Changing
Pace in Poker - "Stick-Shift Poker"
When
I refer to “stick-shift poker,” I’m not
talking about the seamless acceleration of a racecar
driver moving through the gears. I’m actually
envisioning the first time I tried to drive a stick: Stop,
go…fast, slow.
Pop
the clutch in your car, and you’re likely to give
your passengers an unwanted surprise. Pop the clutch
at the poker table, and you may surprise yourself with
how much money you’ve just won. You’ll hear me
preach, day in and day out, about the importance of
the element of surprise in poker. This means changing
pace in your poker game. The most dangerous
behavior you can adopt is to become predictable.
When I sit down at a table, here’s my first read:
Whose head can I get into today? Sometimes it’s the
new fish swimming in my pond. More often, it’s the
daily grinder who has no f!#@ing idea that I just set
up camp in his cerebellum.
Why
is this my first move? Why not look for tells or amateurs?
Because everything else is irrelevant. If I’m
inside your head and I know how you play, it’s over.
You may as well write me a check.
To
get inside someone’s head, you must look for certain
signs: Does he play tight all the time? How long does
she pause before betting with a winning hand? Can you
push him around, or will he call you down? All of
these elements—and more—should factor into how you
read a player. Once you figure someone out, your
cards really don’t matter anymore. You know what
your opponents will do: If you re-raise, they’ll
fold. If they never fold, you know when to stake your
ground. The payoff from a good read is immense,
but this isn’t really the point of this article. In
truth, it’s less about getting inside someone’s
head than keeping him out of yours.
OK,
grab your notebook. We’re about to get
philosophical. You acknowledge the importance of getting
inside another player’s head. It’s then extremely
easy to understand why any player worth a damn is
trying to access your brain from the moment you sit
down at the table. There are two basic ways to handle
this:
·
“Do
Not Enter!” You can put on your shades and stone
face, hoping he doesn’t get through the front door
(rookie).
·
I
prefer Plan B: Invite him inside your head—hell,
bake him cookies. This is where poker leaves the realm
of game and enters into the realm of art—and my main
argument in this article.
It’s
fine—even beneficial—to let players inside your
head. I love it when a player believes he knows
what I’m thinking. Why? Because he doesn’t. I
don’t even know what I’m thinking half the time.
It’s as simple as this: When you play correctly, you
don’t have a “style.” You’re not tight; you’re
not loose. You don’t cap every raise or fold every
small blind. You change pace, you switch gears: first
gear to third gear to reverse. What’s next? Perhaps
you’ll shift from fourth gear to first again. You
have no idea where you’re headed—and neither does
anyone playing against you. This is the “zone.”
You are every type of player and no type
of player, all at the same time. Other players can be
in your head for one minute and absolutely lost in the
poker wilderness in the next. They don’t know what’s
coming next—and facing this kind of unpredictability
is the scariest place to inhabit at the poker table.
So,
the next time you sit down, try to remember back to
the days when you were in a parking lot somewhere,
stumbling your way through a five-speed. Think about
the way the person sitting next to you that day must
have felt as you clumsily maneuvered the stick shift.
Now make the folks at your poker table feel the same
way, and keep switching gears on them. And if you’ve
never learned to drive a stick, get out there and do
it! Might even rev up your poker game.
