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Adaptability and the Poker Player
On thing I always heard in my early days of poker was how to play a hand in a certain situation. You must raise, you must fold etc. Once I became more experianced and interacted with far better players than I'd ever dream of being able to be I heard one crutial word. Adapt!
That brings me to my point with this thread. In basic life, people adapt to their circumstances. For example, some people have adapted to be in council estates, with a low income, yet they often remain happy people. I include myself in this bracket. Others have became accustom to a life where money isn't an object and they live as they please.
Other examples can be seen all over the work place. To do a job to the best of our ability we have to adapt to our surroundings and situations. Take an average sales persons job as an example. One of those people who have the job of chapping peoples doors trying to sell electric, gas, broadband or even charitys. Each door these people knock on faces a different challenge. In my example I'll be a Electric sales man. So Door number 1 we knock on and someone answers. Firstly we must adapt to how this person treats us at the door. We can see early in dialog that this person is interested in switching providers. We must now prove we can get him a better deal. After a while of debiberation hes not sure. So we must now once again adapt to make sure we get this sale. Eventually we make a sale.
Now we move onto Door number 2. Now person in door number 2 is a loyal customer to their current brand. Theyve expessed that however they are open to hear about better deals. So once again we adapt. This sale will be much harder than the previous one. Eventually the result will likley be a no in this case but on the odd occassion and good adaptablity and understanding why may convince change.
Behind door number 3. We see someone who is unsure what their current provider gives them and for how much. Again we must adapt. These in theory should be pretty straight forward sales. But you already know a weakness. Adapting to expliot that would be key.
So this brings me to poker. In day to day life Adapting is the key to surviving. Weather it be in the home, at work or somewhere else. However in poker adapting isn't something you hear many people talking about. I've heard people saying, "oh John there, yeah hes a fish. Never folds." Yet 5 minutes later I'll see them bluffing this John guy, then get irritated when he calls down with 23 on a 3xxxx board. This is clearly someone who understands the game but has no ability to adapt.
So this brings me onto a question of mine. Good players are obviously the best out there. But is their ability to adapt the the split of a second the differance between them paying the bills one month and not? All the way up the chain the better players just seem better at adapting.
Even in my early days of poker, I was just learning but in a game I played after one or two sit downs i felt like I could beat the better and more experianced players in that game. Now I'll be honest, even the best players in that game wheren't very good players. But none of them had any concept of adapting. They all had similar attitudes to the game. They discussed hands very little and when they did, it was usually something like, "you had quads, yes you always check to the river and then shove all in for 90 million chips into a 100 chip pot. If he has anything he'll pay." Very few of them tought differently. And those that did where the ones that won. However even the ones that thought differently still had basic flaws. The would pay off a massive shove on the river with second pair in those situations because they always believed they where bluffing. One prime example I can give is one man Ive played with alot won't fold a pair on a paired board, because he has two pair. Hes the most succsessful pub league player in the area. The reason for that I believe is the failure of others to adapt to his game.
What I'm trying to say while going way off track in my opinion, is we here these basic rules of poker. Bank Roll Management (BRM). Avoiding Tilt. Learn the basics, and develop. All of these basic situations. In my opinion, Adaptability has to be a basic rule of poker.
Comments
I couldn't let a post with so much effort put into go without a view. (Have yo ever thought about writing fortune cookies mate?)
I agree with what you say. I suppose it comes from the Meta game which has different levels of 'you know that he knows that i know that....' so we should change/ adapt what we may do with someone else with a similar hand. Its nice, isn't it, when we change out approach for a good reason. It gives us a warm feeling inside.....until we get bashed to bits because he wasn't thinking what i thought he was or had just decided he was bored, hadn't even noticed our stop-go move two hands ago and fancied a pint at the local. Consequently, he had decided to play 55 until the end and see what he gets!!!!
You should read Spornybol's post in DTD FB where a guy was bored and decided to play 32o. sporny's wonderful analysis was for nought and you can guess the rest. Personally if i was playing Sporny then i'd force myself to play well as the consequences of sucking out with a poor play aren't worth thinking about as i'm sure you can imagine.!!!
It was fun to read the dialogue between the two guys though and Sporny took it in good heart by adapting.....nah!!!!!!! lol.....
There are a few problems with this though. Firstly you can only ever adapt to a particular players game if they keep it the same. If they change their game and are adapting as well then you will always be one step behind them and still not know where you are.
Secondly to be able to adapt you need to have good reads available. If a new player arrives and takes down pots without showing any cards then you can not gain this information and so can not adapt to him.
Thirdly, (this is more for online play) the number of tables being played have an affect.A lot of the good grinders around on this site play a lot of tables at the same time which inhibits their reading and adaptability. And yet they are still successful without this.
But in principal i agree with the need to adapt to the table and the playing styles on it. It just needs to be done with caution. Good reads are needed to help with this and if you have them then adaptability will make you money in the long run.
Will have a look later