By John Vorhaus

Something smart players do (and we do too if we’re smart) is keep a constant lookout for incipient leaks in their play. When things start to go wrong, they don’t just sit around and mope and hope for better days. They investigate, with clear-eyed honesty and vigor, and try to figure out what the heck has changed. Sometimes it’s just a matter of luck; variance. People do run bad, after all, for no reason whatsoever. More often, though there’s a hidden basis for negative results, and the hunt for hidden causes is what separates perennial winners from long-term losers.

Not long ago, I noticed one of these hidden holes in my game, and it has caused me to undergo a shocking reappraisal of my play. As you know, I have worked hard to become a Killer Poker player, a paragon of aggressive, even hyper-aggressive, bully behavior at the table. Lately, though, I have found my aggressiveness getting me out ahead of my hand time and time again, and putting me in a situation where I’m trapped between bad choices: Either continue to bet a hand that shouldn’t be bet, or back off and surrender the hand to the first person who plays back at me. I call this phenomenon driving dead, and here’s how it works:

You’re in early position with a moderately strong hand like A-Q suited. Killer Poker says, “Raise! Raise!” so you do. But your opponents know you to be hyper-aggressive, so they call you, even though their hands (K-J, T-9s) may be inferior to yours. Once you get callers, you more or less have to hit the flop, because if you don’t you can’t be sure that no one else did either. These are, after all, foes whom you’ve trained through your aggressiveness to call with very-nearly-random hands. If you miss, but bet anyhow, you run the risk (face the certainty, usually) of being called by people who caught a little something-something and, again based on your aggressive image, figure they might have the best of it. If you miss and don’t bet, you’ve waved the white flag. Hand over. Next case. You’ve put yourself in a lose-lose situation (unless you hit the flop) by calling too much attention to yourself through your raise.

Why is the raiser so exposed? Because his raise announced the strength of his hand, and, based on that announced strength, he is expected to continue to bet on the flop. His failure to do so is regarded as weakness - but his continued betting is not necessarily regarded as a sign of strength. This is the true danger of driving dead: You end up betting hands you don’t have because, as the initial raiser, you figure you’re expected to bet, and you just can’t cower out by checking and folding every time.

What to do? Back off a little. Call some hands that you would normally raise with. Let someone else take the lead from time to time. Let other aggressive players get out ahead of their hands. In other words, let the other guy drive dead.

“Go big or go home” has been my mantra. In service of this mantra, I now see, I had fallen into the habit of virtually always either raising or folding. But habits are dangerous in poker because habits expose patterns, and patterns can be read by foes who are paying attention. In my case, my habit of rarely calling and nearly always raising hands with even sub-premium hands has taught my foes to call me more often than I’d like. They simply won’t let me run all over them, and so, in a sense, they have taken away the strength of my raise.

So now I’m adjusting my play. I’m calling instead of raising with some of my semi-strong hands. I am, in a sense, letting the game come to me. It’s still early days with this strategy, and I’m not sure I’ll stick with it. It seems to run counter to my mantra, and boy, I love that mantra. Still, I feel good about having identified a problem and, at least tentatively, embarked on a path to solution.

A related problem is my tendency to get overly excited about a specific hand: 9-8 suited. Some time ago, I convinced myself that this was a fabulous hand, with all sorts of wonderfully deceptive value. My main thinking was this: If I raise with this hand and hit, not only will no one put my on a big holding, but also those cards are not likely to help all the big-card callers I typically get. The fly in this particular ointment is, obviously, you just don’t hit a big flop that often, and any time the board comes rich in overcards, you really have to fold your tent and go. You might try to drive a naked bluff through the field, but if you have revealed yourself as a frisky player (which I generally do because it pays other sorts of dividends) you’re going to get called down.

I still think that there’s a time and a place for the “creative” raise, but not all the time, and not every place. I was over-enthusiastic about 9-8 suited. That has stopped. I was routinely raising with semi-strong hands, and shining an unwanted spotlight on my actions. That has stopped. I was constantly driving dead, but that has stopped because constantly anything in poker is not a good idea.

So take this idea to heart. If you’re running bad, it may be that you have put yourself into unprofitable patterns of play. In my case, I’ve been playing too aggressively. In your case, you may be playing too passively… or over-valuing small pairs, or falling below the anyace line, or a hundred other things. Whatever your flaws, ferret them out with honesty and humility, and then eradicate them mercilessly. This is the true path to Killer Poker.

John Vorhaus is the author of POKER NIGHT and the KILLER POKER series. Excerpts and ordering information are available at his website, www.vorza.com.

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