The Power of Shame
Marcus Bateman
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Marcus Bateman /
25 August 2009 /
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You have to be prepared to look stupid in poker, if you do not you become incredibly easy to read, and against even average players you will quickly start to lose.
Poker is a social game, and as such, most of the regular human emotions are demonstrated at the tables. One of the most powerful of these is shame. Shame is incredibly important in poker, as it nearly always breeds predictability in people, and as a result it can prove incredibly useful in reading peoples possible hand ranges.
Most people feel ashamed if they are seen to be doing something that other people feel is a stupid thing to do. In poker this is a very bad thing, as the reality of poker is that you have to do a whole host of things that frequently look dumb (balancing your bluffing ranges in particular means you have to be seen to be making 'stupid' moves on occasion). Many players do not fully understand this, and shrink into their shells on the basis that they do not want to do something that looks bad to their peers.
These players play an overly tight game, effectively shutting down to only playing big hands so that they are always seen to be doing the 'right' thing by grinding their big hands. Although this just about works on the total fishes at the table, any half observant player can quickly see what is going on and systematically destroy these players, through preserving chips when they occasionally bet (as they always have hands), and taking most of the pots away from them on all the flops they miss (through incessant aggression at most flops, forcing folds from them on most occasions).
Most regular groups of poker players have some kind of consensus about what the 'right' thing to do is and play accordingly. The reality of poker is that the 'right' strategy is basically always to adapt well to what others are doing, and as a result any form of consensus about strategy and the effects of the resulting shame it causes, can add up to a fortune to a player willing and able to take advantage of it.
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