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1.7 Shorthanded Poker: A Secret about Winning
by Jason PohlI have a secret for you. All those poker books and articles, as helpful as they may be, don't tell
you everything you need to know to become a winning poker player. The pros know this secret.
You don't hear Ted Forrest or Daniel Negreanu or Layne Flack (or just about any professional
poker player for that matter) berating authors for giving away the secret formula to success. I
didn't see an uproar in the poker community when Phil Hellmuth recently told us how to Play
Poker Like the Pros. Why wouldn't they complain? Their whole livelihoods would appear to be
at risk.
But that's not the secret. It might be a secret, unspoken by many players because they want
you to believe their books will help you make millions of dollars and leave the boredom of your
current paper pushing or burger flipping job behind. But it's not the secret I have for you. If it
was, this would be a very short article indeed.
I've read over 40 poker books. Mathematics, strategy, and psychology are all covered.
Tournaments, Low Limit Hold'em, Middle Limit Hold'em, No Limit and Pot Limit Hold'em, 7-
card Stud, Omaha, Omaha Hi-Lo Split, Zen (or Tao) Poker. I kid you not. I've read them all,
many of them more than once. My favorite book, Theory of Poker, I've read over 25 times.
Most of them helped; a few of them hindered. But none of them told me what I really needed
to know to become a winner. It took me years of playing and struggling and reading and
discussing…thousands of message board posts, hundreds of articles, and more money spent on
my "tuition" than I care to imagine.
But I'm going to give you a secret that will help take you down the path to success without all
the heartache, pain, and tribulations. And it's a heck of a lot cheaper too. So, without further
ado, here it is.
You don't need to know why you are winning in order to win.
Oh my, did I just say that? After all, I have spent the last year and a half demonstrating some
strategies for short-handed play, and I focused on how important it is to understand why those
strategies worked. But let's forget that for a moment.
A Recent Tournament
I played in a No Limit Hold'em tournament with about 25 friends last month, and it was a
juicy field indeed. No Limit Hold'em is definitely not my best game, but I still couldn't help
feeling like I was taking candy from a baby. Holding over 1/3 of the chips going to the final 8
man table, I could not have been more confident. But then, Lak sat down. Lak is a twentysomething
years old Asian male, with no poker experience before 6 months ago. (And he's a
great guy too.) He's never read a poker book or an article, and he is completely self-taught.
And he may be the best No Limit player I've faced.
I focused on pot odds, the Gap Concept (see Sklansky's Tournament Poker), blinds as a
percentage of my total stack, payout structure, and more. Lak just played poker. He attacked.
He bluffed. He changed gears. He showed monsters. He struck fear into the entire table. I did
not realize the whole truth until it was too late. Lak outplayed everyone...but he didn't know
why what he was doing was so powerful. And you know, it didn't matter at the end of the
night. He still took the money home.
You would think that with all the knowledge contained in poker books, every winning player
would have a library of texts, bookmarks on all the poker sites so they could keep up with the
articles, and an active life on at least one major message board. But I know this is not true. In
fact, I have often heard it said by some of my closest friends that they fared worse after reading
strategy books. How can it be that 'instinct players' and those with years of experience win
without taking advantage of all that knowledge and strategy help? And why do so many new
players struggle under mountains of literature and fail to attain success?
The reason, best that I can guess, is that they think "too much." And more importantly, it's too
difficult to get it all right, at least at first. Poker is so complex, and so rich with information,
that only a genuinely excellent player can hope to contemplate it all and reach the best
conclusion. Sure, I hope to achieve that degree of aptitude in every facet of my game…
eventually. I hope everyone reading my articles seeks the same expertise.
But, most people try to realize that high degree of proficiency first, and then try winning
second. The order of learning should be opposite. Learn how to win first. Learn why you are
winning over the long run. It may seem a subtle distinction, but it is not.
The EASIEST Path
Ah wait, I have another secret. Or, maybe it's really a secret within a secret. See, I've told you
that you don't need to know why you are winning. And you know that the books aren't
necessarily the easiest way to learn how to win (but they are immeasurably helpful learning
why.) But I have not really told you the secret that trumps those two. It's been hinted by other
authors. They tell of their early success and it very often includes one factor in common: a
mentor.
A mentor is somebody who teaches you how to win. Or, maybe it would be better to say a
mentor is somebody you learn how to win from. I make the distinction because the mentor
doesn't even need to know they are teaching. Confused?
With even a fair amount of time, you will likely know who the "winner" at the table is. When I
say the "winner," I of course am not referring to the winner of a specific session. I'm talking
about the player everyone respects and fears, the player who brings home the chips in the long
run. Now, keep that player in mind.
Next, stop trying to practice all those observation skills mentioned in the books. Reading each
player's tells, interpreting the betting of every player every hand, counting the pot at all times,
classifying the type of action (loose, aggressive, tight, passive), and predicting each opponent's
holdings: forget about it. Trying to watch everything at once and think about what you are
doing is just too difficult (at first). Instead, focus all that observation in only one direction
now, instead of ten. Watch the "winning" player. Count the pot odds and observe how the
"winning" player adjusts. Watch the winning player's actions each hand. And copy their play.
Their playing style is not copyrighted, trademarked, or in some way patented. And you can
steal every last checkraise, bluff, and value bet. Make them your own. Do everything you can to
become just like that player. Oh sure, the "winning" player in your local game probably has
some flaws. Maybe they're a bit loose or don't bluff enough or one of a million other things.
But I'll bet that 95% of those "winning" players do the fundamental things the same, because
at limit poker, the options are...well...limited. And that's another secret too. Winning players
utilize the same style at limit poker. If you see differences, they're either a) small or b) based
on adjustments to the table. But all those players are fundamentally tight aggressive. Period.
Bottom line. End of story.
Here's the great news. If you play in different places, or at different limits, you will see many
winning players. You will be able to see the differences in their play, but more importantly, you
can identify the similarities. Copying their play will give you a style of your own.
All you have to do is figure out how to be tight and aggressive, and there is no better way to
learn that balance than matching the actions of a winning player who has already done the
legwork for you. Only then, after you have figured out how to win, do you really need to put
the effort into learning why. Eventually, you will have to put in that effort. And when you get
to that point, I've got about 40 books I can tell you about. Maybe you can pay for them with
your winnings.
