MUDDY ROAD?

MUDDY ROAD?
By John Vorhaus

True story: I'm playing in a no limit hold'em tournament, and it's down to three short-handed tables. We're all in the money, so at least that pressure is off, but unfortunately I have put a different sort of pressure on myself by letting it be known that I'm "that Killer Poker guy." Sometimes this is good for my image, especially in the end stages of a tournament where the fact of my having made it to the money suggests that, as a poker author and self-described sage, I'm not entirely without a clue. Still, eyes are on me, and I feel like it's incumbent upon me to play correctly, for the sake of appearances and my reputation and all. We don't have to dwell upon how nonsensical this thinking is; I've made my bed and now find myself lying in it.

The blinds are $1000 and $2000, with antes of $500. We're seven-handed at this table, so 13 $500 chips go in the pot before the deal. I'm in the big blind, short-stacked, with only 15 chips left after having posted the blind. It's folded around to the button, who, with plenty of chips, makes the odd bet of $5500 -- eleven chips. The small blind folds and now it's on me. Even though I'm holding only 6-9 offsuit, with 24 chips in the pot I think I have to call. If I do, I'll be getting better than a 3-1 return on my seven-chip investment, and what kind of hand is my opponent likely to have here? If he's got a big pair, then I'm in serious trouble, because he'll win in the neighborhood of 85% of the time. However, I'm only a 2-1 underdog to hands as good as A-K suited, and with


(A) him on the button
(B) in a short-handed game
(C) with us all in the money and
(D) me short stacked

I can easily put him on a hand as weak as two unsuited big cards. It was a funny bet, though... 11 chips, a hoover bet if I ever saw one. And do I stop to think about the possibility that I'm being sucked in by a big pair? Honestly... no. That thought never crosses my mind. All I can think about... dwell upon... obsess over... is how stupid I'm going to look, in the eyes of people who don't see the odds the same way I do, when I turn over that 6-9 offsuit. I am so not playing proper poker at this moment. I know, I know... play right now! It's like I've never even read one of my books, much less written them. Still, I think it's right to call, so I'm going to call, and public perception be damned!

But that's not the stupid part.

Here comes the stupid part.

I toss in seven chips,

That's right, I was so concerned about how bad I was about to look, I forgot that I wasn't all in. Whoo boy, how bad do you think I look now?

Well, the predictable cry goes up from players and railbirds alike. The tournament director comes over to make a ruling. This could be bad: If she thinks I revealed my cards to influence action, she can kill my hand and give me a 20-minute penalty, which will kill me in the tournament, too. But she decides that I'm guilty of nothing worse than felony foolishness, and rules that my hand is live and my foe can exploit knowledge of my holding as he sees fit.

Mister Killer Poker Guy indeed!

Well, what do I need on the flop? A piece at least. A pair or two pair would be good. How about a straight draw? How about...

7-8-T...

Oh, my. I flopped a straight. Boy, howdy.

Well, I push in my last eight chips. Can you believe it? -- my opponent declines to call. So I don't get maximum value out of my hand, but at least I'm still alive in the tournament. My reputation, of course, is dead as Elvis.

And of course I feel like an idiot. My face is red, my palms are sweating and I sense that the whole world, or at least the players at my table and some two dozen railbirds, are all mentally mocking me. Remorse and regret wash over me, which remorse and regret punish me on the very next hand when I fold in the face of a raise, even though the odds once again justified a call. Why did I fold? Because I couldn't stand to look so stupid again so soon.

I was living in the past.

I was stuck in the past.

Mired in torment over recent stupidity.

I had to let that go.

At that moment, Tanzan came to my rescue.

Tanzan was a 19th century Japanese Buddhist monk and professor of philosophy at the Imperial University. His wisdom comes down to us today in the form of the following Zen story or koan.


Tanzan and Ekido were walking together down a muddy road in the rain. Coming around a bend in the road, they arrived at a small, swift stream, where a lovely young girl in full dress kimono stood crying.
"Why are you crying?" asked Tanzan.

In between tears, the girl explained that she was due at a wedding in a village on the far side of the stream, but to cross the stream meant to ruin her kimono and, needless to say, her entrance.

"Come on, girl," said Tanzan. With that, he hoisted the girl on his back, waded across the stream and deposited her on the far side, high, dry and happy. She went off to the wedding, there presumably to catch the bouquet and/or get drunk. Tanzan and Ekido continued on down the road.

Ekido held his tongue until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he could no longer restrain himself. "We monks don't go near women," he told Tanzan, "especially not young and lovely ones. Our order forbids it. Yet you carried that girl across the stream. Why did you carry that girl?"

"I left the girl at the stream," replied Tanzan. "Why do you carry her still?"

"Why do you carry her still?"

I had made a mistake, a boneheaded blunder in full public view. I was in pain and, worse, I was carrying that pain. I had to let it go. Thanks to Tanzan, I had a strategy for doing so. I imagined myself standing at that stream, and I put that girl down. Sure I had made a mistake, but the universe had bailed me out. Maybe God truly does protect fools and Mister Killer Poker Guys. In any event, my ass had been saved by profound luck, but I was still in danger, and would remain in danger as long as I allowed remorse and regret to warp my play. I put the girl down.

This is what Tanzan tells us to do. Put the girl down.

You flop top pair, top kicker and drive hard against a solo opponent, who hits a two-outer to beat you. You commence to harangue your foe, ruining your peace, your patience and your play.

Put the girl down!
After hours of dreary jackthrees, you flop a set, only to be run down by set-over-set, setting you up for an all-night pity party.

Why do you carry her still?

You walk away from a table one hand before the jackpot hits, and curse your rotten luck for days.

Let it go!

Can you think of any other situations where you have suffered bad luck, bad beats or bad outcomes and then made the bad situation worse by holding onto negative feelings? Can you describe such a situation? Can you name the feelings? What did you do (or could you have done) to get well?

By the way, you may wonder if I ended up winning the tournament. Of course I did. With dumb luck like that on my side, how could I possibly not?