Going Against the Grain

Poker Strategy / Short-Stacked Shamus / 08 September 2011 / Leave a Comment

Last week in my "Poker in American Film and Culture" class I did something a little unusual. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest it might have been the only college class happening in the entire country on that day where this particular activity was part of the lesson plan. I had the students actually play poker.

Talk about going against the grain! I'll admit it, when a stray student looking for another class accidentally opened the door in the middle of our session, the word "bust" did flash through my mind.

I should point out there was a method to such apparent madness. Having taught the course once before, I realized that not all of those who had signed up to take it were poker players. Thus when non-playing students read about hands being played in historical accounts and fictional stories or watched them in the films, the action might have been a little confusing for them to follow. So I decided this time around to give students some "hands-on" experience (pun intended) with the three games -- draw, stud, and hold'em -- that are most prominently featured in our readings and films.

When the students played their hands, I noticed an interesting though perhaps not surprising phenomenon occurring. Even though we weren't playing for real money -- hey, I'm not insane! -- the students mostly played very tight, either folding, checking, or just calling bets and rarely raising. In fact, one five-card draw hand ended with a showdown by three players, two of whom had two pair and one three of a kind, yet all three chose just to check after the draw!

Part of the tentativeness on display was no doubt due to the inexperience of many of the students, but I think they were also exhibiting a tendency one often encounters at the poker tables, especially at the lower limits. I'm talking about that inclination to "go with the flow" and adopt the style that is similar to what one perceives others are employing.

In other words, recognizing a lot of tight play by others, many players will often also play a tight game. Or if there's a lot of loose play about, players will join in and bet and raise a lot, too. The latter happened in our game near the end when we played no-limit hold'em and one student surprisingly open-shoved from under the gun, then nearly everyone else around the table followed suit for a climactic big pot to conclude our class.

This week in class we talked a little further about our game, and I mentioned to the students this phenomenon of adopting or imitating the apparent style of the table. We likened it to other instances when we experience "peer pressure" or other kinds of social restraint to conform or fit in.

As a postscript, I mentioned to the class how in fact many strategists advise against conforming to the style of the table like that. In other words, if the table appears to be playing very tight, many say we should loosen up our starting hand requirements, raising and three-betting in order to make our tight opponents fold and claim those unchallenged pots. Or if the table is overly loose, we should tighten up and wait for a big hand, then take a big pot by getting our stacks in versus lesser holdings.

The class is really about history and culture -- not strategy -- so I didn't go too far down the road of debating the merits of that oft-repeated suggestion. But in the back of my mind, as I was echoing the instruction to "go against the grain" and adopt a style that opposes what one sees others employing, I couldn't help but think of what others have said when qualifying such counsel.

I thought of David Sklansky and his discussion of the topic in The Theory of Poker. There he notes how "it is commonly believed that when the players in the game play loose, you should play tight, and when the players in the game play tight, you should play loose," adding that "there is some truth to this principle." But he also points out that "the principle... is in need of refinement." Sklansky then spends an entire chapter explaining what he means.

If the table is loose, advises Sklansky, don't play tight all the time but only in spots where it is most advantageous to do so. In fact, you should be prepared to play loose yourself in certain situations. Namely, "tighten up on your bluffs and semi-bluffs, but loosen up on your legitimate hands."

By the same token, at a tight table you don't simply loosen up by betting and raising at all opportunities, but again you pick your spots, and once more be prepared to play tight, too, when it makes sense to do so. "In a tight game you loosen up on your bluffs and semi-bluffs," says Sklansky, "but you might tighten up on your legitimate hands."

I also was reminded of what Mike Caro has said on the subject. He, too, notes that the principle of "going against the grain" needs to be refined. In fact, in Mike Caro's Secrets of Winning Poker, he goes so far as to say "the advice about playing opposite your opponents has won worldwide acceptance, but it just isn't accurate."

The way Caro refines the principle is to recommend that "you should play more hands anytime your opponents stray from perfect strategy, whether they play too tight or too loose." The difference, of course, is that the way one plays against either set of opponents is necessarily going to be different. But you want to be playing in both instances, since such opponents are straying from "perfect strategy" and thus can be exploited more readily than those exhibiting more balanced styles of play. In summary, then, Caro's advice is to play loose (i.e., more hands) against tight players, but also to play loose against loose players!

I don't plan for us to play any more poker in my class going forward. That is to say, I expect we'll be settling into that more familiar routine of reading and writing assignments, lectures, and discussions. And our class will "play" a lot like all of the other ones going on up and down the hall.

But I do think it was worthwhile for us to have taken that detour last week and tried something a little different. In other words, like Sklansky and Caro suggest, when it came to "going against the grain," I think I picked a good spot to do so.

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