I’ve mentioned before that I sometimes read Card Player magazine even though I’m not a poker player. On occasion I find information in there that I can apply to my own gambling career — which is almost entirely video poker.
So it was that I was reading an article by Brian Pempus in the December 14, 2011 issue. It was about the World Series of Poker main event. As you probably know, most of the WSOP this year took place from May 31 through mid-July. The Final 9 of the main event then took a four-and-a-half-month break and returned in early November to finish things off.
ESPN has been airing a delayed-telecast version of poker events for years. In these broadcasts, only the “interesting” or “critical” hands are shown — and a 10-hour live event can be shown in less than one hour.
But for the final table this year, in addition to the regular format, ESPN showed an almost-live broadcast, including revealing the hole cards, delayed 15 minutes. The players were not insulated from this — but instead got regular feedback from friends in the audience about whether they were ahead or behind when they folded a particular hand.
Afterwards the players in the event were asked whether they liked this or not. I found the answers by Pius Heinz, the eventual winner of the event, to be the most revealing.
Heinz said knowing the hole cards 15 minutes later didn’t change much of anything. “Just being sure which particular part of the range he had at any given time is actually not that interesting, because you know what’s in his range anyway. Just picking random hands out of his range and realizing what he had isn’t that important overall to your play.”
Translating this into video poker results, this is like saying your current results of your play isn’t very interesting. You’ve made your decisions and whatever happens happens. The results you get in the short run are only loosely correlated with the strength of your decisions.
Later he told of one case where he actually used the information from the 15-minute delay to his advantage. He had lost a big chip lead to eventual runner-up Martin Staszko by folding a lot of Staszko’s raises. What the 15-minute delay showed him was that he was playing correctly. When Staszko raised, he had the goods. Heinz was folding correctly. He was merely going through a period of being card-dead and wasn’t being outplayed.
I’m just waiting to hear a video poker player talk like this. “It’s a good game. I’m playing great. I’m down a couple of royals, but everything is wonderful!” Instead what I usually hear is “Life sucks! I’m down a couple of royals! Everybody gets them except me! Why me?”
I’m not a poker expert and I can’t judge Heinz’s poker skills. But I am a gambling expert and I can definitely conclude that he talks a good game. He definitely understands what is important in the winning process.
In the past in the WSOP we’ve had winners who called everything and kept winning because the cards came their way again and again. This was not the route Heinz took. As near as I can tell, in 2011 the WSOP definitely crowned a worthy winner in the main event.