SHARPS AND FLATS

SHARPS AND FLATS
By John Vorhaus

On my worst days of online poker, I willfully distract myself to a ridiculous degree. I might be playing in a scheduled tournament and a sitngo and a cash game, all at the same time. The radio is on, or maybe a podcast. I've got the TV showing a baseball game with the sound down, and I'm scratching my dog behind his ears because my dog insists. I'm also answering emails, taking phone calls and beating my head against the word processor -- and it's still not enough to occupy my restless mind. As you can imagine, this is not the best way to play internet poker, letting it engage so small a sliver of my interest. And guess what? I know it, too. Not that this stops me from doing it... nor ruing it when, inevitably, the telephone or the television or my own purple prose causes me to miss critical information on the poker screen or hit raise when I meant to hit fold.

On my best days of online poker, I turn off everything: all the music, sound and pictures. I close Word and Outlook. I close the door, which can annoy the dog, but I explain it to him in terms he can understand: Daddy's winning kibble money now. I lay a single game screen against my computer desktop -- a soothing picture of poppies -- and give a single cash game or tournament table my full and undivided attention. I may or may not be taking notes, but I'm certainly taking everything in. Seat one likes to reraise from the small blind. Seat three will bet the turn if no one bets the flop. Seat six likes to drag (slow play) his big hands. I'm in tune with what's going on, because I'm fully focused. As Mrs. Malaprop might put it, I'm dilated in.

Then again I have this friend, screen name WiggleTooth, on whose monstrously large LCD monitor he plays four games at once. He plays big, too, $500 buy in NLHE x 4, for hour after hour, and insists that playing four games at once not only maximizes his hourly win rate but keeps him from playing too loose through impatience or boredom, because with so much going on onscreen, he has no time to be impatient or bored. This guy keeps meticulous records, and I've seen them. Literally the only time he doesn't perform well is when he's playing just one game: His mind wanders, his play degrades and he loses money. Incredibly enough, single dipping is a gaping hole in his game.

All of which is to say that everyone has a best and a worst way to play online. I used to think that double dipping -- playing even so much as two games at once -- was a recipe for sure disaster. Having seen evidence to the contrary, from WiggleTooth and others, I'm now prepared only to say that I know one person who should never double dip, and that's, well, me.

Every time we sit down to play online, we're faced with variables, choices not just of game type and betting limit, or tournament versus cash play, but also of environment: music or no music; phone or no phone; rats gnawing at our feet or no rats gnawing at our feet. How you sort and select these variables is up to you, but one thing you must do is sort and select. To play online consistently effectively, you have to give some thought to, and honest inspection of, when and how you play poorly or well. More to the point, you have to figure out what's going on when you don't play well, and then see to it that it never happens again.

I'm trusting that you have enough experience of online play, and enough personal frankness, to address this question in a meaningful way. Do you drink when you play online? How does that work out for you? Do you go for that one extra cash game rebuy or that one last sitngo when things haven't been going your way? Do things continue not to go your way? Do you play when you're tired? This one's particularly insidious, because we poker players get tired and wired at the same time. We're so wound up from playing poker that the only thing we imagine winding us down is, hey, more poker. However, since we're also tired, we can't really play effectively. Also, being tired degrades our ability, among other things, to perceive being tired.

There are a couple of approaches you can take to really get to the heart of how you inhabit your online poker space. One is to spend frequent moments in quiet contemplation of the question, remembering that the point of the exercise is not to recriminate but to just to ruminate, and that open, honest acceptance of all your aspects is the true path of the poker warrior. Another is to keep a notebook by your computer, or a computer file labeled "state of mind" and in it just record in passing all your observations about the way you think and the choices you make. I divide my notes into "sharps" -- ways I play better -- and "flats" -- ways I play worse. Here are a few of each I have noticed, and noted, in my play.

SHARPS
Heads up play
Playing in the morning
Not afraid to lose
Confident (even arrogant)
Fresh hot coffee
After a good day's work
Sufficiently funded for the game
Happy
By myself


FLATS
Double dipping
Alcohol
Playing tired
Angry at the world
When I stop caring
Taking phone calls
Trying for a hit-and-run win
Avoiding work
Feeling guilty about avoiding work


Thinking about your own online playing experience now, print out this page and fill in some blanks if you will.

SHARPS




















FLATS




















There are many other ways to think about how you inhabit the situation of online poker. It's a question that never gets fully answered. Nor should it, for there's always room for improvement. What I want to stress -- what I can't stress enough -- is the need to be sensitive to your mindset. Be open and articulate with yourself about what works and doesn't work for you. From time to time your ego may take a beating. Mine certainly does when, for instance, I call a big bet when I just know I'm beat, and then have to face the sad fact of my own stupid stupidity. But ego is not the issue. Money is the issue, and it's axiomatic that the more frequently you bring your sharp mind to the table instead of your flat one, the more money you'll make playing poker. Only you can know whether you've got the sharp mind or the flat mind in play, and you will only know if you're frank. Let your ego take its lumps. Your bankroll will thank you in the end.