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The road game route to profit
Everyone starts somewhere, and it’s never at the top. If you don’t like the idea of beginning at the bottom and working your way up the poker ladder, let me present the alternative. It’s beginning at the top and working your way down. Now that’s not a pleasant prospect, but I’ve lived enough years to see it happen to young players again and again. Great musicians didn’t begin by picking up a violin, taking a seat in the London Symphony Orchestra within a week, and becoming legends. They need to train. You don’t wake up one day, decide you’d like to run long distances, enter the Boston Marathon at noon, and conquer the world’s best-conditioned athletes. You need to train. You need to experience running, learn when to accelerate and when to cruise, how to finesse, and how to get the most out of yourself. I know. I was a star athlete in college, but I didn’t get that way overnight. I had to start somewhere.
Siphon all the money
At poker, you don’t decide you have a flair for the game, take a seat at the biggest limit table in Las Vegas and siphon all the money away from top pros the first week, remaining a superstar for years. Sure, it’s a fantasy, but it never happened that way. I learned poker on the road along the dusty trails of Texas. There were some great players, and I learned from them. But, I never would have survived without facing weak opponents, too. It took me years before I was ready and my bankroll was suitable for the big games in Las Vegas. I learned on the road. I got better.
I still remember a conversation I had in the sixties with Carl, a proficient player who seemed impressed with my poker and thought I was ready to try Las Vegas. “In Vegas, there are some fair games. Pretty tough, but worth your while if you can hold a few hands. You gotta pay your dues on the road and, Doyle, I think you’ve paid yours.” I didn’t heed Carl’s advice for a couple years and then I found his words to be correct. Vegas was tough and it broke me a couple times before I got the hang of it and then never looked back.
Instant stardom
Today, I see young players take fortunes to the big tables, reaching for instant stardom on their first poker excursions, only to fall flat. Soon their dreams fail and are forgotten. And you never see them again. I wonder how many of those players might have succeeded had they walked up the ladder cautiously, learning comfortably at easier and smaller games, rather than racing to the unfamiliar top rung and loosing their balance.
What I call “road games” might not actually be distant games, as they were for me in Texas. Maybe you can find the equivalent of your road games on the Internet or at your friend Fred’s house on Friday night. Wherever you find it, take advantage of the training ground.
Poker is no different from other worthwhile endeavors. Short-term luck abounds in poker and it creates the illusion that anyone can win. It’s an illusion that makes some folks believe they can start at the top. They can’t.
In Carl’s words, “You gotta pay your dues on the road.”
-- Doyle Brunson
Reprinted with permission from Doyle’s Room •
About Doyle’s Room: DoylesRoom.com is an online poker room operated by DBPN (Doyle Brunson Poker Network), a company incorporated and licensed in Curacao, Netherlands Antilles. DoylesRoom.com is the only site endorsed by Doyle Brunson, the 10-time World Series of Poker champion and the King of Poker.
Powered by Microgaming, DoylesRoom.com offers a number of poker card game options that include Texas Hold’Em, 7-card stud, and Omaha and also offers a variety of casino games such as Blackjack, Roulette, Slots, and more.
**DoylesRoom.com does not currently accept US-based players.
Accepting a gift
“Don’t accept a gift in the big blind in hold ’em,” Kelly told me years ago.
He was wrong.
In hold ’em there are no antes. Without antes or something to replace them, there’s nothing to fight over, and if you’re against wise opponents who are playing perfectly, you should sit hand after hand, badly bored and mumbling mantras about your cattle farm. Finally one hand you’ll find a pair of aces. Logically, only then can you play, because you can defend aces against other intelligent players with equally perfect patience. Against such players, you shouldn’t even start with the second-best hand – a pair of kings. The only time you’d get action would be against a pair of aces and you’d be a decided underdog. All other times, you’d win an empty pot and gain nothing.
That’s why the ante was invented: to give poker players a motive for war. Human nature being as it is, I believe that most players would find reasons to play inferior hands sometimes, even without incentive. They lack patience. But, poker would be a pretty pitiful game without something in the pot to fight over. Well, in hold ’em there isn’t an ante. So what motivates players to enter pots?
Not optional
It’s the blind bets, .There are two of them in the seats to the dealer’s left, a small one and a big one, usually twice as large. You must make these bets before seeing any cards. They aren’t optional.
In most hands, there’s going to be a raise before the action gets back to the big blind player. Whether to call or not will be a matter of judgment. But there’s a time when players, like Kelly, often misjudge. And that’s on those occasions when there’s no raise at all. If opponents just call the big blind, there’s a special rule in hold ’em that can get you in all manner of trouble. Normally in poker, if you’re just called, then the betting ends. You move along. But in hold ’em if the player in the big blind isn’t raised, there’s a peculiar option. That player – who’s been merely called – can continue the wagering by doing the raising himself. It’s called the “live blind” rule.
Free gift
My lesson today is that you should usually treat this situation as a gift when you’re in the big blind. You’re about to see the flop that happens next for free. Yes, it’s sometimes tempting to raise your opponents right out of their chairs, and that sort of aggression is in my nature. But usually, I decline. I accept the gift and see what happens at no cost.
It’s often bad to try to bully the game when you’re in the big blind with the opportunity to see a free flop, because on all following betting rounds, you’re going to act first (unless it was the small blind who called you). That’s a big positional disadvantage, making it harder for you to take charge. Another caution is that players who just call are frequently laying traps. They’re hoping you’ll raise.
Put it all together and you’ll fare better ignoring Kelly’s advice and following mine. Unless you have a powerful hand in the big blind, whenever you’re merely called, think, “Thanks for the present, buddy,” unwrap the flop, and see how you like it.
--Doyle Brunson
Reprinted with permission from Doyle’s Room.
About Doyle’s Room: DoylesRoom.com is an online poker room operated by DBPN (Doyle Brunson Poker Network), a company incorporated and licensed in Curacao, Netherlands Antilles. DoylesRoom.com is the only site endorsed by Doyle Brunson, the 10-time World Series of Poker champion and the King of Poker.
Powered by Microgaming, DoylesRoom.com offers a number of poker card game options that include Texas Hold’Em, 7-card stud, and Omaha and also offers a variety of casino games such as Blackjack, Roulette, Slots, and more.
**DoylesRoom.com does not currently accept US-based players.
