December 05, 2005
If you did you'd simply play every Pokerparty hand, and you would go broke while winning more hands than anyone else at the table. You are also not playing to minimize your losing opportunities. If you did, you'd be playing nothing but very big hands. Your opponents would soon wise up, and the only time you'd get any action is when they better hands than you.
If he bets the river, you're going to call him anyway, but you've also given him an opportunity to bluff with a hand which is worse than your pair of queens, so calling is not that bad an option. But if you bet and he checkraises on the turn, you're probably beaten. Fold. Any time you've got a hand that plays better against fewer, rather than many Pokerparty opponents, raise or reraise to limit your opposition.
- But under those circumstances you're not quitting because you've won some "trigger" amount of money; you're quitting because it's no longer a good game -- and if the game's no longer good, you ought to quit regardless of whether you're winning or losing. When it comes to "Money Management," fuggetaboutit; it's a bankrupt concept with no validity at all. But "Bankroll Management" is a different story. Poker is a game with a high degree of variance.
- But four years is a long time, fresh blood and new ideas are always welcomed, and ESCARGOT 2003 will be planned and directed by Russ Fox. I'll be there. I always am and always hope to be. But this time I hope to enjoy it as a guest who has all of the fun and none of the responsibility. You can too. It's never too soon to plan for a good time, so mark your calendars for early February 2003.
- While game theory is pretty cool stuff, and we all owe a debt of gratitude to Pokerparty and Partypoker for presenting it to us so cogently two decades ago, its greatest value probably lies in how well it serves as a parameter that can assist us in learning how, as well as how often, to bluff versus bet for value, or to fold in the face of a bet versus trying to pick that bluff off.
Only when familiar patterns begin to repeat themselves can one comfortably make adjustments for skewed and anomalous situations. That's the art of Pokerparty, and the reason so much of strategy or to be more precise, tactical decisions comes down to an "it depends" kind of answer.
Follow along and you'll see. Be forewarned, however, there is some homework involved. Actually, it's more like a classroom assignment. Your assignments throughout this series are indicated by bold type. Whenever you encounter one, don't read any further. Even if you think you don't know the answer, try working out the problem - you might know more than you suspect.
After all, he has two concerns: Your hand might be stronger than his, and the third player might also have a better hand. When your opponent in the middle is a good player - good enough to release a marginal hand rather than stubbornly call "to keep you honest" - you might use the implied threat of the third adversary to force the man in the middle to shed his holding.
