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"Any 2nd Lieutenant can see an advantage;
a great General seizes the day."
-- General Lew Wallace
Lew Wallace was a good writer ("Ben-Hur") but by most contemporary accounts no better than a mediocre General. I don't even completely
agree with his statement since sometimes, especially in poker, it is quite hard to recognize an advantage. Still, Wallace's comment
helps reveal one thing that separates many merely good players from great ones.
Last year I was involved in an Internet discussion concerning the value of math skills versus people skills in poker. One person
disagreeing with my view wrote something that crystallized for me a lot of wrong thinking some poker players do.
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I wrote of an example of two people facing the exact same situation. I said perhaps John Smith always plays in the most profitable way
for him when encountering a situation, and makes over the course of his life $15 per time that situation comes up. However, when Jane
Jones encounters a similar situation, she does the same thing, but she manages to be more successful, making $95 per occurrence.
My debate adversary said this made no sense. How can John Smith's method be the best he can hope for if Jane Jones does better in the
same situation? If he's thought about it this past year, he may have seen his error in missing it, but of course it makes sense. Why
John Smith can do the best he can do but only make $15, while Jane Jones can make $95, is possible for a myriad of possible reasons:
table image established, age, sex, a better ability to "sell" a bluff, prejudices held by the opponent, etc. Just as an obvious
example, suppose we are talking about a bluff, and John Smith is a 25 year old mouthy guy, while Jane Jones is a grandmotherly 65 year
old. In general, the grandmother will be able to bluff successfully more often.
In this example, Jane's greater profit comes from exploiting age and gender prejudices of opponents. John can literally do nothing about that.
However, many times two players will achieve different results even by taking the exact same action for the exact same reasons because of:
Execution.
Suppose two people both know that the best course of action mathematically is to bluff. You conclude your opponent doesn't have much,
but you have even less. A bluff is best. A bluff is profitable. But, it's very little help to you at all to know you should bluff if:
you don't know how to make your opponent fold! John Smith still makes $15 each time this situation comes up. Let's now compare him to
George Jackson. George knows how to give off a reverse tell. He knows how to trick an opponent into acting incorrectly via some
mannerism or body language or inane table chatter. George executes better than John. George, in this situation, is able to play better
than John. Great players find ways to consistently squeeze out a few more dollars from every situation.
 Handicapping a
situation is only part of the challenge before you. Mathematically deducing that a bluff is correct is the easier part. Executing,
succeeding, better than other players is the great challenge.
Previously, I wrote a column on
strategy versus tactics, where I said tactics in a vacuum
had no value. In the above case, if you happen to bluff correctly on the end, it doesn't mean much if you didn't do it because you
knew (or suspected) it was the right thing to do. I said then that strategic thinking is both more important and more profitable. Here
a person should conclude a bluff is correct. That's the big thing. That's the critical element. But now the use of appropriate tactics
comes into play. Now better players find the better tactics to maximize profits. Once you figure out what to do, you move on to
figuring out what to do to maximize. Sometimes you might bluff with a speech, sometimes you might bluff silently, sometimes you might
glance away, sometimes you might stare dead at your opponent... "It depends" when you do each of these, and most of the choices
need to be made in a split second.
Some people will have natural advantages in some situations -- like grandmotherly Jane Jones when
bluffing -- but good players seeking to be great need to
be constantly looking to milk extra dollars (or even pennies) out of all these situations they face. This is not easy. But players
need to remember that expectation is not constant. It's not generic. Two people doing the same act for the same reasons can have very
different results. Good execution does not make a great player, but great players have great execution.
See also Poker Math,
Poker Expected Value,
Poker Odds and Gambler's Ruin and
Poker Variance
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