Advice from the Pros

In the past couple of years, I must have read at least 20 or so books and watched similar number of DVDs from current and former greats that we all see on TV... Poker Brat, Kid Poker, Texas Dolly, TJ... everyone... not to mention the countless articles, columns, blogs on the net...

it seems that all of them are targeted at the absolute beginners... or may be the pros just don't want to tell you the real story... I don't know... but after contemplating and trying over and over again, I can tell you one thing for certain... if you strictly follow their advice, you'll game will definitely improve if you are an absolute beginner...

but pretty soon you'll hit your ceiling... don't get me wrong, they all say good stuff, play tight but aggressive, only play premium hands, use position etc... unfortunately, unless you have till eternity to wait for the premium hands in good position... and are fortunate enough that your opponents pay you off every time, you are not gonna get too far...

first of all, if there is one thing i know about poker, it is this... there are no absolutes in poker... no matter what anyone says, there is no one "right" way to play the game... and that's what makes the game so interesting... just like a tennis match or more like a boxing contest... there are certain basics in poker that you should observe in most situations...

keep your guard up and don't slack off on the table
don't play too many trash hands... a 9-2 off suit can only win so many times....
and so many other common sense things that you wouldn't do in day to day life anyway... (somehow a lot of people just go into some fantasy land when they sit at the poker table...)

but other than that, there are no absolutes... aces get cracked fairly often... big slick, supposedly the third or forth best starting hand in poker after A-A, K-K and Q-Q according to most pros, and you see so many people go all-in pre-flop with it... is merely a drawing hand which is generally slightly behind in any good contest i.e. against any pair... or is only a slight favorite against any two random cards... the point i am trying to make is that the so called "premium" hands are only premium pre-flop... and yes your chances of winning after the flop are higher if you only play premium hands, but you are missing the bigger picture by concentrating on the "premium-ness" of the hand...

what the pros actually do, is slug it out for small pots and wear the opponents down slowly... and then eventually the one big punch...

which is the part you see on tv by the way, I am sure you must have asked yourself something like "HE went (or called) ALL-IN with THAT ?!?!" specially in the WSOP or WPT... and you wonder, is this guy stupid or what... a 12 yr old knows you should fold 9-7 when all you have is middle pair...

what you don't get to see is how the poor guy was mentally demolished by the constant pressure and bluffs in the past 11 hands... every poker book tells you, the winning hand in poker is generally played way before the last hand... i am sure you must have experienced that yourself, i know i have... you get bluffed, then you make a stupid call and its all downhill from their... eventually you get busted for moving all in with A-3 when the board is K, 3, 2...

so what i am trying to say here is that the main idea of poker is to defeat the person... more like defeat them one person at a time and demolish the entire table... premium hands and pot odds are for people who don't know how to really play the game... (don't get upset, I used to be one of those people...) and that's what the pros want everyone to be... people who play the cards part of it... while they get to play the real game... you don't have to believe me, and it might not even be intentional on the part of the pros...

but i have to say, get over the Beginner section of poker as soon as possible... anything that the books tell you, is only gonna help you break even at best... get into the nuts and bolts of the game... it is as complex, unpredictable and beyond definition as human nature itself... after all you are not wrestling the guy's arm or competing with the strength in his shoulders... you are competing with his mind and spirit and that is something we have not been able to fully understand as yet... and as a consequence, we can not fully define the rule book for poker either...