Why charts don't suck, or: Jeet Kune Do and poker

[Songwind]

Here in the micro forums we see a lot of discussions that bring up charts, either as evidence that a particular move is appropriate, or as objects of scorn.

I'm somewhere in the middle.

To me, it looks a lot like arguments between traditional martial artists and practicioners of Jeet Kune Do. For those not familiar, JKD is a fighting philosophy developed by Bruce Lee and presented in the book Tao of Jeet Kune Do. It proposes that traditional martial arts attempt to force a form on combat, which is inherently chaotic and fluid. True fighting excellence must come from being open to all possible avenues of action, rather than being constrained by the teachings and forms of a traditional fighting system. In considering what styles to use and learn, JKD practicioners frequently will tell you, "use whatever works." The trouble is this: how do I, as a novice who knows he needs to defend himself but has no practical experience, determine what works? I can try different techniques and approaches by trial-and-error, and get my butt handed to me again and again until I find a working set of tools. That's kind of painful. It's also probably beyond the skills of most people who can learn to be good fighters. Instead, I can learn a core set of skills that will see me through most situations safely and modify, expand, and prune that set of tools as my experience dictates. Even hardcore JKD school generally start off by teaching a body of technique in which one must
become competent before one can advance to the higher levels of learning.

Poker strategy is the same thing on many levels. A poker game is an ever-changing conflict and charts and ABC steps for playing attempt to put this situation into a box and say "here is how you handle it."

It's true that there is never going to be a simple system like this that answers all your questions or assures that you will always make the optimal play. A good poker player has to observe what's going on, adjust his play according to conditions, and may at times be so far afield from his "base" game that only someone who was involved could understand why he'd do it that way.

But the starting hand charts, simple steps, and all the other tools that beginning players use serve as a basis, a set of functional tools that will allow a beginning player to see what it is to play poker that can win. Only once one has internalized this sort of conservative approach does one have a basis from which to branch out and change from utilitarian to brilliant play. The alternative is to splash around, try hands and strategies at random, and like our erstwhile martial artist above, we will be very sore at the end of the day.

I believe that these tools, perhaps crutches, are an excellent first step for us to learn our way around the poker ring... but we have to be ready to leave them behind once our own knowledge and experience catches up to them.