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Reciprocality: The Cause of Profit at Poker Part Four
From part one: Before anything flows, there must be a difference. Between different elevations, water flows. Between different pressures, air flows. Between different poker players, money flows. In the world of reciprocality, it's not what you do that matters most, and it's not what they do. It's both. Reciprocality is any difference between you and your opponents that affects your bottom line. Reciprocality says that when you and your opponents would do the same thing in a given situation, no money moves, and when you do something different, it does. You can mine for reciprocal gold anywhere in the poker universe. In this four-part series I will examine reciprocality as it applies to information, position, bankroll, quitting, tilt, and betting.
And now, part four:
Tilt Reciprocality "To win at poker, you have to be very good at losing." - me During the first few years of my poker-playing career, I played almost entirely in home games that were almost entirely loose and reckless. All I had to do to win was play tight, which I had learned how to do. But there was a problem. The trouble was, I had also learned how to tilt. I was a great tilter. I knew all the different kinds. I could do steaming tilt, simmering tilt, too loose tilt, too tight tilt, too aggressive tilt, too passive tilt, playing too high tilt, playing too long tilt, playing too tired tilt, entitlement tilt, annoyed tilt, injustice tilt, frustration tilt, sloppy tilt, revenge tilt, underfunded tilt, overfunded tilt, shame tilt, distracted tilt, scared tilt, envy tilt, this-is-the-worst-pizza-I've-ever-had tilt, I-just-got-showed-a-bluff tilt, and of course, there's the classics: I-gotta-get-even tilt, and I-only-have-so-much-time-to-lose-this-money tilt, also known as demolition tilt. I'd tilt, and I'd look back on my tiltings, and I started seeing cycles, and then cycles within the cycles, and before long, I started to see my entire poker future as a ceaseless fluctuation between tight and tilt. I figured if I ever went broke at poker, it wouldn't be because my best wasn't good enough to keep me afloat. It'd be because my worst was bad enough to sink me. A big day in my career was the day I realized that tomorrow I would still be a tilter. That there would be no quick fix. That any headway I made would be gradual. I realized that if I could somehow put progressively longer periods of time between my tiltings, and if I could somehow have them be progressively not quite as bad as the last time, then I'd have a chance to get some wind under my wings, and when I did, I'd soar indefinitely. Less often, less severe. Less often, less severe. That's what I kept telling myself. It is now fifteen years and thirty thousand hours of poker later. In that time I have gathered myself, and my thoughts… On Tilt Tilt has many causes and kinds, but it has only one effect. It makes us play bad. It makes us do things we wouldn't do if we were at our very best. And that's how I want to define it, exactly like that. Tilt is any deviation from your A-game and your A-mindset, however slight or fleeting. There are two reasons to define tilt in this way. One is standardization. All A-games are identical. Anyone who is playing his A-game is making the best decisions he knows how, and his mind is as right as it ever is. That's what A-game is. It's our best. And we all have it. So by defining tilt from the top down, we can draw a line for any player that cleanly divides his A-game from his tilt. The other reason is that we aren't just playing with words here. We are using them as shovels to dig for gold. And by using the word tilt to focus on our best, instead of our worst, we hit a lode: Tilt is non A-game. Tilt is anything less than your utmost. Tilt is suboptimalness. Defining tilt in this way, everyone tilts. It's just a matter of how often, how long, and how bad. And so we arrive at the three dimensions of tilt: frequency, duration, and depth. How often do you deviate from your A-game? How long does it last? And how far below your A-game do you go? Tilt is all about you. If you think you should have quit sooner, or if you think you should have played at different stakes, or if you think you made a bad call, then you tilted. Only you really know when you knew better. Tilt reciprocality is your slippage matched up against everybody else's. Tilt reciprocality recognizes that any reduction, however small, in the frequencies, durations, and depths of your own tiltings will always have the effect of favorably widening the gap between your tilt and theirs, thereby earning immediate reciprocal advantage. To make money from tilt, you don't need to be tiltless. But you do have to tilt less.
"Seventy-five percent of all poker players think they play better than the other seventy-five percent." -- me Betting reciprocality is the difference between your betting decisions -- raise, bet, call, check, and fold -- and theirs. There are two clean ways to think about betting reciprocality. I wrote about them in the opening of this article, and I'd like to expand on them now. One way is to trade some parameters with your opponent, project the future in that reality, and compare. I call this reciprocal analysis. The other way of thinking about betting reciprocality produced this conclusion: "The hold'em hand I think I've made the most reciprocal profit on over the years is queen-ten. That's the hand I think I have played most differently from my opponents most often." Continuing from there, after queen-ten on my list of most-profitable-hands comes king-ten, queen-jack, jack-ten, king-nine, queen-nine, jack-nine, queen-eight, jack-eight, ten-nine, etc, not necessarily in that exact order, but thereabouts. The reason these hands cause the most amount of reciprocal motion is because these hands bring out the most consequential difference in how a hand gets played, which is, before the flop. I am going to list the ways that two players can start a hand, starting with the least consequential, and moving toward the differences that make the most difference. If, in a given preflop situation: 1) Two players would both fold, then no reciprocal money moves between them on that hand. No-brainers are no-gainers. 2) If two players would both call before the flop, or if they would both raise, then still no money moves between them before the flop. There might be reciprocal motion on the hand after the flop, depending on how differently they would play it. 3) One player calls before the flop when the other would raise. Here we have reciprocal motion before the flop, with potential for more after the flop. So far, either both players saw the flop, or both players didn't. There are two other ways it can go: 4) One player folds before the flop when the other would call. 5) One
player folds when another would raise. If it is true that maximum potential reciprocal motion occurs when one player sees the flop when another player wouldn't, then the most profitable hand is going to be the one that generates the play/don't-play difference most often, which, for me, by my estimation, is queen-ten. After the flop, no matter how anyone got there, we can focus the reciprocal lens on any single bet, or street, or combination of streets, and do a reciprocal analysis. For example, it's on the river playing limit hold'em and you have the best hand. You bet and your opponent calls. If the situation was reversed, and your opponent bet the river, would you have called? If the answer is no, then you just won one bet. If the answer is yes, then you broke even. At no-limit hold'em, the nature of all-in-ness narrows the reciprocal focus in a specific, recurring way. Let's say Joe and Moe both hit the flop. At some point in the hand, they get all-in. In reality, Joe busts Moe. In reciprocality, the main question is, would Moe have busted Joe? If the answer is yes, then the hand is a tie. If the answer is no, then Joe wins the hand by however much money he has in front of him at the end of the hand in the imagined reality. And that's basically it on Betting Reciprocality. That is, if you like everything all neat and tidy. Or, you can follow me now, into the magnificently messy part of poker. So far, all the reciprocalities have been black and white. For example, when tilt reciprocality causes money to flow, we know for certain which way it is flowing. The same is true with bankroll reciprocality, quitting reciprocality, and all the others. But there is one exception, and it's a big one: Betting reciprocality. This is where black blends with white and leaves us in the gray. This is where uncertainty is certain. And thank goodness for that! It's what makes poker poker.
Think back to the very first hands of poker you ever played. Your gray area was almost everywhere, and your A-game stank. With every hand, with every round of betting, with every sixth street discussion, you gained significant experience and understanding. Your A-game improved at the same rapid pace that your gray area -- your uncertainty -- shrank. As times
passes, your rate of change slows. Your A-game improves more slowly,
and your gray area shrinks more slowly. The main thing to realize
is that no matter how good you get, you will always have a gray area.
The gray is not part of you. It is part of the game. As we move into the gray, the theoretical expectations of our options become more balanced. A decision might make us a 60-40 favorite, for example. Moving into the central gray region, we arrive at those decisions for which the expected outcome is 50-50 or nearly so. These are the decisions of little or no theoretical consequence, the decisions where each option is as good as the other. These are the decisions that matter least. Also in the central gray -- the land of closest decisions -- we can expect disagreement to go up over which decisions are best. We can expect intelligent, elaborate debates with both sides insisting theirs is the right side. We can also expect to debate with ourselves and to second guess ourselves. In the central gray is where we can torture ourselves with the question: Did I get it right that time? And that's why I say: The decisions that trouble us most are the ones that matter least.
STOP! That's a mistake. Just by thinking like that, about right and wrong, you are making a mistake. If you play a hand and you face a close decision and then you write about it or talk about it, I think that's great -- seriously. Or if you talk about hands other people played, same thing. All good. But be careful. Don't fall into the gray area's trap. Don't burn up valuable energy and waste precious sanity. Don't assume that just because you have an answer, and just because someone else has a different answer, that one of you is right and the other is wrong. Let's say I'm on the button and everyone folds around to me. Depending on my cards, and my opponents, and other parameters, it might be obvious to me what the best choice is, or it might not be obvious at all. Should I assume that there is always a right answer? And even if there is a right answer should I assume that I can always know what that answer is? I believe the answers to those questions are no and no. Another example. It's on the turn, playing limit hold'em. There are three players in the pot. I am second to act. The first guy bets out. Should I raise? Should I call? Should I fold? Okay, I'll tell you more. I've got top pair. The guy who bet out might be on a draw, or he might have a monster. I can't really tell. The guy behind me might be really weak, maybe drawing thin against my hand. But he's acting so weak that maybe he's strong and he's about to raise it. Or maybe he is on a draw and I need to raise to either get him out or make him pay the maximum price. But the guy who bet out might have me beat. He might even have me drawing dead. If I raise, I open it up for him to reraise. Hmm. Tough one. Should I raise? Should I call? Should I fold? I believe it is correct to believe in unknowableness. Analyze, evaluate, ponder, and then let it be. Resist the gray area's mind-snaring entrapments. When you examine a betting decision, yours or someone else's, at the table or away, on your own or with others, remind yourself that debates point to close decisions, and that close decisions matter least, and that the answer is sometimes unknowable. Dwell not on close decisions, and thus, when you play against dwellers, you will make reciprocal gains in energy conservation and sanity preservation. What's it take to max out at poker? Three things. You have to have an A-game that is good enough to beat somebody. You have to play against those people. And you have to play your A-game every hand. To play your A-game every hand, you must be paying attention every hand. You must be present. If you are thinking about the past, then you are, by definition, not present. If you want to be in the now, realize deeply that hey, I may never know if I played that hand right or wrong, so I might as well just play this hand! Get good, and remain good while you play. That's really all I said just now. That's really all I ever say, to myself, or to anyone seeking the secret to poker, which, as it turns out, is not exactly a secret. So where does reciprocality fit in? I don't see reciprocality as a theory about how to win at poker. I see it as a way to see it. Reciprocality is a lens. When focused on a pair of choices, the resolution of reciprocality reveals differences large and small; it shows them as they are. When I look through the lens, I see every incremental improvement and deterioration, of mine and my opponents, at betting and everything else, as being immediately rewarded or punished in the currency of reciprocal gold. The profit is always flowing, and that motivates me. But then,
like I said, that's how I see it. Now the lens is yours. Point it
where you will, focus it as you please, and make your own discoveries.
©
Tommy Angelo 2006
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