Making the right decisions in poker is much easier when you’re standing at the rail rather than sitting at the table
There’s a difference between playing a game and watching a game. And every weekend thousands of men with beer bellies prove the point by screaming and swearing at their football team as they miss a golden chance or concede a soft goal. It doesn’t matter that if they were asked to do the same amount of running they’d be coughing up a lung – every armchair fan is an expert.
Poker is far, far worse. The problem is that anyone who can pick up some cards and push some chips around can argue they’re a poker player – and there’s no real measure of how good or bad they are. This means that everyone has an opinion, which is, of course, part of the fun. But the problem is that it’s easy to forget, maybe even easier than other sports, that there’s a big difference between playing from the rail and actually playing.
A big part of the challenge of commentating on poker players, some of whom are much better players than me, is always remembering this fact. Recently I was doing some live commentary on the London EPT when one of the players made an incredibly basic error. It was towards the end of the third day with nine players left and only eight set to make the televised final. An experienced player made a 6x raise under the gun. The table standard had been about 2.5x so this bet raised eyebrows – and my voice (it doesn’t take much) – in the commentary booth. The action then folded round to the short-stacked small blind who pushed all-in for roughly double the initial player’s first raise. At this move, the original raiser sighed, swore in Swedish (the stress of his mistake hadn’t made him able to speak in tongues) and announced, ‘I made a mistake – I put out the wrong amount of chips.’
Clearly flustered by the situation he moved around in agitated fashion, swore again – this time in English, showing an impressive range of linguistic vulgarity – and announced, ‘Now I have to pass,’ as he mucked. In the commentary booth I was bug-eyed with excitement, but, as ever, my delivery remained smooth, calm and dispassionate. (It didn’t.)
The problem was that not only had he made the first mistake of raising too much, but in his flustered state he hadn’t even asked for a count of the other stack. In fact, the raise was barely double his original bet, and in a calm state he would have called with almost any two cards. The short stack should have been in danger of being eliminated instead of happily stacking chips. And while he was doing this, the other seven potential final-tablists were busy scratching the first player’s name off their Christmas card list.
Yours disgusted
Several vexed emailers expressed bemusement at best and outright criticism at worst, that a player could be this deep in a major event and make such an error. The truth is that no player – however good – is a machine, and in the heat of battle poker is a tough game. I had special reason to express sympathy for the under-fire player as I remembered a hand that I played once that will never leave me.
It was about a year into playing seriously, and either by luck, judgement or clerical error, I’d managed to make the final table of a decent-sized event in Vegas; first or second place would have tripled my bankroll at the time. We were down to seven players and I was second in chips. Even better, my friend who played in the cardroom regularly had given me some tips on several of the players, including the chip leader: ‘He’s solid, a bit too tight actually, he won’t make a move on you.’
A little while later I looked down to find two Tens in early position and raised. Action folded round to the older regular with the chip lead who looked down and immediately shoved his stack in – the only stack on the table that could break me. Now, if I were standing on the rail I’d have already folded. Actually standing on the rail, my friend and advisor had folded. However, when the action got back to me little tiny bombs started going off in my head. How could I fold two Tens? And look at all that lovely money in the middle – I could win the tournament in this hand!
I looked at my opponent to get a read, he leaned back, laughed and said, ‘I love the young guys’ (did I mention this was a few years ago?) ‘they’re always in your face. All my money’s in the middle, I don’t have to worry.’
And then, as if someone else had taken charge of my body, I pushed my chips in and announced ‘call’. The loud thud behind me was my friend hitting the floor. I’ll leave you to decide what suits his Aces were. I felt sick, and I still feel sick thinking about it now.
I can’t explain to you why I didn’t fold, the player in the London EPT won’t be able to explain why he made his mistake, and thousands of players won’t be able to explain their mistakes to the questioning, watching audience… Because it’s a different game from the rail.
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