A couple of summers ago, some friends and I Were just relaxing on the porch when Shawn – a fellow poker player – started to talk about the last time he went “hunting.” Everyone shut up and listened, because Shawn used to work as full on bounty hunter.
Shawn was great at that, but he was a hunter, and it was clear that part of his greatness was in exuding that “Kids, remember, don’t try this at home” aura. It shone through on two occasions, when he would talk about his job, and when he was playing poker. Every time he showed up at the card table, the game went up a notch because Shawn, played to win, and he could make money from the most ridiculous of situations.
Great pokerstar players can squeeze pennies and dimes out of situations where good players miss, and the mediocre and average players never even see. If they did see it, they pass because they know it is out of their league. The greats try, succeed and sometimes fail but the greats make work things the rest of us only dream about (“don’t try this at home”). The fact is, most mediocre players have two problems: They are outplayed by the greats and proceed to fail spectacularly when they try the same sort of thing a couple of hands later.
It common for players to mutter and curse when an unorthodox or seemingly random suicidal play actually wins, and they usually say, “Got lucky.” Not true. Most mediocre players fixate on the early part or just one phase of the action. The ability to finish well is important, as it is the later betting rounds have more money at risk. For example, opening with 77 behind the button after no one opens the pot; mediocre players see a fair starting hand. The great with a JsTs sees dead money in the blinds and ways to exploit the situation.
The greats understand that they do not need to scoop every PokerStars.it pot. The greats setup situations where they give up small edges to maximize the chance of a huge return. This is common in No Limit Hold’em tournaments where players see many pots and lose many small pots with 6s5s. They are waiting for the moment to finish when things matter more.
Weaker players fixate on the pot, and winning it. They do not care if they should be chasing it or not, they just want to win it. That is blind greed. Remember that playing to win means, playing and winning smart. Poker keeps score by how much you win and lose in a lifelong game.
If you play five hands, lose four with small bets and in the fifth win large bets, you are actually playing strong, solid poker because you understand that sacrificing pots is fundamental to winning at poker. Like Shawn used to say, “If you understand the nature of a thing, you don’t chase. Just let it come to you.”