Curtis Mayfield III's Poker Blog

Poker - the real Reality TV

Lately there has been a myriad of poker shows on TV. You have Poker After Dark, High Stakes Poker, Face the Ace, 2 Months 2 Million and on and on. Despite some of the difficulties of online poker around the globe and trying to regulate it the game continues to thrive in various formats on TV. Personally I think this is extremely good for the game and welcome good, well produced poker shows that convey that this is all about skill with very little luck involved in the long run.

True, I don't expect every poker show that hits the air waves to last as long as the World Poker Tour or Poker After Dark but I do expect them to learn from these shows production wise. This brings me to my next point. Poker in and of itself has to be the best reality based show known to mankind. What other sport allows you the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat coupled with the various personalities that make the game interesting to watch? I mean how can you not love watching Phil Hellmuth or Mike Matusow blowing up after a bad beat. To his credit Matusow has turned his image around a bit but there is always some kind of emotional response lurking in the air for Phil Hellmuth just about every hand.

Be aware of your Table Image

Recently I had been playing in a cash game at our local casino. One of the guys at our table had been playing loose aggressive all day long. He was winning the majority of the pots he played in and overbet each time he felt he had the best hand. Needless to say after thirty minutes or so a few of the guys at the table began to express their frustration. This particular player was not loud or rude to anyone but he simply was getting involved in pots that he probably had no business in and the deck was hitting him pretty good at that time.

We have all experienced rushes like that before. You know how it can be when you can almost play any two cards and it seems like you can do no wrong and win just about every hand for short periods of time. I knew this would not last forever and I simply was prepared to allow the guy to cool off before I got involved in a big hand with him.

Winning is Everything

Over the years I have seen my share of bad beats and suck out playing this crazy game of no limit holdem. There are going to be good times and bad. But the thing I see the better players do more often than most is play to win. In poker tournaments there is no tomorrow. Seriously, well placed risk is what any good player is looking to capitalize on when it gets down to it.

Too often I see players in tournaments that are playing to make the money instead of trying to win the tournament. Contrary to what you might believe these players are not all average or bad players. Some of them have very good games but simply do not understand the dynamics of managing a tournament. It took me a while to understand how to manage a tournament too. After a while you get tired of cashing and begin to ask yourself questions as to why you get the Final Table but are not placing in the top three spots more frequently.

Keep your Composure

Last week I celebrated my birthday with a few friends. Naturally the topic of poker came up and it was off to the casino we go to play in a $200 No Limit tournament. Now this is by no means a big buy-in and you are likely to see all kinds of players from really bad to really good. We got there with just enough time before the first cards hit the felt and I had to run to my seat before my hand was killed.

My table appeared to be the typical table with several average players and one or two good players. Naturally, I was one of the better players at my table and immediately determined that there was one individual that was just primed for the picking, This individual was sitting in seat number 2 and I was in seat number 5. After playing a few hands I noticed that he was a whiner even when he won a pot. He began berating other players almost as soon as he won the first hand and there seemed to be no end in site. Although he hadn't said anything to me personally I couldn't wait to get under his skin and take his chips.

Fear is a Tool

A couple of days ago I read an article in Poker Pro Magazine about fear. Not the kind of fear you might have when you are in danger but the kind that YOU can and must instill in other players. We have all been fearful of various things in our lives for sure. However, this is a different ball game playing No Limit poker. After reading the piece I took away a few things I believe are useful and easy concepts to understand.

You can instill fear into your opponent by making a big bet at the right time or putting your opponent in awkward positions. When you make these kinds of moves at the right times and force players out of their comfort zone either betting wise or style of play wise there is an immediate benefit to you. That benefit is that when people are not playing their typical style of poker, small ball vs big pot, they usually are not prepared to make and follow through with tough decisions when put in awkward situations. In other words they become fearful and you certainly can use that to your advantage both during the hand and for subsequent hands down the line.

Observation helps re-enforce Poker Lesson

I have been enjoying some time off and playing a lot of poker lately. I have also been reading a couple of books that I had intended to read but never got around to. Some of them were smaller paperback poker books I simply had on my to do list. But it was not until I was watching some old episodes of the United States Poker Championship and the World Series of Poker that the message became loud and clear.

One of the things we all know is that poker is a game of long term expectations. Anything can happen within the flip of a card or two but how many of us are confident enough to let the bad beats roll off knowing that our margin of skill will overcome in the long run. I guess what I am saying is that with my time off and seeing so many of the top pros go up in flames to bad beats it kind of put everything back in perspective for me.

Develop your own Style of Play

We see poker all over TV almost twenty-four hours a day now. That is a great thing and certainly helps to promote the game. But what if there is an aspect that is not so great about televised poker? Poker on TV has made stars out of poker players around the globe. Poker players like Gus Hansen, Phil Ivey, Peter Eastgate, Havad Khan, and many many others have now become house hold names. There is nothing wrong with that until other players begin to imitate what they see on TV. Then it becomes a problem.

It becomes a problem because these players are usually being shown playing at the Final Table of a poker tournament. The play at a Final Table is very different than the kind of play that occurs during the earlier stages of a tournament. All of the big moves and bluffs that are being made may have been setup by a much smaller player several hands ago or even hours before that big bluff ever happened. This is where some of the viewing audience gets sucked into believing that big bluffs and making moves is the way you are to approach the game. Not understanding the context of a move can get you into real big trouble.

Defending your Blinds

Most poker players fall into the basic categories of play as you would expect. By that I mean that you have loose, aggressive, passive, and solid poker players. Some players are hybrids of each player type. But there is another kind of player that is not mentioned nearly as much as the others player types. This kind of player is called a Defender. By Defender I am referring to that players Blinds.

Anyone that plays tournament poker realizes that you are going to have to steal the Blinds and Antes more than a few times in order to keep your stack alive long enough to pick up a few hands. As the tournament moves forward and the blinds increase this becomes even more important because the Blinds and Antes add up. There are some players that lay off of the blinds and antes early because there is really no value in stealing so little. On the other hand these players tend to be more interested in establishing an aggressive image and therefore how much is actually won from the blinds is irrelevant that early in the tournament. Ultimately, you will encounter a number of players that attempt to steal blinds in various ways as you progress from tournament to tournament.

Countering Aggressive Poker Players

Countering aggressive poker players is something that everyone that plays No Limit Texas Hold'em will have to deal with. The same is true for poker tournaments as it is cash games. The typical aggressive player likes to raise a lot of pots and will show aggression post flop. There are also different kinds of aggression to be aware of too. You may be up against an aggressive player that likes to steal your blinds and has picked you out as an easy target. You could be up against a maniac that will raise with any two cards. Lastly, you could be up against a player that has built a monster stack and is simply using it to hammer away at the rest of the table.

Tighten up in Cash Games

Many poker players that do not have much experience seem to believe that you can play a cash game the same as you would a poker tournament. Well, I am here to dispel that myth. Tournament poker requires the same skill set but cash games require you to use them very differently. The main difference between poker tournaments and cash games is that in a cash game you can re-buy if you get busted. Conversely you cannot do that in a poker tournament unless it is specifically a re-buy tourney.

Knowing the difference between the two and factoring in that the blinds will remain the same for the duration of the session we can make some general assumptions. First, I need to tighten up as there is no rush to accumulate chips. Second, I do not need to take risks unnecessarily. In other words, I can pick my spots and mix up my play even more so than in a tournament where your stack and the blinds has a much larger influence on the kinds of hands you can play.