JV'S KILLER POKER:
DEMASIADO

BY: John Vorhaus

Demasiado is a beautiful word. Demasiado means "too much" in Spanish, and just now I want you to learn this word, demasiado, and memorize it (demasiado, demasiado, demasiado) and treat it like your new mantra for when you next play poker. Why will you do this? Hey, I was right about little poison, wasn't I? Did it not fix an incredibly gaping hole in your game when you started treating the bottom half of the deck as toxic and anathema. Of course it did! Well, the same with demasiado. Since there are certain things that you do too much, this is a concept you need to learn.

Here's one thing you do too much: You defend your big blind. I don't know why. Maybe you've taken some dubious math into your head that says you're always getting correct odds to call a raise in the big blind. Or perhaps it's just sheer cussed-mindedness on your part. Most likely you've become so accustomed to having your blinds attacked that you no longer give a second thought to throwing in that second bet. Well, demasiado! You do that too much! I don't care how good your so-called pot odds are, if you waste an extra bet on a codpiece like 8-3 offsuit (or, for heaven's sake, suited) you're not only asking to lose that extra bet, you're also begging to pee away several more bets when you catch something godawful like bottom pair, and then buy into the fantasy of hitting trips on the turn. Basta! (That's another Spanish word you should know. It means enough! - stop doing this right now before you hurt yourself even more, you blessed, blessed fool!) Some blinds are worth defending. Others are not. Stop feeling like you have to defend them all, and your performance will improve.

Here's another thing you do too much. You call with aces. Sure, you appreciate the distinction between good aces and bad aces. But yet, when you get one of those beauties in your hand, you can't seem to throw it away. It's like aces come with special glue that make them stick to your fingers. Sigh. If only your chips behaved the same way. You know what happens to bad aces, don't you? That's right, they lose to good aces! So make this simple change. Next time you see an ace in your hand and find it wholly unsupported by your second card, just whisper demasiado and slip it into the muck. Trust me... the bets you save will be your own.

And hey, if you don't want to whisper demasiado, but rather shout it out loud, by all means go ahead and do so. If your foes have no idea what you're talking about, if demasiado seems like just some nonsense word you shout, why, then you'll strike them as the sort of person capable of shouting nonsense words in the midst of a poker game. If you don't know it by now, that's a very good thing.

Demasiado! You call with drawing hands against single opponents way too much. I know! I've watched you do it. You'll flop a flush draw or an open-ended straight draw, and your single foe will bet. The thought will briefly cross your mind that you don't have odds to call, but you'll call anyway, because you only need one more card to complete your hand, and this could be the time. Goodness! Demasiado! Look, if you're 3 to 1 or 4 to 1 against completing your hand, and you're only getting 1 to 1 return on your investment, you'll never make money that way. Even when you win you lose.

Demasiado: You drive hopeless bluffs into calling stations on the river. And you put too much faith in A-2 in Omaha/8. And you play far too recklessly during the rebuy period of a tournament, following the dubious logic that one or two (or six!) more rebuys won't kill you. And you let yourself become distracted or annoyed or aggravated or angry by the behavior of other players. And you go on tilt. And you play hunches. And you take the worst of it when you know you have the worst of it.

Am I wrong? Fine, I'm wrong. You don't have any of these flaws in your game. But you have others. So the question is, what are they? And the further question is, are you man enough (or woman enough) to face them frankly and write them down?

Do it now. Take out a piece of paper and write the word demasiado across the top. Then write a list of all the things you do too much of during the course of your play. Do you make too many loose calls? Write that down. Do you have too many beers? Raise too brazenly with trash? Call too often when you know you're beaten? Write that down! Then take this list you've written and tape it to the dashboard of your car, so that you can scan it and muse upon it en route to the place you play. Cement in your mind all of your crazy-making demasiados, so that when you find yourself in a situation which tempts you to do the wrong thing, you can muster the awareness and the strength of will (and may I say courage) to do less of the wrong thing and more of the right thing instead.

Demasiado proves the principle that less is more: Less surrender to obvious mistakes equals more chips for you. What could be simpler than that?

(John Vorhaus is author of the KILLER POKER series and News Ambassador for UltimateBet.com.)