Poker Articles

LEAKS
By Lou Krieger

No, this is not an article on plumbing, although some of the characters we'll meet here could use some repair work. The title refers to an unhappy condition that many poker players as well as other gamblers share, and even many successful players are not immune to this condition.

Lots of really good gamblers don't do nearly as well as they should because they spring "leaks." If you're not sure what a leak is, here's a typical example. There's a guy we know who plays pretty good, middle stakes poker. That's not a problem; in fact he's a long-term winning poker player, and that's a feat in and of itself. But he has a leak; he thinks he knows something about the horses. Alas, he doesn't, and that's his problem. What's worse is he thinks he knows it all and because of this little flaw in his personality, he's unwilling to listen to anyone who does. He sits at the poker table with the Daily Racing Form folded up on his lap and takes a couple of quick glances at it and tries to handicap whenever he is out of a hand. Then he gets up, goes over to the simulcasting room, and places a bunch of bets.

We've watched this guy off and on for some time now as he systematically piddles away his not insubstantial poker winnings on the horses. He has a serious leak, and he's not alone. Las Vegas is full of players who are legends at one game like sports betting or poker but they bleed profusely from self-inflicted wounds at the craps tables, baccarat, or even slots.

Leakers seem to come in two broad categories, the ignorant and the driven. The ignorant develop leaks because they don't know the statistical nature of the games they play, and don't realize they are jeopardizing their bankrolls. They believe in all sorts of things that just aren't true. They think a machine "...is due," because it hasn't paid a jackpot since the Reagan administration and now it's ready to part with its coins. Some believe just the opposite. When a machine has paid out some jackpots recently, they believe it's hot and ready to deliver again. These false, fixed beliefs are delusions of sorts - breaks from reality represented by opinions that are completely at variance with the truth - but the ignorant just don't realize it. And knowledge is power in gaming just as surely as it is in most endeavors - maybe even more so.

A guy we know who is part of a successful video poker team routinely gives back his winnings playing the reel-based slots. When asked about this he laughed and said, "Well, sure, but I get it back in comps." This, of course, is nonsense. If he understood how casinos comp their regular players, he would realize that by sticking with video poker, he would earn the same comps and keep his money too.

Our friend, of course, is not alone in his benightedness. We know successful card counters who bleed back their blackjack winnings at the craps tables, horse players who do extremely well placing win bets and exactas but can't resist shoveling money in on the exotics like a pick-6 that they cannot beat unless they were to completely revamp their betting style. Most of these cases are relatively benign. These people enjoy the action and like variety. There is no real problem here since they tend to be recreational players and all they are really doing is costing themselves a couple of bucks. In fact, many of them eventually figure out what is happening and plug their leaks.

Of more interest to us are the driven ones: cases where players do not just leak money, they hemorrhage it! Here's an example that, to be perfectly honest, we didn't believe at first. The incident concerns a well-known professional poker player who won a major tournament with a prize well in excess of $100,000. He picked up his money, turned around and found a dozen creditors standing there waiting to be paid. Alas, despite the size of the win, it wasn't enough and the last guy in line who got short-changed slugged our hero. Not many people win a major tournament and get a crack in the jaw as part of the prize.

His problem? It turned out to be sports betting, which afflicts more than a few poker players. Apparently this world-class poker player routinely loses astonishing amounts of money betting sports. While thinking about this apparent anomaly, we were reminded about the life and times of the person who just may have been the best no-limit poker player ever, the late, great Stu Ungar. At the press conference after he won the World Series of Poker for the third time - this feat alone is enough to boggle the mind - a reporter asked Ungar what he planned do with the $1 million he had just won. Stuey just giggled and responded, "lose it!" And Ungar is not alone. More than a few of the world's top players are either flat broke or worse.

What in blazes is going on here? How can these guys be so astonishingly successful in one domain and practically brain-dead in another? We can tell you with 100 percent certainty that it takes considerable skill, resolve, mental subtlety and emotional stability to play for high stakes in cash games and on the tournament trail. So what happens to that skill, that stability, that resolve? The answer, it seems, is actually quite simple, and drenched in irony. The same skills that enable these guys to rise to the top of the poker world are the very ones that drag them into a financial abyss elsewhere.

These people, the ones who play at the highest levels in games like poker, play with a devil-may-care attitude. They don't care about the money. They crave action, they know and love the game and they're ruthless. They don't just want to win; they want to crush their opponents. As another WSOP winner, the late Jack Straus put it, "If my own grandmother sat down at the table, I'd break her." English essayist, poet, literary critic, former world-class mountain climber, and poker player Al Alvarez understood this. In his classic book, The Biggest Game in Town, he noted that these legendary gamblers don't really view the chips in the game as money; they are just their way of keeping score.

Being successful in these games requires a host of skills and the best have them all. Top players all know their probabilities, they know strategy, they know how to manage their bankrolls, and they play sensibly. You won't see a top player draw for a flush that will only be filled one out of three times unless the pot is offering more than that in return - though weak players make this kind of mistake all the time. But the key skill that world-class poker players all possess is this: They know how to play their opponents. At the lowest stakes games, cards rule. In the middle levels, money counts. At the highest limits, you play people. To play at this level you must love the action, have no regard for money, be possessed of an immense ego, and be able to psychologically outmaneuver your opponents.

Do you see the problem? When these world-class, high-stakes poker players go to the sports betting parlor or the race track or the craps table they take their full complement of skills, talents and personality quirks with them. Their knowledge of statistics and probabilities is useful, but their lack of concern for money, massive egos, and their dependency on reading their opponents are daggers in their hearts.

A thoroughbred horse doesn't give a fat flying fig who you are or how inflated your ego is. You can't intimidate a pair of dice with an all-in bet. A tipped pass in overtime will doom your bet on the Cowboys no matter how big your wager. The psychology of the poker table is utterly different from other gambling domains. The drive, the ability to read people, to outthink them, to win the wheels-within-wheels psychological maneuverings that comprise the bluffs and counterbluffs that work so well at the poker table is useless in other gaming venues. You'd think these folks would figure this out and give it up but they don't. You see, they don't care about the money and their egos goad them on. They win at poker but they can't let go of the belief that eventually they will beat the horses or their bookie. They never consider that they won't, of course? not unless they can shift their psychological stance and style of play.

In all of our years wandering through this fascinating world we have yet to meet anyone who is both a world-class poker player and a successful sports bettor or horseplayer - though there are probably some exceptions to that rule. We know a few folks who can play poker and successfully count cards at blackjack, and some who have moved to the poker table from other venues but they never seem to rise to the top of the game. They tend to be decent middle-stakes players but they do not succeed in the highest stakes games and they rarely, if ever, become top tournament players. We also know a couple of excellent sports bettors who also count cards and play blackjack successfully but are all terrible poker players.

So, for the average recreational bettor, is there any advice to impart here? Yes, and it's pretty obvious. Most recreational gamblers lose more than they might because they play games with large negative expectation. They play the slots, or they make bad bets like hardways wagers at craps, or else they haven't honed their skills sufficiently as is necessary to have any chance at all of beating games like poker or sports betting.

If you like to play what we call in our book, Gambling For Dummies, 'Type L' games - games where the odds are immutable, stacked against you, and which, in the long run, you will lose at - stay with the least damaging bets. You'll still leak because you can't beat games like craps and baccarat even if you make the best bets available at the table, but if you're careful the leaks can be reduced to a trickle.

For those who play the 'Type W' games - games that can be beaten by skilled, knowledgeable players - focus on the ones you know, the ones you're best at. Become expert at one game of poker before trying others. If you like betting sports, stick with one sport and master it before betting others. If you love the horses, learn to handicap the thoroughbreds before trying to beat the trotters. You want action? Fine! We've got no argument with that. But take our advice and get it within the confines of a game you know. Developing a leak is one of the surest ways to erode your bankroll.

Are there solid poker professionals who don't have leaks? Sure. In a future column we'll take a look at one of them and see if we can figure out what makes this guy tick, how he manages to avoid having to call a plumber and what we all can learn from his approach to the game and to life.