Excerpt from David Sklanky's "The Theory of Poker"
In the long run a poker player's overall win is the sum of his
mathematical expectations in individual situations. The more
plays you make with a positive expectation, the bigger winner you
stand to be. The more plays you make with a negative
expectation, the bigger loser you stand to be. Therefore, you
should almost always try to make the play that will maximize
your positive expectation or minimize your negative expectation
in order to maximize your hourly rate.
Once you have decided what your hourly rate is, you should
realize that what you are doing is earning. You are no longer
gambling in the traditional sense. You should no longer be
anxious to have a good day or upset when you have a bad day. If
you play regularly, you should simply feel that it is better to be
playing poker making $20 an hour, able to come and go as you
please, than to be working an eight-hour shift making $ 15 an hour.
To think of poker as something glamorous is very bad. You must
think that you are just working as a poker player and that you are
not particularly anxious about making a big score. If it comes, it
comes. Conversely, you won't be so upset if you have a big loss.
If one comes, it comes. You are just playing for a certain hourly
rate.
If you have estimated your hourly rate correctly, your
eventual winnings will approximate your projected hourly rate
multiplied by the total hours played. Your edge comes not from
holding better cards, but from play in situations where your
opponents would play incorrectly if they had your hand and you
had theirs. The total amount of money they cost themselves in
incorrect play, assuming you play perfectly, minus the rake, is the
amount of money you will win. Your opponents' various mistakes
per hour will cost them various amounts of money. If the hands
were reversed, you wouldn't make these mistakes, and this
difference is your hourly rate. That's all there is to it. If they play
a hand against you differently from the way you would play it five
times an hour, and if it's a $2 mistake on average, that's a $10-
an-hour gain for you.
To assume you play perfectly is, of course, a big assumption.
Few if any of us play perfectly all of the time, but that is what we
strive for. Furthermore, it is important to realize that there is not
one particular correct way to play a poker hand as there is in most
bridge hands. On the contrary, you must adjust to your opponents
and mix up your play, even against the same opponents.
Furthermore, it is sometimes correct to play incorrectly! You
may, for example, purposely make an inferior play to gain in a
future hand or future round of betting. You also may play less
than optimally against weak opponents who have only a limited
amount to lose or when you yourself are on a short bankroll. In
these cases it is not correct to push small edges. You should not
put in the maximum raises as a small favorite. You should fold
hands that are marginally worth calling. You have reduced your
hourly rate but have ensured yourself a win. Why give weaker
players any chance to get lucky and quit big winners or get lucky
and bust you if you are on a short bankroll? You'll still get the
money playing less than optimally. It will just take a few more
hours.
You should try to assess most poker games in terms of your
expected hourly rate by noticing what mistakes your opponents
are making and how much these mistakes are costing them. Don't
sit in a game with an insufficient hourly rate projection unless you
think the game will become better — either because you expect
some weaker players to arrive soon or because some good players
in the game have a tendency to start playing badly when they are
losing. If these good players jump off winners, you should quit if
you can. However, it is sometimes good to continue in a game
with a low hourly rate projection for political reasons — you do
not want to get a reputation for gambling only when you have
much the best of it.
