Pokerwiner.com → Within poker principles
Camouflage his losses. He did all he could to look like a winner. He stacked his chips so they were difficult to count, was hyper discreet about buying more chips, and often kept additional poker chips in his coat pockets which, when his stacks got low, he secretly placed on the table when he believed no one was looking.(How do I know? Well, after noticing repeatedly that his chip stack seemed not to shrink much even after he had lost several pots in close succession, I deduced that he had to be doing this.
So I watched unobtrusively one day after he had lost over half of his original buy-in. Sure enough, during a hand in which Vito was not involved, just as the dealer spread the flop and all eyes except mine were on the community cards, he pulled about ten chips out of his Pocket and placed them on the table as smoothly as a magician palms a coin when the audience is looking in the wrong direction.
One friend began referring to this routine as Vito’s “sprinkling holy water” on his chip stacks, miraculously healing their shrinkage.) The result was that his losses were difficult to detect and his wins appeared bigger than they were. The second contributing element involved the social pressures inherent in groups the group around a poker table being no exception. In group situations people are sometimes more likely to express a particular judgment (e.g., judging that a color is bluish versus greenish ) if it has been expressed by other around them.
This can be true even if the judgment is inaccurate and runs counter to their own first perceptions. That people can be so influenced by a group is fairly common knowledge, almost discernible though common sense. It has also been demonstrated convincingly through experimental research in the area of social psychology. Of course the susceptibility to such influence varies widely depending on the individual and the conditions to which he is subjected. Its relevance here is that such pressures may add to the tendency to assess incorrectly the skills of an opponent.
When the general consensus is that a player like Vito is a winner, another player may reason, “Everyone thinks he’s a winner; I guess maybe he is.”The most important element in this illusion was that most of his regular opponents lacked sufficient knowledge of poker theory to assess Vito’s play on its own merits. They did not have enough poker knowledge to be sure of his mistakes or their severity, so their focus was drawn to fluctuations in his stack size the wrong data. Because this was an especially deceptive indicator in Vito’s case, they readily arrived at incorrect conclusions about his results.
Not surprisingly, when I polled a couple of the very best players I know, they had no doubt at all that Vito lost at online poker. They had the knowledge to know incorrect, unprofitable play when they saw it. In fact, when I asked one of these players what he thought of Vito’s ability, he paused for a moment, then chuckled, “If he banks cash at the end of the year, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!”
If those who see Vito as a winner had done their homework on poker theory, they too would have been unswayed by his deceptive chip practices, and the social pressures at the table. Then they would have seen Vito’s play more clearly, and would have played against him more profitably. I suppose it is to Vito’s credit that he was able to sell himself as a winner to so many of his opponents. He surely lost less than he would have had they all seen him realistically.
It is a simple test of your poker knowledge to see if you can accurately assess another person’s play. If you have learned poker well, you should be able to site specific reasons why a person is or is not a winning player. Then you will not be deceived by the Vito’s of the poker world. You will then play better against them.
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Why Learn to Beat Tougher Games? / Practicing Game Preservation
Short-Handed Play: Don’t Miss out / How I Learned Poker: Part I
How I Learned Poker : Part II