Poker Articles

Two Poker Sessions --
With Unexpected Results
By Nolan Dalla
(All Rights Reserved)

I play poker 4 to 5 nights per week. This past week, I had two interesting sessions, back-to-back, which illustrate an important poker concept. That concept is:

Poker profits do not come from being dealt good starting hands.

Sure, it helps to be dealt A-A as opposed to 7-2. It's much easier to make money with good starting hands than bad ones. But, that's only a small part of the game and what it takes to be a winner.

I'm writing this from memory -- but do I believe I have most of the facts correct which follow. Here's what I'm about to do: I'm going to give you two short poker sessions with a complete list of my starting hands in two separate holdem games. Each session lasted about an hour in duration. You can quickly parse over the starting hands and draw some immediate conclusions. The cards listed are only the hands I played where I actually saw a flop.

SESSION #1 (Thursday Night -- $15-30 Holdem at the Bellagio)

• K-K
• 9-10 (suited)
• A-7 (big blind)
• Q-Q
• A-9 (suited)
• 4-4 (small blind)
• K-Q (suited)
• A-J
• 7-7
• 10-8 (big blind)
• A-10 (button)
• Q-Q

SESSION #2 (Friday Night -- $15-30 Holdem at the Bellagio)

• 5-5 (big blind)
• 7-8 (suited)
• A-5 (big blind)
• J-9 (small blind)
• J-8 (button)
• J-10 (big blind)
• 6-6

If you compare these two consecutive sessions and did not know the results, based solely on the starting hands -- which session would you expect to provide the higher profit? The answer should be obvious. I was clearly dealt better much starting hands in SESSION #1. The first session included three premium starters within an hour (K-K once and Q-Q twice). The first session also included several good drawing hands for the type of game I was sitting in -- which often included multi-way action.

Unfortunately, I managed to win just one pot in that entire hour, and picked-up from the table after my pocket queens were cracked by the winning hand. I was forced to accept a loss of $345 despite some pretty good starting hands.

In SESSION #2, I ran "card cold." I didn't get dealt a single premium hand during the short session. In fact, I played some hands that were, at best, marginal. The game was much tighter the second night -- which made me play some of the hands more aggressively (the pairs, for instance). I managed to win two pots during the session -- one with a pair, and the other a stone-cold bluff from the button.

So, I managed to book a small win for the session in the game. What's most interesting about the contrast between starters is that, upon reflection, one would expect to book a win in SESSION #1 and lose a small amount in SESSION #2. The cards in SESSION #1 were clearly superior.

However, as we all know from experience -- getting dealt good starting hands in holdem is no guarantee that you will make money. In fact, if played poorly -- good starting hands can COST YOU MORE MONEY than being dealt an extended series of non-playable hands. Think about it. If you can't set down a good starting hand when your gut instinct tells you are probably beat, you are due to suffer some big losses.

Of course, these two short poker sessions are nothing earth-shattering. However, they are VERY TYPICAL of the kind of results most of us endure from day to day, and from session to session. While this point is supported solely with anecdotal evidence which makes it convenient to demonstrate a concept that already might be obvious to many players, consider this a friendly reminder that it is not necessarily the quality of cards which make us money. It's HOW WE PLAY the cards which are dealt to us.

If we're dealt mediocre hands -- but can outplay our opponents by using favorable position and timely aggression, that's infinitely more profitable than being dealt great starting hands and hoping our power hands hold up in multi-way pots without improving.

Nolan Dalla can be reached at: nolandalla@pokerpages.com