Beginner Series Part 5 - Habits: the Good and the Bad

Good players habitually have good habits.

Habits vs. Routine

People get in routines. They have the same amount of coffee in the morning - usually from the same place. They sleep on the same side of the bed. They buy the same brand of beer over and over.

When a person gets into a routine, he or she feels a sense of comfort in the known. We know that this flavor agrees with us. We know what page and section of the New York Times we prefer. We know that the brand of shoes that we buy are comfortable on our feet.

The only difference between a routine and a habit is the connotation that a habit is difficult to change while a routine is to be respected and, somehow, honored. Here we will use them synonymously.¹

Poker is no different. We choose to play at the same places, talk to the same people, and often, sit in the same seat as normal.

These types of habits are mostly benign. Sure we should probably go play different games and variants of poker at different venues to improve our mind and memory.

However, the comfort, profitability, and enjoyability of a certain venue and its patrons is also compelling.²

The habits we will speak of today, however, are more important to our ultimate enjoyment of this great game.

The Bad Habits

1. Playing above your bankroll.

2. Superstition

3. Remembering the inconsequential

Playing above your bankroll

We will discuss budgeting and bankroll management in depth in a future issue of this beginner series but I will make one point here. Consistently playing above a sustainable monetary level can be an indicator that a person is a gambler rather than a player. The key word is sustainable. If sustainability can’t be reached, the game will not be yours for the long run.

Superstition

We all see patterns. These patterns expose themselves to our very sensitive neural systems. We pick up on these things because of millennia of human evolution to help the individual and the species survive. We are wired to eat from the breast, hold our breath when underwater, and show empathy through imitation - ex. yawning when witnessing another person yawn.

At the card table we are seeing a lot of patterns too. Some are quite helpful: The one guy who gets quiet and straightens up in his chair every time he gets a good hand. Also, the lady who stops shuffling her chips when she is bluffing.

However some are just noise that ought to be ignored. An example of this is recognizing that a “lot of fours” or “so many diamonds” are showing up on the flop is admirable in that the player is paying attention to the action and the board. However, it becomes a bad habit when superstition leads the player to adjust her strategy to play more hands that contain a four or a diamond.

Just like luck, it is a fact that patterns happen in the past. Where the superstitious goes wrong is assuming that past pattern will somehow continue to affirm itself. The reality is the likelihood of it continuing is the same as it starting from scratch as if the pattern hadn’t shown itself in the first place.

An astute player, however, will not point out that “Nines are hot” should be discounted. As a fact, he will play the game of interest and continue to point out when the pattern rings true in an effort to confirm his opponents’ superstitious ways.

Remembering the Inconsequential

Players crack me up sometimes. A tournament will not pass me before at least one person rings into my ears that “There is no good way to play Jacks!” or “Kings are just Ace magnets!”. The reality of these statements is this player has a history of loss with these particular hands while holding a VERY high expectation preflop. In consequence of these losses, these hands are misplayed either to the passive (open limp) or the ultra aggressive (Open rip all in with 40 big blinds). These mistakes further the players negative association with the preflop starter when the desired outcome is rarely reached.

I often hear a player moan that “I have lost with AQ 3 times tonight”. Meanwhile the same player will not remember that his opponent 3 bet bluffed as the chip leader at the final table the week before or, in another situation, that a player called a 3 bet jam with ATo while having a workable stack.

My point is that remembering examples of the scenarios and patterns that your opponents recently made is infinitely more important that the pattern of losing with the AQ 3 times. Losing with the AQ 3 times is like flipping a coin and it landing on heads 3 times in a row. That’s not a good space to use our limited cognitive powers.

The Good Habits

1. Prepare

2. Look the Part

3. Pay Attention

Prepare

This means know the tournament structure, Buyin, Rebuy and Add-on possibilities. Know if there is another tournament at which you can play should you bust early. For a cash game, know the type of opponents you are likely to play at this level and this geography or this room.

Have an ICM calculator on your personal device as well as some coaching software to study your spot at dinner break.

Wear layers to prepare for all climates and bring some healthy snacks to keep your blood sugar levels at baseline.

And, of course, have the proper funds prepared for the activities.

Look the Part

We have all heard “fake it till you make it”. There is, in my opinion, a lot of merit to this quip. A lot of it has to do with the other quote you hear in “it’s better to stay quiet and be thought a fool than you open your mouth and remove all doubt.” Here are some things you can do right now to get some respect at the poker table:

• Being stoic and quiet can lead others to believe you know what you’re doing……even if you don’t. We put a lot of (wasted) time into trying to conceive and interpret tells from other players while doing very little to conceal our own leaks. We should always start by playing defense by keeping our ticks, yawns, moans, and eye rolls to a minimum.

• Keeping your stacks neat and orderly in a manner which your opponents can count lets your more experienced opponents know that you have “been here before”. This alone can buy you a bit of table cred when the rubber meets the road.

• After losing a big pot (or winning one), stay professional. Say “good hand” or “tough break”. If you bust, politely get up and wish the table a good evening. It does you zero good and only harm to act like a child especially if you are to play with these people again.

Pay Attention

This is the crux of becoming a good poker player. The previous two good habits are attitude based by trying to act and play a part for which you are actually unprepared. They will help with your image in the eyes of others. Paying attention is different and much more important as it will actively make you a better player.

Keeping a close eye on the game.

By paying attention, you not only naturally look more experienced and prepared, it helps you become more experienced and prepared.

If your eyes stay on the action - even when you aren’t in the hand - you gain multiple times the experience as you would if you are watching the football game on the tv in the casino or chatting with a table mate.

When you are starting out, this experience is GOLDEN. You probably aren’t a winning player yet and the only ways to become one are study and experience. If you pay attention you will gain this experience much faster and therefore cheaper on your way to becoming a +EV player.

On top of this huge benefit, you are less likely to make systematic mistakes like posting your blinds or acting out of turn. When you are a beginner, these mistakes can weigh on you a bit mentally so anytime you can avoid them by doing something that is as obvious as paying attention to the game, you should try.

I believe tells are one of the biggest overblown aspects of poker when it comes to the inexperienced player. Most non players believe in “soul reading” or “sensing weakness”. While there are a lot of great players that have a better handle on these things than others, none of this is necessary to become a good player.

What is important is to pay attention to obvious quirks in someone’s game. You don’t have to be Doyle Brunson or Phil Ivey to look to your left and see a weak player holding his cards in the “fold position” to know this player is likely to not contest this pot. You don’t have to have telepathy to see that the Big Blind has gone to the bathroom and you should probably raise your hand that is borderline because of the implications and the dead money involved.

You simply have to Pay Attention. Which is probably a big part of Mr. Brunson and Mr. Ivey’s success and habits.

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1. Some will say that routine is planned whereas habit is impromptu or subconscious. To those I would say that routines, if a sample is allowed to grow, can become subconscious as well. If we are able to break our labels (or combine them if that is your perspective), we will treat these words as something close to synonymous and interchange them.

2. We will discuss venue, game, and seat selection in a future episode in this beginner course.