a flush draw; you think it’s more likely he had a weak Ace and just made two pair. Or maybe he started with J9? You’re not sure. But for $100 you’ve got to see the bet. So you call as does the third player. The Q hits on the river, making the board A J 3 9 Q. The big blind checks. You have just hit trip Queens, but you’re worried about a flush or even a straight so you check. The third player bets $300. The big blind pauses a long time and then calls. You think you’re probably beaten – in fact maybe third best. Still, you look at your trip Queens and think about all the hands that they could beat. You realize that the third player may have just been betting his position, figuring to steal the pot with trash. The big blind may be calling with a hand as weak as two pair just to stop the steal. And you have two pair beaten. You’re have to kill yourself if you folded a winner when getting 4:1 pot odds on your call. So you call. You lose to a flush and Jacks up.

You don’t throw your cards or have a tantrum, but you’re very upset. You are pissed that you started out ahead but failed to win the pot on the river when you hit trips. You see the poor play of your opponents and are convinced you’re the best player at the table. Armed with this thought you buy in again for $500 – determined to make back what you’ve lost and then push on to at least doubling your bankroll for the day.

You win a few small pots with large raises that force everyone else out. And then you lose a couple of hands much like the first one – starting out ahead, playing correctly, correctly putting your opponents on hands, and then getting outdrawn on the river. Despite your skillful play your stack goes down to $200.

It’s now seven hours into the session. You’re tired, and angry, and at the same time a bit numb from being down. You realize that with only $200, it’s highly unlikely that you will finish the session even – and a near impossibility that you’ll end up reaching your initial goal of winning $1,000. You didn’t bring any more money – and you are very wary of borrowing money or using the high-vig credit card machines. You stick around because you figure there’s still a chance you can turn things around – convinced as you are that you’re at a great table. You’re not on tilt.

You’re dealt five or six unplayable hands and then get A9 in the cutoff seat. There’s a raise in early position to $25 from a loose and wild player – and then another loose player, with a huge stack, pushes in $75. You figure that you’re just about ready to go home anyway – and you only have $200 – so you might as well get as much bang for the hand as possible – so you shove for the entire $200. Everyone folds but the three-better who calls you and then flips over his black Queens. You don’t improve, you lose the hand, your stack, and your bankroll for the day. You’re done. You leave, walk up to a credit card machine that charges 7% juice plus a $10 fee. You have the sense to shake your head and leave, disgusted with yourself and with poker.

Had you won early on you might have been fine. You would have continued to use your skills and may well have finished up $1,000 against what were probably players inferior to you. But when you got down to your final $200 you essentially gave up – flinging it in carelessly (had you used your good poker skills you would have realized that you were either a small underdog if the re-raiser was raising with a medium or small pair, a huge underdog if the re-raiser had a bigger Ace, or a medium underdog if the raiser had a big pair.)

Your sense of futility at being down to your last $200 prompted you to lose it thoughtlessly.

Antidote: Leave with a short stack

If your stack is short, and you’re either unable or disinclined to buy back in for a full stack, leave.

#3. Desperation

For some players, losing money triggers an uncontrollable desire to get back to even for that session. There may be real world reasons for this. They may not be able to afford to lose money, or they may owe money they must repay. For whatever reason, when they are down a certain amount, their desire to play is controlled by their desperate need to win back what they’ve lost.

Typically, to do this they become more aggressive – taking more chances than they would be taking if they were playing their optimal game. In their desperate hunt for a stack restoring large pot, they’ll throw in their chips without the proper pot or implied odds.

At their worst, they’ll move up to a higher stakes game, figuring that it’s the only way they can make back quickly what they lost elsewhere. The results are sometimes positive. Sometimes, a $2/5 no limit player, down $1,500 for the session, can move up to $5/10 or $10/25 no limit game, play wildly, get lucky, and win back his losses. It does happen. More often than not, however, it is a sure route to the poor house – as skillful poker players eat his sad lunch.

Antidote: Leave and consider giving up gambling

Of all the risks to losing, this one should concern you the most, as it’s a sign of compulsive gambling. The initial antidote is much like those in the earlier two examples. If you are feeling, desperately, that you can’t lose, that you must at all costs win back what you’ve lost, then your best course of action is to leave the game – since you’re no longer playing thoughtfully. Similarly, if you find that you cannot control the urge to play poker, even when you know that losing more money will hurt you, then you might want to give up the game entirely and stay away from all forms of gambling.

In sum, losing at poker presents risks that linger beyond the initial hit to your bankroll. In general, if being down causes you to deviate from your best game, then you should leave the game before a small or mid-sized loss turns into a catastrophic one.

Related posts:

1. Losing at Poker
2. The Risks of Winning at Poker

Inexperienced, bad, superstitious, and gambling poker players think in terms of the short run. Their mood and disposition is determined by their immediate results. Ask them how they’re doing and they’ll tell you of their latest bad beat, their winning streak, or a particularly tough session. They focus on that which is right in front of them, measuring their success or failure as a poker player one session at a time.

We who consider ourselves thinking, strategic, serious, and skillful poker players know better, don’t we? We generally take a longer view of the game. Sure, we’re upset by the vagaries of chance. We’re not pleased by a bad turn of a card, a losing streak, or a bad beat. But we like to think, at least, that we have long term perspective on the game. It’s more important that we have a winning year than a winning session. If someone asks us how we did, we’re more likely to answer with how we played than we are to talk about how much we won or lost in the game we were in.

Being students of poker, rather than just gamblers, we know that it’s all about the long run. And so many of us focus on the skills it takes to improve our bottom line. We learn the relative value of starting cards, the odds that they’ll improve to winning hands, and how to determine the likely holdings of our opponents. Some of us take this even further, developing an attitude and image that intimidates our opponents. Others go further still – trying to deliberately provoke opponents to the point of agitating them into going on tilt or playing irrationally.

Through it all, our goal is to improve our results in the long run.

It’s with the long run in mind that I write this column about my father – who just died of a heart attack at the age of 78.

My father liked to play poker. He played it twice a week for ten years with a bunch of guys in his Florida retirement community. When he left there to live year-round in a place in Maine, he found another game that he played in weekly. He liked the socializing, the camaraderie, the conversation, and the opportunity to play poker – even though he was probably one of the worst poker players I have ever seen.

He knew poker was a game of skill. He read parts of a couple of books (like maybe a page or two – he didn’t like to read). He and I even spent a few hours together with me giving him very simple, specific instructions of how to play a tight and aggressive game of hold’em and stud. He went so far as to take notes and to bring them with him when he played.

Still, he was awful. He liked to say that the guys he played with thought of him as the clown at the table – but that he created this image on purpose – that he had them just where he wanted them. I think he was right about his image – but not about his ability to take advantage of it.

I played with him a few times – and even sweated him once. I used to get frustrated at his refusal to consider the long run – playing instead just for the fun of it. Once, at Foxwoods Casino, we had just finished my “coaching” session about stud. He went right to the $1-5 table – filled with my words about playing ultra-tight – at least for a while. He folded bad starting cards exactly twice. On his third hand he was dealt (Qh, 2c)8c. He called a raise to $5 from a guy with a King and then found an excuse to call every $5 bet, losing with a pair of eights he hit on the river. He justified it, a bit sheepishly; by saying it was really no fun for him to fold too often.

Even so, though I felt frustrated at his lack of discipline and the resulting level of his game, I couldn’t resist checking in with him about his poker games. We spoke many times every week – and at least after every poker session he had. Though he regularly professed eagerness to learn the skills that would turn him into a winning player – the conversations usually boiled down to ramblings about the great hands he got and the money he won or lost.

After a while, I realized that what was really important to him and to me wasn’t whether he learned any new poker skills that would help him with his lifetime hourly win rate. It was just that we had an excuse to talk. He knew and I knew that he wasn’t really going to ever get any better. Whether he won or lost $20 a game made no serious impact on his financial wellbeing. And though he didn’t like to lose, and really felt better when he won, what was important was that he played for the fun of it – and that we had a chance to talk about the game, no matter what the outcome.

It all gets me thinking about the long run – the really long run. Unless you’re making your living as a professional poker player, in the really long run, how much does it matter whether you won or lost one or two big bets an hour? You can’t take it with you, after all. But if you had a good time, were pleasant and engaging at the table, made others feel respected and warmed by your presence, that would be something that truly did matter, no?

My Dad may have been an awful poker player. But he was a thoughtful, pleasant, and considerate man who liked his regular poker game and had a good time with the people he played with. In my book, no matter how much money he may have ultimately lost at poker, he finished way ahead. That makes him a winner in the long run.

Related posts:

1. When Poker’s Not Only About the Money

I first learned how to play poker when I was five years old. My grandfather taught my brother and me how to play. I played for money in high school and college, but I’ve only been playing poker seriously as an adult since 1993, when I first visited Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut.

When I made my first venture down to the casino, I had been married for ten years. Since that time I’ve spent roughly 20,000 hours away from home pursuing my favorite hobby and part-time job. I’ve managed to keep a happy, and for the most part, peaceful home life during that entire time.

Friends, relatives and fellow poker players have sometimes marveled at how it is that I have retained domestic tranquility even while spending so much time away from home playing poker. “Doesn’t your wife get upset?” “How do you get away to gamble so much?” they query.

There are four key ingredients, I think, to retaining an active poker life while also maintaining a happy home life. Here are the rules that I live by to insure that I can continue my poker playing without jeopardizing what for me is the most important relationship in my life.

Rule Number 1 – Keep a completely separate poker bankroll.

From day one of my poker career I retained a separate bank account for poker. I funded it at first with a few thousand dollars that I won in an insurance settlement. I supplemented it early on by selling a few hundred old comic books. Had I neither of these assets I would have started smaller – perhaps with money from taking on some temporary work or with some money I would have otherwise used for entertainment. What was critical was that I didn’t have to continue to reach into the family checking or savings account to fund what was at first my hobby.

The advantage of this was that I didn’t have to rub up against what might have been my wife’s understandable protectiveness of our then-thin household budget. I could keep the issue to one of time; avoiding any concern she or we might have had over our ability to sustain even a small loss at the tables.

I was able to continue to do this by starting with a very conservative strategy, minimizing my variance. Though I surely did not start off by winning, because I began at very small stakes, and because my swings were very small, I did not have to supplement the initial stake as I paid for my poker lessons at the felt.

As time went on, and as I developed my poker skills, my bankroll grew. I moved up in stakes. Once, when it shrank sharply during a period when I ran bad for a few months, and I grew concerned that I might deplete my poker account, I dropped down to smaller stakes and built it back up.

As I won, I resisted the temptation to spend winnings on “real world” items. At first, I didn’t take anything out of my poker bankroll except the money I needed to play. Gradually, it grew to be large enough so that I could occasionally dip into it for trips, college tuition, a used car, and other items without any risk to its future viability. But I have treated it with great deference – and it has paid me back by allowing me the luxury of funding all of my poker expenses without ever requiring any discussions with my spouse about spending money for poker.

Rule 2: Set a weekly time for your loved one that you always keep.

This has proven a very valuable rule for my relationship with my wife in general. No matter what, for 27 years, we have kept an appointment with each other on Friday night. I have never and will never play poker or be out of town on that night. It started as our way of keeping the Jewish Sabbath, but it has grown to be a critical staple in our marriage. No matter how much our busy lives keep us apart and distracted during the week, we each know that on Friday night we are together. It has involved some long flights and long drives, and it has put a crimp in some of our work and travel schedules. But the product of that faithfulness to time together has been a secure relationship that can withstand the occasional bumping and bruising that poker (among other things) can cause.

Rule 3: My wife’s wishes are always and instantly more important than playing.

I have seen to it that my wife knows that if push ever comes to shove on the question of playing poker, she wins. So on the very few occasions when she has asked me to not play – whether because she had a social event she wanted me to go to, or she wanted to see me for dinner when I had already planned to play, or just because she felt like having me home, I have instantly given in – no argument, no pleading, no nothing. She leaves me to play the rest of the time, secure in knowing that if she ever wants me home, I’ll be home. In a way, this puts some burden on her. Since she knows that with regard to poker, what she says goes, she is less likely to ask me to stay home except when it is truly important to her that I do so. Were she less certain, she might be more inclined to nag and cajole – hoping to succeed only some percentage of the time. This would surely cause unnecessary friction.

As it is, my dutifulness to her only rarely-expressed desire for me to stay away from poker works especially well – perhaps because of Rule 4, below.

Rule 4: Marry a saint.

Choose your spouse or life-partner wisely. If you’re seduced into a relationship by the first or most pretty face you meet you may be setting yourself up for trouble. I chose a beautiful woman who happened to also have a life of her own, a secure ego, and the confidence to find her own amusement and interests even without wonderful me. I found someone whom I fully respected and who fully respected me for what I was – who wasn’t jealous about time spent away from her, and who wasn’t morally opposed to gambling. So as long as I adhere to the three rules mentioned above, she is able to accept my time away from home playing poker.

Related posts:

1. Buying the Perfect Playing Cards
2. Grading on a Curve
3. Beginners Guide to Playing Live Poker

The poker game of choice these days is surely no limit hold’em. Many people playing today know no other form of the game. For them, poker is hold’em.

That being said, there are other poker games out there. If you only know poker from television, your friends, and bar leagues, this may be news to you. But if you play poker online or visit public poker rooms, or are over the age of 25, you have probably heard of other games like: 7-card stud, Draw, Omaha, Razz, Lowball, 7-stud8, and Omaha8.

The question to ask yourself is, with all of the no limit hold’em action out there, is it worth your while to learn another variation of poker? I contend that it is. Let me spend a few minutes explaining why I think this is so.

First, let’s look at the argument of not learning a new poker game: It’s a distraction and diversion from the game that has been and will probably be the most profitable for you – the game you already play. Learning a new game of poker takes time and energy. Surely you’re better off if you put that time and energy into the game that is almost universally spread and played. If you’re already a winning hold’em player, then any time not spent playing hold’em is time you could be earning money playing it – instead of losing it by playing a game you have not yet mastered. Any time devoted to learning stud, for example, is just time away from either getting better at hold’em or, if you’re already a profitable hold’em player, then time away from winning money by playing hold’em.

This is all true. Even so, there are two strong reasons for learning a new poker game. It will provide you with more opportunities to win money; and it will help your main game so you can win more money at it.

Let’s look at them each in turn.

Providing Opportunities to Win More Money

Sure, no limit hold’em is all the rage now. In some small poker rooms, it’s the only game that is spread. But lest you think that this is universally true, let me tell you from experience that many poker rooms – hundreds in fact – spread other games. In addition, the largest poker rooms in the universe – the online poker rooms – also spread many other poker games. In some of these other games, the quality of play is so poor that even if you became even moderately skilled at these games, they would sometimes be more profitable than your regular game. So not being at least moderately skillful at them deprives you of an opportunity to win more money than you are currently winning.

There are two reasons why I am sure that this is so. First of all, even though your game may be very profitable for you right now, I know from experience and observation that the quality of good poker games generally trends downhill. This is because, by definition, good games are not fully sustainable – containing as they do bad poker players. Bad poker players lose their money. Over time, even relatively deep pocketed bad players drop out – either losing their money or giving up on the game. They are often replaced by players who have at least learned not to lose. This in turn makes the games tougher – defeating players who used to at least break even, who leave the game – making them tougher still.

Do you have your doubts? Ask just about any pro about the quality of no limit hold’em games over the past five years. They all agree that they are getting tougher than they were, a lot tougher in some circles. This is because the worst players have given up and the average and good players have gotten better as they have taken advantage of all of their experience or the many ways to learn like online instructional sites, mentors, books, and the like. These games promise to continue to get tougher as time goes by.

If you only know one game, then you have no where to go when your game is tough. Just ask any stud player who failed to learn hold’em.

Here’s a case in point. I grew up as a stud player. I learned to beat the $5/10 game for two to three large bets an hour. I moved up to $10/20 and $20/40, and beat those games for about one big bet an hour. I played limit hold’em rarely, convinced as I was that stud was where I could make my money. But then two things happened. First, the stud games started to dry up as the bad players left the game and the remaining players learned a few things that made them better. At the same time, no limit hold’em started to catch on. Players new to poker, who once started out in stud, started out at the no limit hold’em tables – because that was what they knew from television.

I was faced with a choice. I could continue to try and take advantage of my fellow stud players – who were getting tougher to beat – or I could switch over to hold’em. Fortunately for me, I had learned at least enough no limit hold’em in home games to be able to make the transition. So I moved over, took advantage of all of the juicy new games, cleaned up, and became a very profitable no limit player.

Now when I go to a poker room, my game of choice tends to be no limit hold’em. That’s where the easy money is, more often than not. But I don’t always stay there. If I see a stud game that has all the earmarks of a great game, I sometimes move over and apply my skill there. Similarly, knowing Omaha8, I can also move into one of those games and earn a profit. It’s not that I’m nearly as skilled in Omaha8 as I am in stud and no limit hold’em. But at least I know enough to beat the worst players who sometimes fill a table.

It Will Help You With Your Current Game

Yes, learning another poker game may help you get better at your main game. This is because regular play tends to become habitual. Even great poker players, having learned to win by playing in a particular style, occasionally fail to play in an optimal thoughtful way. They can make money with automatic play, so they get mentally lazy, continuing to earn a decent rate an hour – even if with some thought and creativity they could earn more. It’s understandable. As long as these habits remain profitable, the need to examine them, tweak them, or discard them may not seem important.

Even so, habitual play is no substitute for a style that is constantly adaptive based on the situation you’re in. Your best play will sometimes be to deviate from your habit. Habitual play will, over time, surely cost you money that you would have earned had you been playing at your most thoughtful best.

Learning a new poker game requires you to go back to the basics of figuring out the optimal play in new and varied situations. Faced as you will be with situations you haven’t faced before – since you’re new to the game – you’ll be forced to use parts of your poker brain that might have atrophied from lack of use. You’ll be strengthening the muscle of thought – a critical ingredient to becoming better at your regular game.

I think back to high school. I remember taking algebra. I whined that I would never need to know algebra in the “real world”. My father told me that learning algebra would help me learn to think in a logical way – something that would help me with whatever I decided to do with my life. And he was right. Though I have never needed to know how to factor a polynomial equation in my job, learning how to do so helped me learn how to think.

In conclusion, to you no limit hotshots out there, who turn your nose up at learning other poker games, thinking no limit hold’em will rule supreme forever, let me point out that as recently as the early 1990s, the first poker game that parents taught their children was usually 5-card draw. I for one am now working on my Badugi.

Related posts:

1. Learning Poker at 64
2. Sizing up a Poker Game
3. Finding a Poker Game

I like to travel and I like to play poker. I’ve found a great way of combining the two – by going on a poker vacation. In my previous article I listed my top three poker vacation destinations, which included Las Vegas, Southern California and Southeastern Connecticut.

Here are my remaining seven places for a great poker vacation:

#4 Atlantic City

This has been described aptly as the Las Vegas of the East. It surely fits the bill to the extent that there is a very densely packed group of poker rooms to choose from. Though not as large and diverse as Las Vegas, the poker is still fantastic and varied. There’s the Borgata – perhaps the most luxurious poker room of them all. For big action, great tournaments, and the best stud action outside of Foxwoods there’s the Taj Majal, and then there are another eight rooms to round out the action. For your family members who don’t like gambling, there’s a great boardwalk for shopping and strolling, and of course you’re right on one of the most spectacular beaches in the world. The best source of information for poker in Atlantic City, NJ is ‘Poker in AC‘.

#5 Northern California

Though not quite as spectacular as the poker in and around the LA/SD area in the south, the poker in Northern California is nothing to sneeze at either. With a diverse group of 20 or so rooms to choose from (new ones open and old ones close regularly so it’s tough to give an accurate count), there’s almost as much variety as anywhere on earth. Lead by great rooms like Artichoke Joe’s in San Bruno, The Oaks in Emeryville, Lucky Chances just south of San Francisco in Colma, Bay 101 and Garden City Casino in San Jose, there’s great poker within an hour or so of San Francisco – one of the most beautiful tourist destinations in the United States.

#6 Florida

There are now some 30 poker rooms in the state, clustered up and down the east and west coast, especially around the major metropolitan areas. There are even a few rooms thrown in to the panhandle and interior for good measure (though none yet in or near Orlando). Check out Ante Up Magazine for a complete list of places. They’ve just raised the cap on the no limit games – so there’s a plethora of great poker everywhere – with serious action spurred on by pent up demand for big games. And what’s not to like about all of the other vacation options in this the sunshine state – with beautiful beaches, great weather, and great restaurants in and around the major cities.

#7 Mississippi

Mississippi started to catch poker fever back in the late ‘90s, when they legalized “Riverboat” gambling in the state. It allowed full scale casino gambling to develop on the Mississippi and in the gulf. Tunica in the north and Gulfport/Biloxi in the South were the principal beneficiaries of this change in the law – with Vicksburg and Philadelphia also getting in on the casino action. Today, Tunica is a mini-Las Vegas, with five active poker rooms within a few miles of each other. The Gulfport/Biloxi area isn’t too shabby either – with four poker rooms to choose from. There are decent big city things to do near both of these destinations: Memphis is less than an hour away from Tunica; New Orleans is less than an hour away from Gulfport/Biloxi. I made a week’s vacation out of a trip that started in Tunica, went south to the Civil War site of Vicksburg through some wonderfully interesting small southern cities, then across to historic Philadelphia, then down to Biloxi and Gulfport on the Gulf of Mexico. I played poker all along the way. I’d recommend it or even something less ambitious to anyone who likes poker, American history, and scenic beauty.

#8 Oklahoma

This might not be on most folk’s list of great destinations for poker. But that’s just because they haven’t kept up with the times. Oklahoma has been going poker crazy for a few years. Though the numbers change as new poker rooms open and old ones close, at last count there were 25 rooms in the state – including huge ones like the Hard Rock outside of Tulsa and the Winstar down by the Texas border. I’ve played in 11 of these on a trip a couple of years back, and the landscape has become even more crowded with rooms since then. Keep in mind that the chief industries of Oklahoma, oil and farming, are each historically gambling games. Oklahoma is also a decent place to visit even without the casinos, as I discovered during my poker-playing trip a couple of years back – with great restaurants and museums in both Tulsa and Oklahoma City. The Poker Atlas will help you find your way around the rooms in the state.

#9 Seattle, Washington

Seattle is a beautiful city with plenty of places to visit and enjoy – from nearby islands, to downtown markets, great museums, excellent shopping, and of course incredible coffee. What some don’t know is that there is also a great mix of poker rooms surrounding the city. Some date back to the middle part of the last century, when Washington was one of only three places with legal poker. Now, one can find relatively small poker rooms all across the state of Washington, with twenty or so grouped around the Seattle metropolitan area. Stakes tend to be relatively low (I couldn’t find any games bigger than $10/20 when I was there – but that was a while ago), but there’s regular $200+ tournament action in a few rooms.

#10 New Hampshire

New Hampshire is a great place for tournament poker. (They have cash games, but at 10% up to a $7 max – and with only low limit stakes – I wouldn’t recommend them). Consisting of ten rooms, primarily in the southern third of the state, New Hampshire spreads no limit hold’em tournaments sufficient to satisfy anyone who likes all but the biggest games. Ranging in stakes from small one table affairs that range from $40 to $120, up to huge mega-stacks that have hundreds of contestants for $200 or so, with prize pools reaching upwards of $50,000, New Hampshire also has a large percentage of amateurs. The rake generally isn’t bad at all – about the same as the lower-staked casino tournaments (15-25%). The two biggest places, Seabrook and Rockingham, are located right next to the Massachusetts border, making driving from Boston’s Logan airport, very easy. The other rooms, smaller to be sure, are scattered across the state, making for a great one-week vacation of driving through the scenic beauty of New Hampshire, from one room to the other – sampling lovely bed and breakfasts, motels, restaurants, and the like, along the way.

Honorable mention

There are many other great places to play poker while on vacation. They didn’t make my top ten list, but for reasons of geography, cost, or curiosity they may be perfect for you. Here are some places with good poker and good vacation potential, listed in no especial order.

Pennsylvania – They just opened up poker rooms around Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. There’s nothing like new rooms for great easy action.

West Virginia – Three rooms just west of Pittsburgh and then south to Charleston. Beautiful country. Let’s hope that the nearby action in Pennsylvania doesn’t destroy these great rooms.

Arizona – Large number of rooms around Phoenix and Tucson. Great for a golf-poker twofer. And if you like visiting spring training games – what could be nicer?

New Mexico – Between and around Santa Fe and Albuquerque there are nine rooms with low limit action and tournaments. The high desert is a site to behold. And the poker ain’t too shabby either.

Minnesota – There’s the large Canterbury Park and a few other rooms in the greater Twin Cities area, and then half a dozen other rooms sprinkled about the state. If you like fishing, as I do, a great vacation could have you travelling to a lake for walleye fishing in the day, and poker at night…

Louisville, KY – Louisville is a great city in its own right – with museums, restaurant, nightlife, and the scenic beauty of the mighty Ohio running through it. Right across the river in Indiana is one of the best Midwest casinos, Caesar’s Indiana. And if you want some adventure you can head up the river to the northeast toward Cincinnati or into the interior of Indiana for some other poker room action.

Denver – A mile high and lots of small games nearby. I wouldn’t go just for the low limit action, but if you’re going to be in Denver, don’t forget that there’s some good poker nearby.

Outside the US – There’s surely great poker in countries other than the US. I haven’t listed them here because they’ll be the subject of another article. But if you can’t wait, you can start doing your own research on the following places that I can at least briefly recommend: Canada, Costa Rica, United Kingdom, Austria, France, Aruba, Sweden, and Germany.

Related posts:

1. Top Poker Vacations, Part I
2. Finding a Poker Game

I travel a lot and I play a lot of poker. One of my favorite treats is to combine the two by going on a poker vacation. Over the past few years I’ve been to dozens of places where I’ve combined poker play and vacationing. I’ve also done a bit of research on the top places that I haven’t yet gotten around to visiting. I’d like to share my experiences and thoughts on these places – and on what makes a great poker vacation.

From my perspective, a great poker vacation combines great poker with a location that is also worthy of a visit. Great poker itself is a combination of different factors including variety of game, variety of stakes, good poker room management, a reasonable rake, good food, a convenient location, reasonable hotel rates, and lots of loose, easy action. That being said, as this list of 10 poker destinations reveals, some places are more worthy because of some qualities than others.

I’ll start with my three favorite places for a poker vacation:

#1 Las Vegas

This is my number one poker vacation spot. How could it not be? It has, without question, the world’s largest number and densest concentration of poker rooms. In the Greater Las Vegas area, there are currently 58 poker rooms. On any given day you can find between 50 and 100 tournaments – from $15 to $25 low limit events in places like Poker Palace in North Las Vegas and Joker’s Wild and Sam’s Town on the Boulder Highway, to $300 to $600 events at the Bellagio, The Wynn, and the Venetian. And there are mid-limit events costing $60 to $200 at the Orleans, The Golden Nugget, the Station casinos, and just about every other poker room in town.

Las Vegas is also home to the lowest hotel rates (I just stayed in Las Vegas for the low, low rate of $8.50 a night), the largest variety of restaurants (especially Mexican and Asian restaurants), not to mention all of the shows, concerts, and night clubs. For those who enjoy the outdoors there are also scenic hiking and biking trails in the mountains and in the desert, as well as water sports and fishing. And as my poker buddy Andrei regularly reminds me, there are some of the greatest golf courses in the world in Las Vegas.

Transportation to, from, and within Las Vegas is very inexpensive – with frequent discounted flights to the city and then the cheapest rental car rates around. All in all, if you don’t mind the distraction of 24/7 gambling action and entertainment, there is absolutely no better place in the world for a poker vacation. (And I didn’t even talk about day trips to poker destinations Mesquite to the northeast and Laughlin to the south).

#2 Southern California

I define this area as Los Angeles and its suburbs all the way down to San Diego and its suburbs. It encompasses an area that is about three hours north to south and an hour and half east to west (without traffic). All totaled, there are 26 poker rooms in that area, including some of the largest poker rooms in the world

Southern California (SoCal as it is called colloquially) is surpassed, in my opinion, only by Las Vegas as a destination for a poker vacation. While it loses points somewhat in the poker room diversity column, it still has the second largest number of poker rooms of any area in the world. And these poker rooms, unlike many of the tiny rooms in Las Vegas, are often cavernous – with 100 or more tables. There are also frequent major tournaments as well as many daily tournaments in SoCal rooms. When you combine all of this with the largest concentration of recreational poker players in the world, you have the juiciest, most action packed poker games on the planet. What’s not to love?

Southern California has a huge amount to offer away from the felt as well. While LA is not quite the 24 hour city that Las Vegas or New York are, it is an area loaded with night life, outdoor recreation, scenic beauty, and enormous cultural diversity. Think Hollywood, Santa Monica, Venice Beach, and Beverly Hills. LA and its surrounding environs have long been tourist and business destinations in their own right. Unlike Las Vegas, if any in your vacation group are non-gamblers, they can have the vacation of their dreams as well – even if you the addicted poker player are locked into constant poker action for the duration of the trip.

Transportation to and within SoCal is also very convenient, with inexpensive rental cars and flights. Hotel and motel rentals are surely more expensive than they are in Las Vegas. But given the huge number of rooms in the area, the careful traveler can still find reasonably priced ones.

All in all, SoCal is right at the top of any list of ideal poker vacation destinations.

#3 Southeastern Connecticut

At first glance you might leave this area off your top list of great poker destinations. There are, after all, only two poker rooms in the entire area. That’s a big comedown from Las Vegas, SoCal, or any of the top ten poker destinations for that matter. Even so, I include it in my top three list because of the wealth of poker games in these two Connecticut rooms. Between them, there are more poker games, at more limits, with more action that at any of the other poker rooms (with the exception of LA and Las Vegas). And with the extraordinary number and variety of other activities available within these two mega-casinos, they rise to the top of my poker vacation list.

Foxwoods, in Ledyard, CT, is the larger of the two casinos and poker rooms – with 98 poker tables downstairs and a new tournament area of 65 poker tables upstairs. It is an incredible room, superior in number and variety of games to just about any poker room in the world – rivaling even the mighty Commerce Casino in Los Angeles. It’s located in a huge, full-service casino, with regular shows, concerts, athletic competitions, movies, high-end shopping, and of course the full range of casino games like slots, craps, blackjack, baccarat, pai gow, sic bo, and roulette. It also has three full service hotels on the premises – with beautiful spas, gyms, pools, saunas, an entertainment center for kids, and the like. There are fifteen restaurants for guests and visitors, not to mention the buffet, two night clubs, snack bars, and the café inside the poker room. Foxwoods even has two golf courses (yep, poker and golf again!). It’s truly a destination casino resort – with more square footage, gaming, and bells and whistles than any casino in the world.

Mohegan Sun is a similarly spectacular, though smaller and somewhat better organized and more coherent version of Foxwoods. Many prefer it, with their top name restaurants and better coordinated floor plan. The poker is excellent too, though not nearly as large or as diverse at Foxwoods. Even so, it provides a nice change of pace, as well as a series of daily tournaments to compliment the full schedule of poker tournaments at Foxwoods

To be sure, the southeastern area does not have nearly as much to offer to the vacationer as SoCal or Las Vegas. There is the seaside town of Mystic, with a museum and shops about 30 miles away. There’s the natural beauty of the Connecticut woods – with hiking trails and nearby fishing. The revitalized and vibrant city of Providence is 50 minutes away; Boston is 90 minutes and Manhattan is two hours. But if you’re coming to Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun to play poker, it’s the attractions of Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun that you’ll get. Fortunately, for me and nearly all who make the trip, what the casinos offer is more than enough to make a poker vacation here spectacular.

In my next piece I’ll complete my list of the top 10 poker vacation destinations.

Related posts:

1. Top Poker Vacations, Part II
2. Off-Strip Poker in Las Vegas

Talk to a friend or acquaintance who doesn’t play poker. Ask him about what he thinks are the two or three most important things to learn about the game of poker. I am willing to bet that he mentions either bluffing or “tells” – those things that players unconsciously do that tend to give away the true strength of their hand. Think I’m wrong?

I’ve dealt with bluffing in other articles – and I’ll deal with it again, but not here, except to say that, in general, for most low and medium limit players, winning poker play depends much less on bluffing than most people think.

Similarly, I think the public, and many poker players, tend to greatly overestimate the importance of finding those unconscious poker tells that tend to give away the true strength of an opponents hand. Let me explain how that is so – and in so doing help you focus on what really is important in figuring out your opponents’ hands.

There surely are things that poker players do, unconsciously, that tend to give away their hands. New players and awful amateurs may smile when they like the way their hand looks and they may curse when they don’t like their hand. Some complete newbies show their emotion on their face obviously and directly. These are poker tells that can be exploited to be sure.

However, players that are so obvious are relatively rare in a poker room or even in a regular home game. Just about everyone who is playing poker for any kind of money knows the importance of not giving away ones hand in this obvious manner. And few do. I’ve learned that one of the most common skills that players pick up is keeping a poker face.

Even so, many players, especially players who have read a poker book or two and who think themselves serious, expend a lot of energy trying to discern the true strength of their opponents’ hands by watching diligently for what I call that giveaway tell. You know what I mean – the ring twirling to indicate a bluff, the lip licking to demonstrate strength, the unconscious tapping on the table when impatient because of bad cards.

Without ruling out some thin possibility of importance in these types of unconscious behaviors, for the most part they are the stuff better left to movies. More important in the low and medium games that most of us frequent are the conscious things that players do when they play poker. Put players into broad categories that define their style of play and you’ll be much better able to define the true strength of their hand than by relying on any of their unconscious behavior.

Here’s an analogy. During WWII, the British were trained to spot enemy planes when they were flying over their coast line. They were trained to identify not only that a plane was overhead but what type of plane. They did this not by learning all of the intricate markings and other fine features of the planes but by learning their basic silhouette. This outline of the plane was sufficient for the good plane spotter to identify the make and model of the plane – and to use that information to alert others.

In poker it’s the same way. The unconscious tells are the fine details of the plane. They are, for the most part a distraction. You can stare for hours at a poker player and get no useful information about what he is likely to hold. In fact, new, beginning, and intermediate poker players often don’t know for themselves the true strength of their hand. How are you going to figure out what they have when they don’t really know?

Rather, look to identify those broad characteristics that players freely and frequently exhibit about the way they play the game. Do they bet and raise a lot? Mark them down as aggressive. Do they call and check more than raise and bet? Mark them down as passive. Do they fold most of their hands? Mark them down as tight. Do they tend to be in a lot of hands? Mark them down as loose.

Combine these traits and you’ll come up with four basic categories for players: tight-aggressive, loose-aggressive (known generally as “wild”), loose-passive (known generally as a “calling station”) or tight-passive (known generally as a “rock”). Then use these broad characteristics to help you figure out what a player has based on his betting action in a particular hand. If a wild player is betting and raising you are less likely to credit him with a strong hand than if a rock raises or re-raises.

When you’ve mastered this – and can not only categorize players but remember into which category they fall, then you’re ready for the next step – discerning whether they are tricky or not. There is more gray in this exercise than in the other. Players tend to fall on a continuum that ranges between extremely tricky and completely straightforward. You need to categorize them as being somewhere on the scale and then credit their actions accordingly. If a very straightforward tight-aggressive player raises the big blind pre-flop from early position, credit him with a large pair. If, on the other hand, you’ve determined that he’s a very tricky poker player, then broaden the range of hands he might be holding to include two big cards or a suited Ace. Similarly, if a straightforward player bets on the river, tend to believe that his bet represents a hand that he thinks is in the lead. If a tricky player makes that same play, figure that he may be bluffing.

Tight, aggressive, passive, loose, and tricky – these are the simple traits that you should observe and recall at the poker table. That’s enough for now. If you are able to do that with your opponents and then remember the information you’ll be much better off than by focusing your attention on the small and unconscious things that they do.

When you have mastered your ability to characterize players based on their patterns and habits of betting then, and only then, should you move on to the next step – the learning of some of the basic poker tells that many players exhibit. But that’s a lesson for another day.

Related posts:

1. Online Poker Avatar Tells
2. Dealing with Tricky Poker Players
3. Violating Conventional Poker Wisdom – Part II

The following article is a guest post written by my poker student, Dr. Burton Reifler.

Why did I take up poker at the age of 64? And how did I go about learning? Ashley Adams, the noted poker author, asked me those questions when chance put us at the same poker table at the Aria casino in Las Vegas recently. So here’s my story. And Ashley, I had one motivation that might even surprise you (hint to readers: I’m a physician specializing in geriatrics).

My wife encouraged me to start playing poker (as the columnist Dave Berry would say, I am not making this up). This needs a little background. I had a medical meeting in Las Vegas seven years ago. To our astonishment we both loved Las Vegas – the shows, shopping, restaurants, luxury hotels, everything. What a change from our only other visit several decades earlier when we couldn’t see the appeal. I got intrigued with getting comps. At the time, I thought that blackjack was the best combination of learning a new skill and keeping the house advantage to a minimum. But once you know basic strategy the plays become rote and playing to get comps started to feel like a job.

When we came back from the trip, we’d watch the WSOP on TV and my wife would say “you should learn poker.” I shrugged her off thinking poker was all bluffing and guesswork. But then one day I picked up a poker book in Borders. After reading it I saw that there was much more to the game than I had realized. I was hooked. A few months later we were back in Vegas where I mustered up the courage to try a live poker game at the Bellagio. I started with limit hold’em but after seeing that no limit games were more available I switched to that.

My three learning strategies have been: seminars, books, and coaching. I’ve attended two World Series of Poker academies – one on cash games, the other for advanced players. Both were well organized, interesting and fun. They were a combination of lectures from top pros, and “labs” where we split into groups of ten players and a pro dealt hands to us, with analysis and critique after each hand. The labs were the highlight each time. I can’t justify the expense as an investment (i.e. covering the cost through increased winnings), but that wasn’t my intent.

My poker library is extensive. I play for low stakes but have spent a small fortune on books. I particularly like three authors and have read and re-read their books. Phil Gordon’s green and blue books are like poker 101 and 102. Good introductory works written in a conversational style with enough advanced points to keep them interesting to more experienced players. Dan Harrington’s books are like upper level courses. My copies of his two cash game and three tournament books are heavily underlined and annotated. David Sklansky’s books are like graduate courses. He is a theoretician (one of his books is on the theory of poker) who brings considerable intellect to the game. I haven’t re-read his books as much as the others because many of his examples are from games other than no limit. The book I am currently studying is Professional No-Limit Hold ‘Em by Flynn, Mehta and Miller. It has some excellent concepts I will try and incorporate into my poker game, such as deciding very early in the hand if I am committed to going all-in.

I’ve had four poker coaches, all of whom I met personally in Las Vegas. The first was a veteran player from Texas who came to Vegas monthly. He was beating me soundly when I asked him if he ever taught poker. He replied by giving me his business card. His specialty was teaching beginners and we had a series of structured discussions over Skype. His total fee was $100 – quite a bargain. My second coach was a pro I met at the cash game Academy. He was very skilled and sincerely interested in seeing me improve but $200 an hour was too high for the stakes I was playing for and I stopped after two sessions. His method was to play hands together online. Third was a fellow student at the advanced Academy. He was a high school teacher who had won a seat through an online tournament. We sat next to each other at one of the lab tables and he made some excellent comments so I asked him if he would like to try coaching. We agreed on a fee of $25 /hr. He is a tournament specialist who coaches me in sit’n goes, again using Skype. Thanks to his coaching and Collin Moshman’s excellent book on sit’n go’s I’m doing pretty well at the $20-$30 level. My fourth and newest poker coach is Ashley himself. He charges $250/month for all the questions I want to e-mail and we’re just getting started. He has already helped me find some leaks (such as playing some hands I shouldn’t have been in and not being aggressive enough when I hit the flop) and his approach is making me more disciplined in recalling and describing a hand.

You’ve probably guessed that skill acquisition is a more powerful motivator to me than making a profit. I try to focus on whether I made the right decision more than whether I won the pot. An opponent with two outs on the river is entitled to win 1 out of 25 times (why does it seem higher?). But making the right decision and winning the pot is what’s really sweet.

Most of my reasons for taking up poker are straightforward and predictable. It’s endlessly challenging, I’ve met interesting people, and since it’s indoors it complements my other hobby, golf. But here’s the reason you might not have guessed. My specialty within geriatrics is Alzheimer’s disease and I’m impressed with recent research that suggests keeping your mind active and learning new skills might have a preventive effect. Physical exercise helps me keep my cardiovascular system in shape and poker is helping to protect me from Alzheimer’s disease. So I’m playing for my health! And to answer the question in the title – no one is too old.

Burton V. Reifler, M.D., M.P.H.

Dr. Reifler attended medical school at Emory University and was a psychiatry resident at the University of Washington. From 1978-1987 he directed the Geriatric and Family Services Clinic at the University of Washington which became a widely replicated model for the diagnosis and management of Alzheimer’s disease. His major research area was the relationship between Alzheimer’s disease and depression and he has authored over 100 journal articles and book chapters.

Since 1987 Dr. Reifler has been a Professor of Psychiatry at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he was Chair of Psychiatry from 1987-2001. He is currently Kate Mills Snider Professor of Geriatric Psychiatry and Senior Advisor to the Dean. From 1987-2001 he was Director of “Partners in Caregiving,” a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation program focused on developing adult day centers throughout the country. In 1996 he received the Ruth Von Behren Award from the National Adult Day Services Association and in 2002 the Jack Weinberg Memorial Award for excellence in geriatric psychiatry from the American Psychiatric Association (APA). He is a past chairperson of the APA’s Council on Aging and currently serves on the Ethics Committee of the APA. Dr. Reifler is a past president of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.

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