Commitment and Poker

Poker as much as it is about anything is about commitment, no matter if it comes to online poker or real live poker. It can be viewed as being composed of 3 families: commitment to certain hands, commitment to milestones and, commitment to history.

Commitment to specific hands is one of the easiest and most profitable avenues to exploit, especially when playing Texas Holdem. It comes in many forms, perhaps the most often witnessed is when a novice player is not willing to fold AA regardless of what comes on the board. As soon as I see this I mentally classify these people as "plays AA like a short stack". This means that they necessarily overplay hands. All you need to do is wait for them to hit something and then break it, be that 2 pair against an over pair, or a flush against a straight, etc. This group of players present maximum implied odds. As a result it is advisable to take many long shot draws against them, a poker strategy that in this case is more likely to get you a win than normally.

Commitment to milestones is an interesting phenomenon that has less to do with money and poker than it does with aesthetics. Although there are limitless manifestations of this 2 frequently observed ones are: 1- not drawing or calling questionable bets for an amount that would bring their stack below a) average in a tournament, or b) initial buy-in in at a cash game. 2 - tightening up when being above round numbers (200,250,400,1000...), and being loose when being within one or two plays reach of those same numbers.

Commitment to history is a double edged sword. It is a necessary part of winning in poker. It is the idea of playing people instead of cards. The people you play at the lower levels are all pretty much the same. Sometimes you can even tell which books they have read. Maybe they have just read Doyle Brunson’s ever important “Super System”. In this case we would look at them and see SS. This means that we wouldn't give them any credit pre-flop or on the flop, and that on the flop we’ll go head to head with bottom two pair against AJT on the board. Over 90% of the time we’re right in doing so and we will keep it up. However the 5-10% of the time that the guy has hit or has a draw that is made we double him up. It is worth it to keep playing at this strategy but it means calling even when you are pretty certain that this time he has the nuts.