Poker Articles

The following article is written by professional poker player Paul "grapsfan" Herzog, who has been a Contributing Writer for PocketFives.com since 2005. 

One of the best bosses I ever had was a gentleman whom I’ll call “M.K.”  M.K., a 20-year veteran of the company, was worth millions from his stock options and other shrewd investments.  His retirement was set, kids’ colleges and trust funds good to go, and he had all the stuff he could possibly want.  Everything in his life was paid for.  M.K.’s two passions in life were his job and playing blackjack, not necessarily in that order.  He loved our industry, our customers and the company.  And he loved playing cat-and-mouse with casino security personnel who were trying to get him out of the building.  You see, M.K. was a card counter, or what the industry now calls “advantage players.”

I’ve known how to count cards ever since I was 15 and found a copy of Edward Thorp’s “Beat the Dealer” on a back shelf of a used book shop.  As I visited casinos over the years, I tried some of what I knew, without the bankroll or the nerve to be a full-fledged counter.  But I never spent much time with someone who counts cards in the way an “advantage player” does.  Over various business trips, lunches, and happy hours, M.K. told me about disguises, half-point modifiers, intentional mistakes to throw off pit bosses, team scams he knew, and others tricks he had dreamt up.  He’d regale me with a story each morning if he snuck back into the Horseshoe in Hammond, Indiana, (where he was black-booked) the night before, or if he talked his way out of a similar fate at Empress in Joliet, Illinois.  I’d help him plan out weekend road trips through the Indian casinos in Wisconsin, or the riverboats along the Mississippi.

M.K. also burst my bubble about the #1 “Advantage Player” Myth: you are, by no means, a sure thing.  Just because you know how to count, and you play as perfectly as the system will let you, there is no guarantee you will end a session, or even a string of sessions, as a winning player.  All counting does is move the advantage from approximately 2% in the house’s favor to 2% in yours, depending on several factors (hit-or-stand soft-17s, the spread between min & max bets, the depth of the shoe, etc.).  The 4% swing is huge over the long term…but I still heard a lot of M.K. weekend reports starting with, “Those dickheads kept hitting and cleaned me up pretty good.”  An advantage blackjack player still has a 48% ^ 4 = 5.3% chance of 4 consecutive losing sessions.  This is 38% better than the odds of a basic-strategy player having a 4-session losing streak.  But losses, even consistent losses, can still happen.

So, no matter what impressions you may get when the movie “21” opens this weekend…don’t believe the hype.  Warren Buffett sometimes picks dud stocks, Kobe Bryant doesn’t make every shot, and the MIT Blackjack Team had plenty of nights where the dealer kept pulling three baby cards to bust a doubled-down 20 regardless of what the running count was.

In the game of poker, many of us are also what could be considered “advantage players”.  We have a skill which provides us with an edge against our competition.  In the long run, we can beat the game.  In the short-term, however, we are still subject to the brutality of variance and cruelty of dumb luck favoring an opponent whom we think shouldn’t have a prayer of beating us.

The best way to deal with such injustice is to get over yourself.  Put your advantage in perspective: it’s real, but almost always fairly small, especially against a full ring table.  You’ll miss draws, but your skill in getting away when the price isn’t right will minimize your loss when you do.  You’ll get drawn out on, but your skill in bet sizing will maximize your profit when you don’t.  Those edges are usually invisible over hundreds, or even thousands, of hands.

The phrase “advantage player” doesn’t specifically state WHEN your advantage will be obvious and reap its financial rewards.  If you know you’re a successful player, but keep getting crushed by bad luck and card-catching opponents for weeks or months – remember these words: “You are never as big of a favorite as you think you are in the short-term.  But the short-term is irrelevant.”  And keep your chin up.