Poker Strategy - Money Saved Equals Money Won

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Money Saved Equals Money Won
By Lou Krieger

A little poker wisdom imparted about the prudence of folding when you really should. Because it's not so showy, we don't seem to hold this part of poker strategy in the same esteem as our more aggressive moves.

It’s pretty apparent when you stop to think about it, but not every poker player realizes that money saved is equal to money won. When we sit down to play poker, we want to win money, so we come out swinging with good hands, get ourselves into pots we can win, and stack the chips.

It makes us happy. After all, when we sit down with a rack of chips and increase it to a rack and a half, we have seen our fortunes grow by 50 percent and displayed our primacy at the holy game of poker -- visible evidence of our skill, knowledge, cunning, and luck. Moreover, our opponents can see it too, and breathes there a poker player alive who is not justifiably proud of a terrific bluff, or an ability to lure opponents in for an additional bet or raise while holding a powerhouse hand and waiting for a chance to drop the hammer on an unsuspecting adversary?

Everyone loves the moment. Dragging a big pot full of chips -- the kind that takes the next two hands to stack -- is incredibly satisfying to our egos. But that’s only half the battle, because money saved by not calling a bet with a weak hand spends just as well as that extra bet garnered through an impressive display of offensive poker skills.

We love offense. Maybe it’s something inherent to the American character. Or perhaps it’s endemic to poker players regardless of nationality. We like to win. That’s why we play. We seem to be that way when it comes to any competitive endeavor. Quarterbacks who make the big plays get the big bucks. They earn a lot more money than the cornerbacks and safeties who prevent big plays. We prefer big hitters who can’t field a lick to gold-glove shortstops who maintain anemic .243 batting averages by beating out bunts and punching singles into the opposite field with only a little more regularity than a good-hitting pitcher.

You can argue all day about which player is more valuable. But in poker there’s no argument at all. Defensive play is the equal of offensive play -- only many players never realize it, and if they do, they give it short shrift, if indeed it gets any shrift at all.

Here’s a little mantra you should remember: What you don’t spend, you don’t have to earn. The money that stays in your stack of chips because you saved a bet spends just as well as chips acquired by betting and winning. And it turns out that this is quite an important notion -- more so than you might realize at first glance. If you’re a good player and able to win between one and one-and-one-half big bets per hour -- and it’s tough ever to average more than that except in the loosest of games -- a bet saved is a pretty big thing.

In a holdem game you’re in the blind about six or seven hands per hour. Some of that time your blinds will be raised. If you routinely call each raise from the blind you may be costing yourself quite a bit of money. The same thing holds true if you make weak calls when the flop neither hits your hand nor provides a draw to a flush or a straight. These are all opportunities to save a bet. While it seems small because it is, after all, "…only one bet," those bets add up. A bet here and a bet there and pretty soon you might traverse the line separating consistently winning players from those who regularly lose money.

When the skill gaps are small between competing opponents -- when everyone has the theory pretty much down pat -- often the determining factor between who wins and who is a contributor is the discipline to save a bet here and a bet there with hands that aren’t quite hopeless, but do not offer the right price to continue on in the fray.

Saving a bet is neither dramatic, nor ego-satisfying, nor likely to rouse the envy of your peers and adversaries. In fact, it usually goes unnoticed. After all, a fold is a fold. It’s neither dramatic nor gratifying. But it’s spendable cash just the same. And the fact that you know when to save a bet by folding may be a major key to your success at the poker table.

There’s a lot of food for thought in this piece. If you examine your own game you might find any number of opportunities to make money by saving a buck here and there. While it’s not the kind of stuff that would make the plays of the week (if ESPN’s "SportsCenter" had poker plays of the week), it is the stuff that contributes to your bottom line. It also might be the reason why, when you watch a player with a big reputation and never see him do anything seemingly special, part of his reputation is undoubtedly tied to his ability to save a bet when it’s needed. There’s no mystery here, and it’s not rocket science. After all, even Kenny Rogers knows "…you gotta know when to fold ‘em." Do you?

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