Practice: The process of repeating something many times in order to improve performance.
Whenever I hear a doctor, lawyer or other professional mention they have a “practice,” the first thought entering my mind is “Well, when are you going to stop practicing and get around to doing it?” And yet, by doing it every day they are not only performing the duties of their profession but are continually practicing their craft as well “in order to improve performance.”
As an aviation professional, every time I fly – be it a training session, cross-country mission or flightcheck – I walk away from the experience asking myself, “What did I learn about flying today?” I want to learn – or at the very least reinforce – something positive each and every time I commit aviation. I also regularly fly with another well-qualified, experienced instructor pilot and we each put the other through the wringer insuring our skills are still top floor. In doing this regularly, we reinforce and re-establish our professional-grade skills and do not become lazy or complacent about our abilities.
How does this attitude and endeavor relate to poker? In a very non-scientific poll of other players I know, I asked the question, “What, if anything, do you do about practicing poker?” Many, many times I received the answer, “Well, I play a lot on the Internet” or “I practice every time I get to a casino.” But those are not answers to the real question. These people are practicing while out there doing the activity. They practice while they play; their practice involves putting real money on the table to see what happens. This is not practicing; this is doing it for real. Practice is when one can slow down and/or stop the action, perhaps repeat the action, determine what occurred, assess one’s part in the happenings, then analyze, learn and change behavior (if necessary).
Did you ever get a Red Cross first aid card: One for regular people like you and me that instills basic knowledge and training (practice) in dealing with medical emergencies until the EMTs arrive? What to do if someone is choking, bleeding, has a broken bone or the techniques for keeping someone alive after a heart attack and administering “the breath of life?” We did not go out looking for someone having a heart attack before putting our skills to the test; we had a rubber dummy to practice on. We could pound its chest and blow away until we saw the proper amount of chest inflation (and subsequently our own gasping for breath) to know we were doing it correctly. We practiced first.
So, in practicing poker, what kind of rubber dummy do you have? How are you practicing poker without the added expense – and stress – of placing your own money out there on the table? Years ago when I was learning Hold’em, I took a deck of cards, shuffled thoroughly then laid out a three-card flop. I defined the best possible hand on the flop (“With this flop, what two-card holding would be the best hand?”) I threw a turn card and re-evaluated; then a river card and figured out what “the nuts” was there at the end of the hand. It took practice while getting quick and accurate in this drill, but now I can glance at a flop/turn/river and instantly know what the best possible hand is. When I was strong in that, to my thoughts I added the second best hand, and third, and fourth, and fifth.
After that, I gave myself starting hands I could play (with the additional wrinkle of defining my position – early, middle or late) face up in front of me, and repeated the technique described above. Now the exercise was to ascertain how my hole cards – and resultant hand – stacked up against the possible, and potential, best hand extant on the flop, turn and finally the river. Not only does this quickly train the mind to accurately recognize and assess the strengths and weaknesses of one’s own hand, but also it illustrated to me how rarely good starting cards actually end up as the nuts. This opens up an entirely new set of questions regarding playing good starting cards when scare cards come on the flop, turn and/or river. And an entirely new set of practice drills to train the mind when similar situations arise in a real game – when your money is on the line. When you do not want to be practicing poker, but playing it for real. In future articles I will offer some additional practice drills; in the meantime keep thinking about poker.
“I practice every day. If I don’t, the guy who does will come along and beat me,” Ervin “Magic” Johnson, basketball great.
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Drew Chitiea is a semi-pro poker player living in Colorado. His tournament wins are over $500,000 with fourth place at a WPT event and second place at Binion’s WPC.
