9 Things I've Learned from Poker
...it would be 10, but you only like round numbers because of fingers and toes).
Poker, Poker, Poker.
I’ve been playing poker regularly for three and a half years, and playing well for maybe one and a half. I’ve learned many things playing it, very few of which are applicable in real life without becoming somewhat bastardesque.
- When you have lots of chips and other people don’t, even if they might have a good hand and could win, you can bully them and win their chips because they are frightened of your big stack, and don’t want to lose and go home early This is very applicable in real life if you are the Tories. Or the United States.
- Generally people aren’t bluffing. They’re especially not bluffing when you are.
- It’s very easy to lie to people if they’re not watching you in the slightest. MPs have learned this.
- Once you’ve been playing poker for a while, people will insist you watch a film about poker, although most of these films are terrible. Many people will insist you watch Rounders. This is a not very good film with Matt Damon in it (there are some good films with Matt Damon in. He’s great in Team America World Police). He plays against John Malkovich, who has a ridiculous Russian accent and who’s tell (some indication to someone’s cards, can be physical in body language, vocal, physiological etc) is to eat a biscuit. This is a rubbish tell, as it would be fairly identifiable by the massive number of biscuits he eats, but not quite as bad as the man in Casino Royale who cries blood.
- Rounders has a line in it “in the poker game of life, women are the rake. ” This doesn’t mean women are some sort of garden implement and best kept in sheds; a rake in poker is the fee you have to pay for playing in a casino. So I think we’re some sort of tax. I think this quote happens a bit after Matt Damon loses a deposit for his house so his girlfriend is upset with him, and wants him to settle down and give up on his crazy dreams, and have a life of matrimonial drudgery. There’s a lot wrong with the film Rounders, and a lot of it is the attitudes in the previous sentence.
- People who like the film Rounders tend to think women are rakes, but not in the raffish, gaddaboutway that makes us fun and exciting. However they also think your tell will be eating biscuits and so can be easily beaten.
- When playing tournaments, you can wear hats and sunglasses with no fear of reprisal. This means you often can’t see any of the cards, making your play very difficult to predict.
- There are many factors to take into account when working out whether to play a hand or not. The best advice is to play the man, not the cards. Somewhat depressingly, you can find a way to make someone lose even when they have the best cards, by knowing the right buttons to push and if some conditions are right. Becoming a good player involves working out your buttons and other people’s. Applying this in real life can be quite nasty.
- Tournaments have certain points where you have to take a risk to win, or you’ll eventually get ground down. This is a nice lesson for life, so where I’ll finish.
Until a nice Sunday afternoon playing poker and drinking whiskey a few months ago, my only experience of the game was playing at my cousin’s apartment in New York. My cousin is a nice enough chap, but his weekly poker evenings had the effect of turning him and his journalist poker buddies into macho, back-smacking, testosterone-frenzied egomaniacs. I arrived with No Neck, and attempted to play in a limp, half-hearted, English sort of way, but had no idea what was going on or why everyone was getting so roaringly angry. After a few minutes I withdrew my money and asked to retire from the game, which I imagine is a fairly heinous breach of poker etiquette.
If I had a ‘tell,’ I guess it would be bursting into tears and attempting to curl up into a foetus position under the table.
I was beaten in the bullying manner you have so excellently described by a farmer when I was on tour in a cottage completely covered in dog hair. My attempts at lighthearted humour were most probably my ‘tell’ and were met with serious play and humourless defeat. Where do you think it gets its glamourous pretence from?
Buster Crabb once produced an excellent essay called ‘Gamblers Through Time’ but alas it is lost now. I like your poker tips.
>>they are frightened of your big stack
I can imagine this appearing on a small, scrawled memo passed from George Osborne to one of his oligarchs at a celebrity charity dinner.
Sociable Truth, why were you completely covered in dog hair? Or was the farmer covered in dog hair? Or was the cottage covered in dog hair? It could conceivably be any of the three.
Scrutiny – that sounds like a horrible game. Some people view a poker game as a cock measuring exercise. With more experience you can take a lot of money off them, but it ruins the social side of things.
Unfortunatly asking to go home part way through the game is looked down upon. Especially if you’ve just won a lot of money as curiously its sportsmanlike to give people the chance to win the money back. Poker’s funny when social mores coincide with a ruthlessly monetary game.
One of my tells in a tournament is not having any cards for ages and gently letting my head slump until my chin rests on the raised bit of the table. Usefully when I perk up, everyone assumes I’ve got a hand so I can normally win a hand with a big raise. Or just mouthing “I’ve got kings” as I look at my cards.
Sociable – I think poker gets its glamour from Vegas. Which isn’t that glamourous really, although I’d like to go someday. It probably gets its glamour from people being willing to be huge amounts of money on a few tiny unknown pieces of paper. like the City.
10. Never confuse Poker with Pooker.
That’s a horribly defecacious game.