9 Out of 10 People Lose

photo by flopturnriver.com

The Lose is retired from cards. I basically stopped playing when I no longer felt like I could afford to lose. Now when I go to Vegas, I just eat a lot and do stupid things like bet on W.S.U. football. But I’ve always enjoyed gambling, and if I ever get my shit together, I’ll finish this novel that I’ve been working that’s partially set in the casinos of Europe around the time of the fall of The Berlin Wall. The story someone told me about playing blackjack with the Stasi just cannot go untold.

Today, we have a post on the subject of poker, as The Lose welcomes back guest columnist Jason Idalski, who previously wrote for this site on the perils of covering Eastern Michigan Football,  a.k.a. “Reasons to Develop a Drinking Problem On the Job.” Jason is also a former Jeopardy! champion, and has participated in the World Scrabble Championships – although his lifetime record in scrabble is 0-1 vs. The Lose, in a game both of us would agree was among the worst we’ve ever played. He’s also a pretty fine poker player – although as you’ll see from this article, maybe not quite good enough, as if it were ever possible to actually be ‘good enough’ in an event where 9 out of 10 people lose.

I HAVE tried to (hopefully) make this post accessible to all, even those who have never played poker before. If you know nothing about hold 'em poker but are still interested for the sake of the post or just to learn the basics, here's a good four-minute primer video. I have used the term poker to refer to Texas hold 'em even though this is technically incorrect. Poker is a game of many variations, including hold 'em. This was done more to be colloquial and because I'm so used to using the terms interchangeably with friends.

“What you have to remember about poker is: in every hand, nine out of 10 people lose. And in most tournaments, nine out of 10 people lose. And that can be tough to deal with.”

– Poker dealer Brian Vock, to me

Brian was one of my favorite dealers at the casino I usually play at and we were shooting the breeze after a tournament I'd cashed in. I feel like he must have put in his two weeks notice by that point and knew it would be our last conversation before he left for parts unknown and wanted to impart his wisdom, such as it were, on a newer player looking to learn.

He was referring to my style of trying to be good-natured, and as simple a concept as it was, it had never occurred to me before. The dynamics of poker (and, by extension, losing at poker) are different than most competitions. Most games are one-on-one: one player vs. one player or one team vs. one team. Even most board games cap out at 4-6 people.

Golf is an exception, where you are in essence competing against the course but in reality you're competing against the rest of the field. But in golf half the people make the cut. (Although, as the saying goes, how would you like to compete against the 100-plus best people at what you do and beat half of them to earn a paycheck each week?)

In poker, you have to beat usually nine other people if you want to win a hand. And unlike one-on-one competition, that means having nine scouting reports, nine people with varying styles of play. Imagine a football team having to defend against the option and the air raid simultaneously. It's a daunting task and makes losing streaks inevitable for even the best players, especially since usually only 10% of tournament entries cash.

“In chess, the properties and powers of a bishop are fixed. In poker, it's wobbled through the prism of personality.” 

– Victoria Coren Mitchell (OK, Coren Mitchell credited the above to Martin Amis, but she's the one who said it on QI.)

This quote sums up one of the things that is beautiful (and simultaneously maddening) about poker. In chess, I can move a bishop diagonally and so can you. In sports, the equipment is roughly the same even in sports like tennis and golf. But in poker, if I start off with a pair of nines and you start off with a pair of nines, in essence the same "playing pieces," we may play them very differently depending on our experience level, aggression level, or sometimes something as random as where we're sitting at the table. Similarly, there are pre-flop holdings such as the 7-6 of diamonds that players like me don't like to play while there are others who love to play it. It's all subjective.

It makes sense that poker was a game common in the Wild West, as sometimes it feels like there are no rules. When facing a better poker player, at times it can feel like playing a golfer who can use his putter to hit a 300-yard drive.

Getting back to losing, it shows that nothing is guaranteed. Poor players can blunder their way into losing with the best hand in any number of ways. They can play too passively and let their opponents catch up. They can be bullied by a bluffing opponent's big bet (say that ten times fast) and lay down the better hand. And even when they "get it in good," sometimes plain old bad luck steps in.

"See, a guy's got to have the gamble in him. ... He's got to be the kind of guy who will go you 50 [thousand] on a flip of a coin. Some guys don't have the gamble in 'em, see? They wouldn't go fifty on a flip of a coin if you gave them 3-to-1 odds." 

– Poker pro Dewey Tomko, as told to Rick Reilly in ‘Who's Your Caddy?’

The weekend before Memorial Day, starting Friday, I played a tournament in Toledo with a couple friends. $85 buy-in, the top 10% advance to Sunday with the stack they had at the finish of their flight. Friday morning's flight had 52 entries, so the top five were in. I got off to a very good start and was in a strong position with about 25 people left. We were playing our last hand before the second break of the day. I had two aces (A-A), the strongest starting hand in hold 'em. I put in a standard pre-flop raise and got two callers.

The flop (first three of five community cards) came K-J-7, nothing that would concern me too much. The cards were of three different suits ("rainbow," in poker lingo) so no flush draws were possible. Both players checked to me and I bet my aces again. The guy to my left (Josh, I would later learn his name was) raised all-in (all of his chips). When I called immediately he said "oops" and turned over king-queen. The turn (fourth community card) came a meaningless card (a "brick"), leaving him only five cards in the deck to stay alive: the two remaining kings and the three remaining queens. The river (fifth and last community card) was one of two said kings, giving Josh three of a kind and the pot. 

And as if I won't be hammering the point home about how fine a line there is between success and failure in poker enough in this post, instead of being out the door Josh had about 40,000 in chips and turned that 40,000 into more than 1,000,000 in chips with 11 players left.

"That's harsh." 

– my two friends, separately, after witnessing the above hand

I had won a couple big hands before that bad beat and ran well enough afterward that I ended up making the final (10-person) table. Half of us were going to qualify, though, and I had a chip stack about half the average, so I still had a lot of work to do. Fortunately that distribution was skewed upward, as it seemed that two or three people were above average and seven or eight were below. Two or three people looked in worse shape than me.

Eight of us were left when I looked down at a hand of 8-6. A lousy hand to be sure, but I was big blind, meaning that I'd already put in the pre-flop bet merely by virtue of being two spots to the left of the designated dealer that hand. Four players had called but none had raised, so I was able to see a flop for free, which came Q-8-6. Two pair, which had to be the best hand. Like against Josh, I bet, was raised all-in, called instantly, and saw I was ahead, as he turned over Q-10. But also like against Josh, the river was one of his (eight) outs, a queen that gave him three of a kind.

Instead of him being out and me being above average (and with just two people to outlast), I was "crippled" and very short on chips. I rolled my chair away from the table, stood up and sighed while the dealer counted out the damage. I sat back down still in a foul mood.

Poor guy tried to make me feel better by giving me a "that's poker"-esque line about how he had gotten unlucky earlier and it evens out and blah blah blah ("that's poker" is essentially the poker equivalent of "shit happens") and for his courtesy he nearly got his head bitten off. "Yeah, and he got me earlier in almost the exact same situation!" I said, pointing at Josh. "You're 1-and-1 in those spots, I'm 0-and-2. When do I get to do it to other people?" No answers were forthcoming. I busted shortly thereafter in eighth place, six hours of play having gone for naught.

"It just goes down as an 'L.' No one will ever know all the anguish and thought and pain that went into it." 

– Chris Cree, as told to Stefan Fatsis in ‘Word Freak’

I fired one more bullet (tried again to qualify) Friday night, which may have been a mistake. I played poorly, drew poorly, was ruled against on an adjudication which cost me 5,000 in chips early (always fun to watch a guy get rewarded for living in an ethical gray area), had to watch idiots get rewarded for doing idiotic things (always fun to watch bad behavior and bad play get rewarded) and still would have had at least double my buy-in except for a run-out of x-x-Q-A-10 when I had 9-9 vs. K-J and 3-3, giving the guy with K-J (who had approximately zero business being in the hand after my all-in) an unlikely straight.

Other than that it went well. One of the least enjoyable two-three hours playing poker that I've ever had. I left the casino Friday night pretty much hating poker and thinking that I needed a bit of a break to decompress.

"They have a name for people who quit. They call them quitters." 

– Rose Nylund, played by Betty White on The Golden Girls

Fast forward to late Saturday afternoon, me driving through a rainstorm to Toledo to fire one last bullet. I don't put any stock into astrology (Irish comic Dara O'Briain helped push me off that fence) but I am a Taurus and I concede that I am nothing if not stubborn. 

If not for the downpours I drove through I would have been at a soccer game. But I was not keen on the idea of getting drenched to watch a friendly when I could give qualifying for Sunday one more try. And with both of my friends qualifying Friday, I didn't want to be the only one of the three of us who couldn't make it. (My team lost 6-2 anyway.)

I pretty much tread water until a hand a couple hours after I started playing. I had K-K, raised pre-flop and got two callers. The flop came the four of spades, five of clubs and seven of spades. My play (going all-in) was pretty standard but I wasn't sure what to make of it when both players called. One had A-6 and needed a 3 or 8 for a straight. Another had A-9 of spades and needed any spade for the nut (best) flush. So, I had to dodge both unseen aces, the eight unseen 3s and 8s, and all the unseen spades. Twice. According to CardPlayer's odds calculator, despite having the best hand at the time I am only 40% to win. But I did dodge all those outs twice and tripled my amount in one hand.

The rest of the night wasn't without its share of drama, but I believed I was going to make it after that. And thanks to continuing to run well, I did. At 2:15 a.m., in the infancy of his wedding anniversary day, a guy busted in 10th place and the nine of us survived to Sunday. (Though technically we had already...)

I mentioned before that I hate watching inferior players get lucky and win. It's the blend of my competitiveness and sense of justice. But I have to admit, both in the micro and the macro, sometimes my bad behavior gets rewarded as well.

“Your problem is your blood was rushing down from your head and settling someplace south of the equator!”

– Adam Schiff (played by Steven Hill) to Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) on ‘Law & Order’ 

One of my favorite TV quotes. I was also going to lead into the following hand with "long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror" but I couldn't find the origin. Plus, I learned that the quote originally refers to warfare. I'd like to think I'm not one to give into the "X is war" triteness or the "X is a microcosm of life/war" trope but I have to admit it's pretty fitting.

Early on during the Sunday restart I looked at A-7. A-7 is the type of hand that new players overrate. Yes, that ace looks nice, and yes, you're probably ahead before the flop, but even if you hit the ace on the flop, A-8 through A-K has you beat, and beat very badly. Similarly, hitting the 7 rarely puts you in a position you can be confident.

So, A-7 is a mediocre hand, but I only had three people behind me and I figured a raise would take it down. That proved incorrect when the big blind called. The flop came A-4-J and it was checked to me.

I figured I would have heard from any ace (he would've bet instead of checking), so I bet again and was called again. The turn came a queen, the second club. Checked to me again. I had no clubs and figured if my opponent had a holding like A-2 of clubs, I needed to protect my hand and make him pay to see if the next card completed the flush. And given how big the pot was at this point and the size of my stack, the appropriate play to accomplish that was to go all-in.

Back to my opponent, who thought about it longer than I thought he would. Then he asked the dealer how much it was. Then he counted out that amount from his stack to see how much would be left over if he called. For the first time it started to dawn on me: "Shit. I may be behind. And he has more chips than I do."

Since I've rambled on about myself without referencing losing in a while, I do need to touch on the fact that this is unique to poker. When the Warriors have played well the whole game to lead by 10 with a minute left, they can't lose that lead in one possession. When the Patriots lead by 10 with a minute left, even if they give up a touchdown on a mental lapse, they'd still be in a dominant position. In poker, you can flush away hours and hours of stack-building with one blunder, one misstep, one rush of blood down from the head settling someplace south of the equator, as Steven Hill so gruffly (and beautifully) put it. Sometimes it feels like you gain chips by the teaspoonful and lose them by the bucketful.

As he thought for what seemed like an eternity, I tried to stay as motionless as possible while self-flagellating how I could've gotten myself into this mess. The notion of the "poker face" is a bit overrated in my view. Saturday night into Sunday morning I played with a guy who essentially talked non-stop. And at one point the guy sitting next to me (with whom I struck up a fast friendship) confided in me that he had no idea when the guy was bluffing and when he had it. I told him I felt the same way.

That I learned later the guy is a pro and was playing the tournament with a buddy on a lark after dumping $4,400 at a separate tournament in west Michigan earlier in the day made me feel better about being unable to read him, and getting outplayed by him in general. Here I was grinding away investing an unhealthy amount of my self-esteem in getting to Sunday (at that point to twice play six hours and not make it would have been crushing) and this tournament was a rounding error to him. He would have needed to win the whole thing to break even for the weekend.

Back to my terror with what I now believed to be an inferior hand. "Ace-king?" my opponent muttered at one point and I thought: "Yes. Yes, I've played this hand exactly like I'd play ace-king. Believe it. Please fold. Please fold. Please fold." The more he thought, especially given his comment, the more I believed he had A-9 or A-10 and I was going to be in bad shape if he called, one card away from being out of the tournament. Eventually he folded and I tried to make my reflexive sigh of relief as inaudible as possible and took the big pot. Like I said, sometimes at a poker table, both in the micro and macro, my bad behavior gets rewarded.

"A W's a W, and an L's an L." 

– Jim Valvano

I eventually made the final two tables (top 18). I had parlayed the 15,000 in chips I got Saturday night into about 600,000 after busting a guy who got aggressive with 9-9 with only a couple players behind him and had the misfortune of my waking up with K-K, almost doubling my stack. Being unable to stand prosperity, I then doubled through a short stack the very next hand when we got it all in with her K-J beating my A-7 when a king and jack hit the board and gave her two pair (that stupid A-7 again).

So I was sitting on about 500K with an approximate average of 700K during the following sequence. 14 players (two tables of seven) remained at this point.

Hand 1: A short-stack goes all-in for 97K. I had already put in 25K (being the big blind that hand) so it was another 72K to me. I counted the pot and determined that it would cost me 72K to win 227K, a proposition where I only have to win at least 32% of the time to make it profitable/positive expected value (I often joke at the poker table that I majored in math in college and now I use it to count chip stacks and calculate pot odds).

Since 7-2 of separate suits (the worst starting hand in poker given the low card values and the inability to make straights or flushes) is still about 30% vs. A-K of the same suit different than either suit in your hand, I am mathematically obliged to call with any two cards, especially the Q-10 I had. I was delighted to see he had 10-9 of spades and the first four of five cards gave him little help: K-A-A-2. Of the 44 unseen cards, three tie (the three 2s, since we would then each play the A-A-2-2-K on the board) and three win (the three 9s). 38 of the 44 send him packing. The dealer peels off the river card, which is a 9.

"Ooh!" the table says, standard operating procedure for a huge shift in fortune. I cringed, then took a deep breath to calm myself. The table, including my opponent, were full of sympathy. I shrugged it off. It was "only" 97K, putting me at 410K, or about 16.5 big blinds when usually 10 is considered the danger/desperation zone. I only needed to be 32% to win the hand to call and I was way more than that at every point before the end. I "got it in good," as the saying goes. That's all you can do.

Hand 2: The same guy who just beat me and another short stack get it all-in pre-flop. He has K-Q, she has A-10, but he catches up. Left for dead a minute ago, his stack is now roughly equal to mine and she is out in 14th place. Doug, who had started dealing at the table a few minutes before, says to him: "You know, you're making me a lot of enemies around here." I laugh louder and harder than anybody.

"The dealer is not responsible for which card comes off the deck, for winning streaks or losing streaks. There are no lucky or unlucky dealers, although sometimes it seems otherwise. Players should treat dealers with respect..." 

– Rule 16.25 of "Poker: Implementing Rules and Guidelines"

Hand 3: The new short stack, who is first to act this hand, goes all-in for what looks to be about 125K. The player to my right, who has more chips than me, also goes all-in. I am next to act and jokingly stage whisper "aces, aces..." while mock putting a spell over the cards. I expect to see a terrible hand that I can easily fold and move onto the next. Instead I see the two black queens.

I laugh in spite of myself. "OK, I have to nit-roll you here," I announce. I am almost certainly going all-in myself and when they see the queens I don't want them to think I was "Hollywooding" them (feigning weakness when I'm strong to trick an opponent). But at the same time I can't be convinced my queens are ahead. Yes, only two hands beat queens (kings and aces) and yes, only one hand is roughly even with queens (ace-king), but given the strength this guy has shown he could easily have one of those hands. A-K is possible, and do I want to be 50-50 (or less when you consider the original all-in player) to survive? Especially since there's 13 of us left and only one is taking home $335, with everybody else getting at least $435?

In the end, I say "I can't fold this hand" and go all-in to join the party. Everybody else folds and I see the original bettor has 9-8 of diamonds and the second bettor has 10-10. My queens are in better shape than I could have imagined: no "overs" (cards above my pair that will beat me if they hit the board). I clap my hands once and stand up. "Hold!" I bark. "One time!"

Doug deals out three cards face-down for the flop. He turns them over and the top card is the queen of diamonds. I give a little fist-pump. While Card Player's odds calculator doesn't calculate odds based on one flop card, given that I was 66% to win the hand before that card, I figure I'm at least 90% to win now.

“Don't you draw the queen of diamonds, boy / she'll beat you if she's able” 
– Eagles, “Desperado"

Whenever you see a team that was 90+% to win then go on to lose (the two examples that come to mind are Northern Iowa and the Atlanta Falcons), where both teams were 99+% to win before unraveling, it's safe to assume there were layers to that comeback. Multiple mental errors, multiple strategical errors, multiple times where one play could have arrested the negative momentum and yet it wasn't made.

In poker, one of the next best things to having your opponent totally dead (no cards or card combination can save them) is to have them drawing to one card on the river out of the 44 left in the deck. The favorite wins these confrontations about 97.7% of the time. 

All this is to say that in poker you can put yourself in a position to win 97.7% of the time and lose ... all at once and through no fault of your own! Atlanta and Northern Iowa have only themselves to blame for blowing games in which they were 97.7% to win. In poker you can work hard and get lucky and be in that 97.7% position and be powerless to watch the one card that beats you hit the felt. And there are stories about that happening (though fortunately I have not witnessed one).

While my percentage is certainly not in that 97-98% range, my opponents are in the position that Texas A&M and the Patriots were, needing multiple things to happen. The card was a diamond, giving the first guy three diamonds and needing two more for a flush. Or a jack and a ten for a straight, but that's unlikely given that the other guy has two tens. And even if he wins I'm going to make a healthy profit on the hand and be near my prior peak. Meanwhile, the other guy needs both of the other two tens in the deck (not bloody likely) or...

The two cards beneath the queen are revealed: a king and a jack. I notice what that means before the rest of the table and say "Whoaoaoaoa!" Now the guy with 10s has 10-J-Q-K and only needs an ace or nine for a straight. "Don't do this to me, Doug," I plead. "Don't do me like this. Please." The turn is a 9. "NooooOOOO!" I wail in a bit of a crescendo, putting my forehead on the edge of the table. I'm not dead yet, though. One of the two 10s will tie as we will all play the straight on the board. But if the board pairs (one of the two nines, three jacks or three kings) it gives me a winning full house. And the miracle queen of hearts would give me four of a kind. Nine wins and two ties aren't great but they're better than the three wins and three ties that caught up to me two hands ago.

The river is a meaningless 6. I clasp my arms behind my head and lean forward in a sort of sitting fetal position. It's over. Just like that. Six hours Friday afternoon, six hours Saturday night, five hours Sunday afternoon, all to lose with Q-Q v 10-10 and 9-8. I look at the five cards on the table, half in disbelief, half hoping that maybe that 6 is really a 9 and if I stare at it long enough I'll have a full house and win the hand.

"It doesn't cost a dime to be nice to people." 

– Sparky Anderson

Appreciation to the dealer and the rest of the table for letting me sit for a few seconds even after the hand was over and the winner had raked in the pot. (I don't understand how college basketball coaches get into the handshake line right after the buzzer in a close win/loss and I still find Tony Bennett's post-game interview after the UMBC game to be, while hitting all the right notes, somewhat weird and creepy that he could be that composed so soon after what happened.)

Eventually I got up and shook the hands of everybody at the table. The guy with the 9-8 of diamonds who finished in 13th, whose table I was at starting Sunday and was great to talk to during both our stints together. The guy who I played with Saturday night, who needed to hit a flush draw Saturday night just to make it to Sunday and had just told me that the chatterbox we played against last night was a former Lions tight end (and, I would learn later, a poker pro). The guy who had the big chip stack that I thought would be mine. The guy in the Cleveland Indians hat who started the whole thing by spiking the 9, full of apology. (I can't help but think that if I'd won that hand against him the cards would have come out differently off the deck and I wouldn't have had queens two hands later. Although maybe you're a fatalist who believes that the same thing would have happened even if I won the hand.) Even the guy who was maddening me and Josh with his glacial pace of play.

I think at this point it's come across that I put a lot of myself into competitive endeavors (my Scrabble friends would undoubtedly agree). And given the relatively small stakes I probably overreacted with the hand clap, fist pump, etc., which is one reason I went out of my way to shake everybody's hand on the way out. It is a game, after all. Games are supposed to be fun. And class is the one thing it doesn't cost anything to have, even if I sometimes forget that.

"You are what your record says you are." 

– Bill Parcells

I finish in 12th place and earn $435, a $180 profit. The prize pool was very top heavy (first place was more than $8,000), so including tipping the dealers (I jokingly asked that my tip be earmarked so that Doug would get none of it, the Days Inn stay from Sunday early morning to Sunday mid-morning, gas money, buffet dinner on Friday, etc., I barely got above break-even for the weekend. 

At the time I was convinced that last run-out cost me about $1,000 since the average payout of everyone remaining was about $1,700 and I would have been above average. But who knows? I might have finished ninth and gotten the same $435 as for 12th. Regardless, it was a better outcome than if I hadn't driven down Saturday afternoon to fire one more bullet. 572 times people came to the window to buy in. 560 times they busted finishing worse than I was when I did. And 10 more would walk away losers as well, so close and yet so far from the big prize. 572 entries, 571 losers.

And though I got a boost of confidence, it's waned since. My ensuing three tournaments I haven't sniffed the money, twice busting embarrassingly early, reminders that I had to run incredibly well to get to the point where I did in Toledo and that nothing is guaranteed. But, bringing it full circle, the goose egg statistically will happen 80-90% of the time. It's about reducing that 80-90% and, when I cash, cashing for enough to offset the losses.

And I feel like I'm good enough to do that. One of the frustrating things about losing in poker is that there are times you feel like you're getting better but it's not showing in the tangible results. And by you, of course, I mean me.

"So you wanna play poker for a living, huh?" 

– ESPN poker commentator Lon McEachern

That quote comes from this video (specifically, the hand from 2:00-3:30):

When you consider the fact that I was playing an $85 buy-in and these guys were playing a $10,000 buy-in, that makes these at least 117 times worse. Then when you consider the difference in magnitude of the prize increases, the closeness to the title WSOP Main Event Champion ... 1,000 times worse? 10,000? I'm at the point where watching the Affleck-Duhamel hand makes me cry like the end of Bambi. I feel like if that happened to me I would be catatonic for hours.

Remember when my friends thought it was harsh to lose about 20,000 in chips? How does it compare to losing about 40,000 in chips when you're within sniffing distance of your goal, costing you another $170 to get there? How does it compare to losing 100,000 in chips on a river three-outer? How does it compare to losing 400,000 in chips from an approximately 90% position and having 0 instead of about 1,000,000?

It's just a matter of believing it will even out over time, perhaps in one fell swoop. How many $100 coin flips would you lose if you knew you were going to win a $10,000 one? (99, duh.)

And it's important to remember, in my case, I'm not there at all if my 60%-to-lose kings early Saturday night lose. I'm not there if my stupid all-in play Sunday morning gets picked off. Things even out in the macro, but sometimes they even out in the micro too.

Getting back to McEachern's question, which was posed to me by a friend recently, if I ever saw myself in that position some day. My initial response was to laugh. First, my game is nowhere near good enough. Second, and perhaps more importantly, at least when I have a rough day at my office job, I don't come home with less money than I had before because of it. And, as my thousands of words above probably make clear, I don't take losing well internally. I struggle to make sense of the randomness.

And how sick do you have to be to go pro at something with a 90% failure rate, every hand and every tournament?

Do you have any questions you’d like to ask? Would you like to commiserate because your team sucks? Drop me a line! You can email me atinplaylose@gmail.com, and when we get enough questions and comments gathered up, I’ll do another Hate Mail edition of In Play Lose.