COOL HAND LUKE

I found myself in the unenviable position of handling an upset this week. It’s something I do regularly with clients, but this time the tables were turned and the upset I was handling, was with myself.

This past week I played the $300 NL-rebuy event. It was a true rebuy as the field was loose and wild. Rebuys were flying around the room like parakeets. I had gotten to the tournament 15 mins. early, or so I thought, but turns out I misread the start time and I was more like 75 mins. early. I was easy going and accepted my new reality and sat on a nearby couch to read a poker magazine.

The time passed quickly and when I got to my table I was pleasantly surprised to find a great table draw. It had a few players that I knew didn’t play well along with some others that played well but oftentimes didn’t, for one reason or another. And with this being a rebuy event, it would give them the perfect excuse to loosen up and gamble. Sure enough, many of them started off getting their chips in the middle with the worst of it.

With the initial rebuy, which everyone at my table did, the starting stack was 24k in chips. I was up to about 30k rather quickly, smooth sailing and no sign of trouble ahead.

Like dark skies on the horizon of a sea, however, trouble appeared rather quickly in the form of a floor man named Kevin. Kevin comes over and quite unceremoniously removes two players from our table. “I have to move you guys to another table,” he says. Seems innocent enough, except he was taking the action players! Something that was going to make my journey to the winner’s circle a lot more difficult. I wasn’t going to have it. Suddenly my mood switched from being contented to being upset.

“Why is this guy taking the fish out of my basket?” I thought. I used different terms to protest to a few of my other table opponents who didn’t seem the least disturbed by this recent development. And why should they? It’s all part of the game, right?

The very next hand someone new was in the seat. A “young-gun” who was a much tougher player then the one who left. “This is silly! I don’t understand why they do that, move one player only to put in a different one in his place.” I exclaim.

I called the tournament director over and proceeded to ask him about their table balancing procedures. I whined; “Why are you taking multiple players from our table? Is there an order in which tables you draw the players from?”  I asked. He patiently explained that there was a process, random as it may be, to take players from the worst positions at existing tables and form a new table. The reasoning was; “We don’t want players who are signing up late to sit together, so we do it to prevent collusion.” He says. “Humph!” I shrug and shake my head.

My position, which I vehemently wanted to hang onto, was that everyone else in the tournament, that was here on time, is being inconvenienced!  Losing the intel. and data gathering work they’ve done on the opponent’s they are currently sitting with, only to have it ripped away. While changing and adapting is a natural aspect of tournament play, it is usually due to players busting out and having to combine and balance tables. This was the opposite, we all had to change and balance tables because of player tardiness and joining the field late. Wait a minute, I was over an hour early! I thought this unfair and it sent me into protest. Not very effectively I might add as you will see.

The important factor not to be overlooked in all of this, at least from a competitive point of view, is that I not only let this process affect me, but I let it show. I was in an upset and acting like an amateur.

Pros don’t play in protest, period. A pro player playing his or her “A” game doesn’t get upset by what happens in the game, or if they do, they certainly don’t show it. A Pro plays conscious, alert and in present time. Accepting changes and flows as part of the game with a willingness to adapt their strategy to changes accordingly. I know this, and still, I was falling victim to my own protest.

After about 15 minutes I manage to center myself and was back to focusing on competing. Just then a new challenge emerged. A floor man swings back by with an empty rack, setting it down in front of me. “Time to move,” he says. I laughed at the irony, shook my head and quietly moved.  Surprisingly, I find myself at an even better table then-then one I left! Just to the left of two big fish with chips! Yum-Yum!! Sounds like the perfect poker player’s meal. I went about building my chip stack, happy as a kid with a dish of chocolate pudding.

A friend of mine who was waiting for a seat as an alternate is watching my table. We chat and talk strategy for a few minutes. I tell him that if you like your table, make sure you pay close attention and get through the big blind quickly before they come and nab you and move you to another table. The very next lap around the table I elect to play a marginal hand under the gun. This extends the time before I take the big blind just long enough for me to see Death standing behind me with the all too familiar empty rack. Ahhhh!!! Nooooo!! My protest coming out full bare, “I’m not the big blind!” I yell at him. “Yes, you are. I got to move you.” No, not me again, I think to myself. My frustration building coming to a full froth the pent-up anger bubbling beneath my skin.

This time there was no acknowledgment, just hostility directed towards the floor man giving me the seat card. I snapped up the new seat assignment and proceeded to my new table, leaving a trail of steam and mumbling complaints in my wake. My anger was about to be unleashed.

This time the draw was not so generous and I was like a criminal peeking out from underneath a blindfold standing in front of a firing squad. The bullets to come from the very young guns I was resisting. The harder I tried to center myself and accept my new reality, the more the resistance took hold. Like a Red Hawk whose talons are already in its prey. I was dinner.

It took about 30 minutes before the 30k+ chip stack I had accumulated was reduced to a vacant space of felt just north of me. “Rebuy,” I announced. I replenished my chips and interestingly a sense of calm came over me. The anger that I had released in destroying my chip stack, along with my chips, was gone.

I went on to play well but fell short of cashing. Going out 41^st in a field of 250.

With the loss of this tournament, I realized something very valuable. I realized that to win anything of value is not to take or even desire the easy path. That realization along with knowing the source of my troubles didn’t start with or have anything to do with the floor man. The trouble had to do with me wanting an easy way out and more specifically with my protest of the changes that are simply a part of any game.

Moving forward I will keep in mind Luke (Paul Newman) in the movie  “Cool Hand Luke.” No matter how tough he had it, he always kept his cool. Even when your "card dead" or seem to have nothing going for you, remember, “sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand.”

Keep your Cool,   Kenna

Playing with the Fishes

I was in Aruba for the Aruba Classic Poker Championships some years back, I think it was 2005.

I remember because I flew there directly after the Monte Carlo Millions tournament in which I final tabled along with tournament greats John Juanda and Phil Ivey, the eventual winner.

After playing with those sharks I decided to look for clearer waters. I was invited onto a charter flight to Aruba with Phil Laak, Jennifer Tilley, Gavin Smith and a ton of other well known pros who were obviously thinking the same thing. The weather in Monte Carlo was cold, overcast and rainy. What better excuse then to head to a tropical island with plenty of fish!

I forget the production company's name, but they were shooting some show called "Extreme Poker" and the premise was to play poker in all these intense situations and environments. 30,000 feet in the air, skydiving, underwater scuba diving, etc. which made sense because at the time the general public couldn't get enough of poker and it seemed to be on multiple channels every night of the week. Anyway, once we were in Aruba, a few of us were invited to strap on some air tanks and head to the bottom of the Caribbean for a game of poker for this show. A special water proof deck of cards, a weighted down poker table, special chips, etc. were all put into play. 

Ironically, we were playing in an area where there were a lot of beautifully colored fish. And the locals warned us that the fish liked to nip at your hair. Especially if you had blonde hair. Turns out fish aren't that different then a lot of guys I know. In a nice twist of fate it was the fish eating at and playing with the poker pros instead of the other way around. And as long as you let them have their way, they would have their nibble and go about their way. 

If memory recalls, I think Phil Laak won that underwater tournament, but I could be wrong. Either way, he was on his way to collecting a lot of clams. It was so much fun, playing poker with the fishes. And the donkey's! We often laughed at ourselves and called ourselves donkey's for some of the plays we'd make and the things we did. I remember playing in a pretty big mix game, maybe 100-200 or 200-400 with Phil Hellmuth, Layne Flack and a bunch of the other regulars. Phil was steaming as he usually did back then at his unlucky plight as everybody poked fun at his tirades. I remember one game in particular I played with Mike Matusaw and Miami John in which they laughed at me and called me a donkey for not knowing even what I had in one particular hand. We all laughed so hard. That one even made t.v. 

In those days calling each other donkey's or fishes was fun because it was amongst peers and we all understood that from time to time, we are all donkey's or we were all fishes at one time or other. Today, however, it seems the tone is quite different. The game has taken on such a serious tone. The players a rank of stated superiority over others less skilled. The ego's inflated to the degree that some denigrate and put down publicly the unsuspecting new or novice player. The players who do this seem to have never learned one of the basic principles in playing with the fishes. "Don't tap the glass!" When you do it scares the fish and they swim away. 

I don't have much patience for so called "good players," who demean other players at the table and openly question their play just because they got lucky and won a hand or sucked out on them. It happened the other night in a game I was playing. The unsuspecting tourist who was buried in the game and he was looking at his hand to figure out what he had exactly. Another player in the game, who was not in that particular hand exclaimed "if you got a club in your hand you got a flush," something he obviously shouldn't have said, but neither player was very schooled at the game, in etiquette or the rules. The tourist then turned over his hand, in fact showing a club (probably a deuce lol) and won the pot. The so called "good player" started chastising the weaker players for not playing right and before you know it, the game that was good became bad as they both got up and left and a short time later the game broke. 

When a weak or novice player comes into a game, makes mistakes, or gets lucky, please encourage them don't ridicule or demean them. Realize that without fish, our poker game will be like our planet, dying. Not only for the sake and growth of the game, but also because it is the right thing to do. Remember when you came into the game and someone took a moment to help or show you something you didn't know or understand that improved your game. Think of those times as your debt, in which you should now pay it forward.

I'm not saying you have to coach and help others to beat you. Just be kind and understanding in that your fellow competitor is also on a journey you were once on. Be compassionate to someone who is learning the game and don't treat them as if they were a rag doll for you to beat up on and throw around for your own amusement. Sure it hurts to lose, but if you don't know how to lose or can't see the forest through the trees, then in the long run you'll have no chance anyway. For poker, like life, is naturally full of loss. Deal with it. For those that are too young or too narrow minded or near sighted to see this, then they are themselves the fish or the donkey that they claim to despise. Projecting out what they reject within. 

So, as you swim out to your next poker game, before you take a deep breath and dive beneath the surface, please remember; There will be some beautiful fish down there that may nibble at your head. Let them be and have their way with you and in so doing you'll enjoy the game a lot more. You may just come up to the surface like my friend Phil Laak, a winner with many more clams then you can carry.

Enjoy the waves,

Kenna