The Big Game

Barack Obama plays poker. By all accounts, he seems to love the game. Now that he is officially President, lets analyze his playing style. How one plays poker says much about the kind of a person he is.

From all the accounts I could find, the president is what we in the poker world would call "a rock." He never enters a pot with a mediocre or worse hand. He waits patiently for a playable hand. When he is in, many of his fellow lawmakers (his opponents) say, he is a fiscal conservative. If he is confronted with a big bet and his hand did not improve or did not improve much, he'll fold. He doesn't chase straights or flushes. He simply bows out and looks for a better spot to get his money in. Once in a great while, he'll bluff and it seems he is almost always effective when he does so. But for the most part, his opponents say "when Barack is in a hand, he's usually got the goods."

To me, it seems the President is an intermediate player. Beginners are tempted to chase cards. They stay in a hand as long as there are some cards that could come out that would make them a winner. They fall in love with big starting hands and are slow to give them up. Pros love these players because they sweeten the pots and they lose most of them. Our President seems to understand this propensity. I would say he is more of an "ABC" player. He bases most of his decisions on the odds, the mathematical part of poker. If the odds say that he most likely has the best hand, he'll bet or call or even raise. Otherwise he mucks.

I think this bodes well for our country. We want a leader who is calculating, careful and fiscally conservative. We want someone who steps out only when he is sure that he is right. If it turned out that the President bluffed a lot, that would be bad. The bluff is a weapon that should be used sparingly and only when you have built a convincing story around that bluff. President Obama seems to understand that. He bluffs when he knows his opponents cannot call. I like that. It's the first step to moving his playing skills to the next level. Really good players find just the right proportion between playing ABC and bluffing. Just enough so that your really big hands get called and just enough so that the bluffs are folded to. This could be the toughest skill to master. Right now, it seems Mr. President bluffs too little.

I'm a little concerned that the President doesn't play the players as much as he could. In big games, this is critical. If your playing a loose, wild player, try to have the goods, but the goods don't have to be as good as you would need against a tight player (like the President). I hope the President focuses more on the psychological side of the game as he pursues poker greatness. Think more about who he is up against and slightly less about the cards he is holding. Think of the game as on a sliding scale constantly modulating your moves based on what you think your opponents are thinking. Confuse them. Play with their head. Keep them off guard. Don't always do what is expected.

But most crucially, please Mr. President, don't go "all in" unless it is absolutely necessary. I'm sure George Bush would like to have his all in bet back against Iraq. Oh, one more thing Mr. President, don't forget to read my earlier blog on how to fix the economy. You're welcome.

Is Poker Luck or Skill?

Another common question I've been getting on these radio interviews revolves around the question as to whether poker is gambling or is it a game of skill. To me, someone who has played lots of poker at all different levels over the years, the answer seems very clear.

In the short term, poker has a large luck component. Let me illustrate it this way; If I were to play you one hand and I got pocket kings and you got pocket aces, you'd probably win a lot of money off me. But you were "lucky" to get aces when I got kings. However, if we played every day for three months, all the card disbursement probabilities ("the luck") are washed out. That is, you and I are going to get aces and kings the same amount of times. Therefore the game turns into one of who plays the various situations better. i. e. Minimize their losses and maximizes gains. The results are now essential based on pure skill.

Its analogous to the casino that sets up a table for playing craps. They know that the probabilities are 55% in their favor (or thereabouts) and they know on a daily, if not hourly, basis how much money that table will take in based on the traffic to that table. If the take is below a certain level, they know something is wrong.

Probabilities are a very ephemeral concept. But they are as rock solid as any mathematical concept. They are carved in stone. The more often you flip a coin the closer and closer the distribution will approach 50%. Yet each flip is independent of all the other flips. So even if you flip a heads twenty times in a row, the chances of the next flip being a heads are still 50%. Kinda weird when you think about it. Shouldn't the odds tilt back in favor of tails since it has fallen behind? Nope. It doesn't tilt back yet over time the two outcomes will, for sure, equal out.

So if you play a statistically significant number of hands, all the luck is essentially pulled out of the game. I estimate that you need to play somewhere around 500 to 600 hours of poker to reach this level. Consequently, its quite easy to see if you are a good poker player or not. Play 600 hours of poker, keep careful and honest track of your wins and losses and see if you are in the red or in the black. If you're ahead, then you know what you are doing. If you're way ahead, you're a first rate player. If you're in the red, don't give up your day job just yet.

Radio Radio

Lately I've been doing a number of radio interviews. They've been a lot of fun. Not only am I able to get word out about the book and its bestseller ranking in Greece, but I've been able to kind of take the pulse of the non-poker playing world as to what most interests them about poker. I also enjoy the bantering back and forth. The argumentative (and there haven't been many) interviewers will push back on my claims and force me to make a strong case. Being a former Business School Prof, I enjoy the challenge.

I'll come back to several of the topics I discussed in these interviews in later blogs, but for now I'll focus on the overall view of poker. One of the most common issue that comes up is whether poker is a good thing or a bad thing. Some people lump poker in with gambling and give the knee-jerk negative view. My response is that poker is essentially a form of entertainment for most players and a form of income for a select highly-skilled few. To say poker is just a bad thing is like saying that violence in movies is bad. Or nudity on the beach is wrong. But I do try to stay balanced. Poker has definitely been detrimental to some people. Some over confident, college-aged males come to mind. Utah's adventures in Las Vegas depict the nasty underside to choosing a poker livelihood too early. I've run into young guys I met in the poker room who three years later were begging for money on the streets of Las Vegas. Now that is the extreme case. But it should be taken as a cautionary example to the downside of jumping into a poker career before one is ready.

The other aspect of this is that even if you are mildly successful at first and say you stay in the black for five, or six or seven years, eventually you will hit a dry spell. That is the nature of the game or any game that involves probabilities. If your bankroll cannot handle it, you may go down the unpleasant route of borrowing to play. This can spiral out of control quickly and is not advised. Also, if you decide you want to return to your career training or education five to seven years later, you'll be behind in every sense of the word and you'll find yourself trying to justify those years to educators, to recruiters and to employers.

Now all that being said, Poker is a great game and to those who have carefully developed and nurtured their skills, it can make for a great livelihood. In the long run, poker is a game of pure skill. Gambling and luck are completely washed out once you've played a statistically significant number of hands. So you must be prepared. That is one reason why I'm creating a series of on-line poker courses which will help players develop poker skills in an easy-to-use course system with audio and actual examples of key types of hands and situations. I hope to have these courses up and running by the end of February. Check back regularly at PokerSlamU.com for updates. Whether you decide to take my courses or learn some other way, be sure you develop your skill level properly before venturing into a poker career or to higher level stakes. Your bankroll will thank you.

If you want to hear my recent interview on WBZ Boston, click here.