Poker Epiphany - Embracing Uncertainty

I was reading Arnold Snyder's The Poker Tournament Formula last week when I finally figured out a huge part of poker - I now see the game, especially no limit, from a fresh new perspective.

Most poker books teaches us to analyze a given poker situation by learning and gathering all available information about the game and at a given moment; hand strength, position, opponent styles and tells, relative stack sizes, M values, etc, and then play a strategy appropriate for that situation.

But in fast tournaments, tournaments that have short blind levels and/or a low starting stack, unless I get an unnatural number of good hands or profit from some really poor play early in a tournament, I'm usually always short in chips mid to late tourny. If anyone of you play online freerolls or low buyin MTTs, you'll know exactly what I mean.

So how to the 'good' players able to amass large comfortable stacks by mid-tourny most of the time? They couldn't be getting lucky all the time.

Now I know the 'secret'. It's learning to play with uncertainty.

Poker is a game of incomplete information. We are reminded of this all the time. Most instructions on how to play poker is on how to cope, reduce, and/or eliminate uncertainty - the middle of the picture above. But MUCH of the time at the tables, unless you're holding the absolute nuts or near nuts at the end of the betting rounds, there is a lot of unknowns. That's why poker is a game of incomplete information.

Recognizing the amount of uncertainty in a given situation and knowing what you can DO with that understanding gives you another level of competitiveness against your opponents who are not comfortable with it.

Embracing the uncertainty that is inherent in the game as part of your playing strategy along with good tight aggressive play provides a sound additional mean of winning a hand... with any two cards.

Embracing uncertainty is why position play and small ball poker works.

That's it in a nutshell. Does it work? Read on...

Of course your variance goes up since you'll be playing looser than the simple tight aggressive game, and you'll get caught out at times. But in fast tournaments where there is not enough play at the table for you to wait for safer starting hands or to line up who you can attack, this line of play, of taking timely chances in position when uncertainty is still high in the hand, is more optimal than Harrington.

Other than the math whizzes who examine poker with game theory, I haven't found anyone else who has tried to explain poker in terms of uncertainty or explain that one aspect of the value of late position is the amount of uncertainty involved. (dear readers, if there is an article somewhere, please let me know!)

Here's an early attempt at incorporating this insight into my game. The $50 freeroll at poker.com with 1500 entrants. With 7 minute blinds, and just 1000 in starting chips, it is online donkament at it's best. And I though I've gotten deep before, most of the times, I don't get the cards, get short stacked and end up pushing with crap or get knocked out when the big stack draws out on my made hand.

It is SO much more enjoyable playing in a tournament, when you are holding the big stack AND you get to play with the uncertainty of each hand. Just watching what your opponent is trying to put you on is so much fun. Especially when your 63o flops A66 and you knock out the small stack holding big slick.

I ended up 20th WITHOUT getting great cards. Instead of winning 10% of my hands, I was winning 20%. I need to fine tune my MTT strategy by recognizing when I should stick with Harrington, and when I can mix it up and play with uncertainty.