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 he Guardian Poker Column |
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| Victoria
Coren |
| Friday June 30, 2006
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How to play poker
(How to play has been running from issue 16) |
The other day, while playing a large multi-table
tournament on the internet, I had a little epiphany. (By "multi-table", I mean
a tournament with hundreds of runners.) (By "epiphany", I mean a sudden
brilliant vision which is probably wrong. But it felt interesting at the
time.)
There is a traditional strategy for multi-table tournaments: play
tight at the beginning, while the blinds are too small to be worth stealing,
then gradually loosen up as the field reduces and the pre-deal pots get bigger.
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But this is not, currently, the
fashionable way to play. Newer players coming into the game - who now make up
the majority of most fields - have a tendency to play super-aggressive right
from the start. They make oversized raises, they re-raise with suited
connectors, they bluff hard when they miss the flop. This is an excellent way
to play in the later stages of a tournament, but dangerous and often pointless
at the beginning. Some of these players seem to think that the object of a
no-limit tournament is to get their chips all in as often as possible. I was
always taught that a good no-limit player is setting out to avoid putting his
chips all in, unless he has his opponent absolutely strangled.
There are
two popular theories for the change in playing style, both of which have some
logic. One is that modern players get used to one-table tournaments, and cannot
adjust their speed for a bigger field and a longer game. The other is that they
learn from watching final tables on television, where the professionals employ
a much faster pace than they do in the early stages (which are usually not
broadcast).
But there is another possibility, and this is the epiphany
that came to me at the online table where (with blinds at 50/100) the standard
pre-flop raise appeared to be an imprudently large 1000. I suddenly realised:
perhaps it's because these people play only poker. In the "old days", players
usually came to it via other forms of gambling. On the dice tables and roulette
wheels, they embraced chance with crazy abandon. At poker, they enjoyed the
relative discipline of setting out to overcome chance with judgment and
caution. But modern players come in by different means, often bypassing casino
games entirely. The only gamble they get is in poker itself: thus they enjoy
the thrill of risk, rather than the challenge of surmounting it.
Whatever the reason, a spirit of jeopardy reigns. What is the best
defence for the solid player? We will discuss that next week. |
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