People who over-use acronyms really make me P.O.’d, so I’ll explain the BTB in the title: It means Back To Basics. I was thinking about poker play, style, strategy and tactics prior to playing in a local tournament when I had what is called a BFO: a Blinding Flash of the Obvious. I have read many poker books, thumbed through a ton of poker articles and even written a few now and again, but that day a thought hit me. Do I feel so good as a poker player that I’ve forgotten some of the fundamental tenets of the game? Am I so confident of my skills that I cannot go back and rekindle awareness of the game’s essentials? Hmmm…
So I dug into the box of poker books I acquired over the years to explore some factors I learned so long ago. I wanted to refocus on fundamentals, the Back to Basics mentioned in the title. I did a lot of thought on these topics and my style of play; what I do – and should do – when I enter a game. Here are some of the pointers I came up with: No need to thank me for all this research, my rewards are the public accolades I receive via these articles and the huge stipend I get from the publisher of this paper.
No. 1 – Don’t Play Right Away. Sure, we’ve driven all that way to play poker, but think to yourself “Whoa, hold on thar, podnah!” Poker is a game of decisions; the more accurate your decisions are, the better your results will be. Jumping right into the game does not allow time to ascertain the make-up of the game nor a chance to make the players. Your decisions may likely be based on assumptions [anyone ever broken down the word assume to you?*], gut feelings and the plain old ‘Wish Poker’ syndrome. Good decisions are based on information; sitting out a few hands can give you an idea of who the players are and how they play. Even if you know the players in the game, their emotional state may be different from what you normally are used to.
The people part of this game is one of the most important factors [some say poker is a card game played with people; it really is a people game played with cards]. Your opponents could be winning, losing, hungry, satiated, anxious, complacent or on tilt and looking to exact revenge against someone else at the table. How are you going to know this if you just dive right in? You could get caught in the cross-fire immediately and find yourself trying to dig yourself out of a hole right from the git-go. Take some time when you first sit down and watch the table action while you get yourself situated; if the game requires a post to begin play, pass it along without comment. Dealers will continue the game without you for the time being and then, when time comes for your blind, you can enter the game having had a few minutes to reconnoiter the game, the people, the mindset and the game dynamics.
#2 – Be aware of negative influences. By that I mean negative factors that will affect your game. Is the game a passive limp-fest or is it a rammin’-jammin’ game. Is one player running over the table with hyper-aggressive betting and putting everyone else on slow-burn? Is there a degree of check-raising going on, trap-setting or what Mike Caro called FPS – Fancy Play Syndrome? Do preflop bettors make continuation bets after the flop or do they hold back when an Ace hits the board or a coordinated flop occurs?
If you don’t take a little time at the beginning of your session to figure some of these things out, you’ll figure them out when you have chips in the pot. That can get real expensive real fast. By holding off playing for the first few minutes you get some uncomplicated and unpressured time to get an initial idea of where the table and players are in the psychological scheme of things. That’s information you can use; since poker is a game of decisions based on partial information, the more data you have to work with your decisions are potentially that much better. From there with a more solid and accurate idea of the game’s dynamics, you can go on to fine-tune your tactics and ultimately walk away a winner.
More next article…
