When televised poker over-accentuates aggressive styles of play...
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TV SHOWCASE Is televised poker presenting new players with entirely the wrong mind-set for eventual financial success at their chosen game? Directors of TV poker shows obviously want the more dramatic hands to be the ones they screen. This tends to give a false impression of what works in day to day poker. You will always see mega bluffs that snare the pot or well orchestrated traps which come off big time but rarely do you see the bread and butter hand where a good player simple bets on the strong cards he has acquired and takes the pot seven times out of ten. Caution, discipline and patience don't make for riveting television programmes, but they make for fat wallets.
USE YOUR GEARBOX
Those of us play poker online every night are certainly aware of how much deceptive betting is going on. You can almost spot the new players as the folk who make the minimal bets when they have a nut hand or go all-in when they are nursing nothing. If you combine this observation with the TV poker situation described above it reinforces today's message which is don't be afraid to mix your game up and on regular occasions just play the quality of the cards you have been dealt. The great record producer and eccentric, Phil Spectre, took recording techniques from stereo to quad and to the technological limit and then made his famous proclamation: "Back to mono!". In poker terms that translates as "back to basics!". When deception becomes routine, change gears by playing the cards at face value.
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ALL THE ACES poker column:
Monday December 05, 2005: Is TV Poker teaching new players bad tricks?
