Russian Poker Players and Winning Through Losing Less
The Russian poker invasion and why becoming 'pot committed' adds most to your losses
THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING Who could forget the fabulous Hollywood portrayal of Teddy KGB by John Malkovich in the poker classic “Rounders”? Well, now poker has a real life Teddy. Peter Vlasenko from Moscow recently landed $84,000 in the St.Petersburg Open held at the amazing Golden Garden Casino. Over half of the final ten players for the $250,000 prize pool were Russians. As the event was well attended by poker players from all over the globe this is a solid indication that our Russian brethren have every intention of making themselves felt at the more lucrative $100,000,000 World Series of Poker this summer.
WIN BY LOSING LESS This may sound like deep philosophical mutterings or hardcore “why isn’t this guy shovelling horse manure for living?”-type-stuff. Trouble is the stats back it up. If you keep records of games played online over a six month period, in a majority of cases you will find most of your losses come in big hitter games where you’ve become pot committed over a reasonable (but not premium pair of hole cards). If you took those big game losses out of your stats your results for the period would improve by a very large percentage. If you are up twenty percent over the six months you’d be up forty percent if you’d folded at the first notion of being pot committed.
HERE’S HOW IT HAPPENS You’re in late position with a big pair. Let’s say Jacks or Queens. An early player who has been playing cautiously for the last four or five games pushes out a heavy pre-flop raise and everyone ahead of you folds. You are sure the pre-flop raiser has a good hand but can’t stand the idea of not seeing the flop because you’re sure it’s your turn to land that third Queen or Jack. You call Mr Caution’s big pre-flop raise and nothing much shows up for you on the flop. Your opponent raises again. You remain convinced that third Royalty card is waiting for you at the turn or the river and so it goes. You’re pot committed. We all do it. It usually follows a run of bad hole cards where you’ve had no action at all and suddenly two nice matching picture cards are beaming up at you. “Here’s my chance!” Wrong! If there’s a Mr Caution with a big pre-flop raise your chance equals the manure. Fold then and there and save yourself and your wallet calling all those big bets on the no hope ride down to drowning in the river. This is what blows your six monthly stats and your real winning potential over the long run. The remedy is called discipline and not many card players have it. If you can develop it and the instincts for when to apply it, you’ll pretty much always finish the year ahead of the game. Bet on it.
