"Stepping Out of the House" Criticism (long)

[Ritter]

First of all, kudos to Mason and company on launching the internet magazine - I hope it's very successful. Two Plus Two Publishing has been enormously helpful to my game and I deeply appreciate the company's overall philosophy of maintaining a standard of excellence as opposed to just trying to publish as many books as possible (some of the crap being released these days is simply amazing). It is with this standard of excellence in mind that I was disappointed with their selection of including Scott Armstrong’s "Stepping Out of the House" article for their first issue of the magazine.

My criticism is that the article is far too elementary to be of any practical use to the experienced online players it claims to be targeting. Firstly, of his eleven “Do’s and Don’ts”, nearly half of them are not even brick and mortar specific. Taking bad beats, calculating the pot size and not being a “nit” or talking strategy at the table are all sound bits of advice for online play as well as casino play (granted, learning to keep track of the pot size live is a skill which must be learned). Secondly, the advice that IS brick and mortar-specific is of such a basic quality, I’d truly be surprised if it was in any way relevant to the typical Two Plus Two reader and further, having read this article, I don’t believe an experienced online player will be properly prepared for casino play.

For what it’s worth (probably not $200), here are some of my thoughts of what online players should be prepared for when walking into their first casino game.

1. Be prepared for a different rhythm. It’s one thing to be consciously aware of the fact that online play is much faster than live, only makes sense right? It’s another thing to be truly steel yourself for the fact than if you run cold, you might not get a hand that meets your starting requirements for THREE HOURS OR MORE. Sure, you can take it for the first 60 minutes or so, but once you start crossing the 90 minute threshold of not getting a playable hand or situation, even the most disciplined of online players can get a little antsy and all of a sudden start limping in EP with 10 8o or even cold-calling with ATo just because they’re the first two broadway cards you’ve seen together in an hour. Hours of online play have given you an internal sense of the timing of how good and bad cards will flow and live play will disrupt that rhythm. If you’re running cold on starting hands, you may start to feel you’re doing something wrong by simple virtue of how much time has elapsed since you’ve played a hand. Don’t give in to it. Good poker playing can be boring and this is accentuated when playing live. Stick to your game, and don’t succumb to the wild action around you.

2. Be prepared for SSH to make a lot more sense. Now this is just my opinion (of course), but I’ve seen a lot of debate on this site about Ed’s book and whether its advice in certain situation is good or bad or whether following his advice has helped or hurt a particular individual’s game (i.e. “I started playing the SSH way and lost 500BB”). Although he says so in the book and has repeated it in this forum, SSH is designed to help you take maximum advantage of players who play too many hands and go too far with them. What I think online players sometimes fail to realize is that the game conditions online can change very rapidly. Players sit in and out quickly and the table you sat down at 10 minutes ago which looked so juicy has quickly evolved into a rock garden and you failed to notice it happen. Ed’s advice is outstanding FOR THE RIGHT GAME CONDITIONS. Failing to notice changing conditions online can quickly turn some of his plays against you and if you sit down to four-table for 6 hours playing “the Ed Miller way” – you’re likely to have mixed results. The good news about casino play is two-fold, first, you’re likely to find tables as high as 20-40 that are looser than anything you’ve ever seen online and second, once you’re in a good game, it’s likely to stay that way for a while. A couple of night’s ago, I played 5-10 at a nearby Harrah’s. The game averaged 8 players to the flop for about 6 hours – it was awesome. And yes, building a big pot pre-flop with ATs with 6 or more opponents is a good thing to do.

3. Be prepared to appear relaxed and that you’re there to have a good time. Props to Ed Miller (and Scott Armstrong) - leave the sunglasses at home. Don’t set out trying to prove that you’re the greatest poker player in the world and being so serious you look like some WPT final table guy. A lot of people play poker for reasons other than winning money. They want to gamble. They want to have fun. They want to socialize. These are all things that will contribute to your win rate and you should not do anything to disrupt any of the above. Projecting too serious an image can cause people to tighten up against you and not give you the action you want on your infrequent premium hands. The challenge is to play a good game while making it appear you’re having as much “gambling fun” as everybody else. Which is related to…

4. Be prepared for the anti-online culture. Sometimes, in an effort to be social, you may venture to find a fellow online player – “do you play online?” you might ask – be careful of this. We’ve all heard the people whine and complain online – “you only see a beat like that online”, or “the site rigs the flops to generate maximum rake” or “every table you sit at filled with 9 colluders (or robots)” or “my friend has a pattern map that can predict Party flops”. What’s funny about these people is that they issue these complaints while playing online – you would think if they really believed these things, they might do something else with their money. Well, guess what? At the casino, you’ll find a large number of people who REALLY BELIEVE THESE THINGS – passionately. Do not debate with them – you will not win the debate. Nobody will care that you’ve logged 300,000 hands and your win rate is 2.9 BB/100 and you don’t really want them to know anyway. In general, you will have more success at live play if you create the impression that you are “one of the club” and are there to gamble and have a good time – not prove how much smarter you are than everyone else.

5. Be prepared to “chop”. If you’re in one of the blinds and it’s folded around the table and the button folds as well, the majority of players will expect you to simply take your blind back and move on to the next hand. Blind vs. blind contests are often frowned upon as they are perceived as small pots with a disproportionate rake which there is perhaps some truth to.. Some players will even frown on your raising from the button if folded to you – don’t worry about that one, just be ready for it.

6. Be prepared to not know what your opponent was calling you with. Online, we get spoiled with the Party hand history feature and can get a much better read on our opponents by seeing what they chase with, even if it’s surreptitiously. In a card room, if you show the best hand, most people will simply muck their cards and you won’t know. If you really want to get a read on somebody, consider just calling the river rather than raising, but not too often.

7. And finally, yes, be prepared to learn the rules of the card room and to get them wrong a couple of times. It may even cost you a pot or two to learn. While there’s nothing in Scott Armstrong’s article that is inaccurate or untrue, it is not nearly comprehensive enough to make you an expert in card room etiquette and behavior. You can’t answer your cell phone at the table. You must speak only English at the table. At the end of a hand, if you think you’re beat and muck your cards face down only to instantaneously realize that your opponents second pair was counterfeited and your kicker now plays and you pick them up faster than the dealer can scoop them into the muck – too bad – you lose the pot anyway and your better hand doesn’t matter – you mucked. If you show one player your cards, you must show the table. You can’t only turn up the single card that completes your full house at the showdown – you must turn up both cards. The list goes on and on. Anybody smart enough to learn the rules of poker in the first place will be able to pick it up quickly enough, but expect a learning curve and don’t sweat it. The house is paid to run the game smoothly and they will help you wherever you’re confused.

I want to reinforce that I think Scott Armstrong’s article is well written and does not contain a single inaccuracy. My point is that it is of a more elementary nature than I’M expecting from Two Plus Two Online Magazine. Maybe next month we can look forward to David Sklansky’s mathematical explanation for why a flush beats a straight.

Perhaps it wouldn't have bothered me if the articles were broken into "beginner", "intermediate" and "advanced" sections.