Cross Training for Poker

BY: Ashley Adams
Contact at: (Asha34@aol.com)
Author of Winning 7-Card Stud

I needed a pair of walking shoes. Normally I'd buy a pair of Rockports. But I was asking around among my athletic friends and they all recommended that I stop in at the nearby New Balance outlet. They assured me that among the dozens if not hundreds of styles of sneakers, that there would be a shoe to fit my walking needs. And all at 50% to 60% off retail. Such a deal! I couldn't resist.

So I went to my nearby New Balance outlet. I looked around. It had been a while since I had purchased decent sneakers. For me, sneakers were for basketball and track and field - activities I gave up over 30 years ago. I bought them if I was on a business trip, only had oxfords or other serious business type shoes, and wanted to go for a walk. And then I'd just buy the cheapest pair I could find - the type you see in pharmacies and supermarkets in the large circular metal bins in the middle of the store. That's what I usually wore. No wonder my feet were killing me much of the time.

Anyway, here I was in this huge sneaker universe, feeling very disoriented and confused. I asked one of the clerks where I might find some sneakers that would suit my walking needs. He suggested I look at their nice collection of cross-trainers. "Cross-trainers?" I asked. "Yeah, " he said. "You know. Athletic shoes that you can use for many different sports. Athletes in one sport often do another sport just to get them better at the first sport. These are just the right sneakers for guys who do that. And they're perfect for aggressive morning walks."

Well, he didn't convince me to spend the $80 for discounted fancy sneakers. But he did get me to thinking about poker. Allow me to elaborate.

I often recommend that hold 'em players take up stud so that they'll be able to sit down at the juicy stud games that pop up from time to time on line and in casinos. I counsel that it's good to have a second and even a third game to increase your poker options. Choice is good because you don't want to miss the bad players at any table.

But there's another very good reason for hold em' players to learn stud and vice versa. It's a good exercise in cross-training. Hold 'em players can pick up excellent skills at the stud table that will help them when they return to hold 'em. And stud players will pick up skills while playing hold 'em that they can use later at the stud tables. That's the reason that athletes cross train - and it works in poker as well.

The cross-training stud player playing hold em will not be able to use his finely honed card memory skills at the hold em table. But this will free up energy to focus on the other aspects of the game of poker that are important to winning play. He'll be forced to more carefully consider the betting action of his opponents. In stud, sometimes, it's tough enough just to keep track of the folded cards - using that information to put people on hands while evaluating your chances and the chances of your opponents to improve based on the cards you estimate are remaining in the deck. With none of that information available, there is less to consider - meaning that you can consider more deeply the information that is available to you. Absent exposed and folded cards all you have to go on is what the opponent's action is and what his image and your image have been. Hold 'em is, for the stud player, like a boxer training with one hand literally tied to his side to help develop his other arm. By immobilizing his dominant arm the boxer is forced to use and develop his underdeveloped one until both arms are appropriately toned.

The stud player often needs to hone those reading skills necessary to figure out an opposing player's likely hand based on his behavior - not his cards. By depriving a stud player of the exposed cards, hold 'em forces him to work on this skill that is too often neglected by the stud player.

Similarly, a hold em player at the stud table must develop skills that he doesn't use at the hold em table. He is faced with exposed cards that give him additional insight into his opponents' likely hands. He must learn to use this information to his advantage. This means broadening his thinking. The Hold Em player also must learn how to incorporate all of this knowledge into how he views his prospects for improving his hand and the prospects of his opponents improving their hand. Hold Em requires little or none of this skill.

This broadened skill set can only help but improve the Hold 'Em players Hold 'em skills as well. By learning to remember folded cards, and consider them when contemplating the likely hands of his opponents, he'll train his brain to better remember all details.

The stud experience aids the hold em player much as a leaded bat in baseball aides the batter. The ball player practices his swings with the leaded back. His body becomes accustomed to the extra weight of it. When he then switches back to the wooden bat it feels very light - swinging it seems nearly effortless. So too with the hold em player. Having gotten used to the additional concentration and memory skills required at the stud table, the hold em player returns to the hold em table with a strengthened ability to concentrate and focus on the fewer matters at hand - improving his game in the process.

There are risks to this exercise - just as there are in athletic cross-training. Hold em players playing stud sometimes fail to adjust their starting hand requirements properly when they are considering their stud hands. They play too many hands like (AdKd)3s - seeing the Ace King suited and thinking it more valuable than it is in a stud game. Similarly, Stud players may be tempted to call with their mini flush draws like 9c4c of Jd3d - generally trash hands in hold em. Cross-training hold em and stud players must make sure to acclimate themselves to the game their in, not the one they were last in.

Like athletic endeavors the cross-training poker player will improve his overall poker skills by applying what he knows from one game to the other. He will cease to be a specialist as he becomes a better overall and well rounded player. And in so doing he will improve his ability to win at any other poker game, like Omaha or Stud8, that he decides to tackle.

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