TV Poker – the Training Aid

Although I am a big fan of watching the final table of a large event, it can be misleading to novices. To any veteran of poker, they understand that once at this level, the most common move is all-in because of the cost of the blinds and antes compared to their stack size. To someone who is new to poker, they see this as a common practice and often will use what they see on TV in their first few tournaments.

What some people do now understand is that throughout the tournament, the people at this final table did not play at all like they do at the final table. When the blinds are 5,000/10,000, you ante 1,000 per hand and there are 6 players at the table, you are paying 21,000 per orbit of the puck. You need to make moves to keep from being blinded off the table. When the blinds first start at 25-50, everyone has plenty of chips and you can either be picky on what you play or you can be adventurous without little worry of going bust in those first few hands.

To play like the players do at a final table in the beginning of a tournament will either break you or cause you to get lucky and gather some chips. Tournaments last days and I seem to remember someone once telling me that in all the years of the WSOP Main Event, the chip leader after day one has never made the final table. I believe it. Bad players excel at first because the good players do not want to bust out and they know that sooner or later, that bad player is going to make that fatal error. First hand of WSOP and you look down at QQ and someone goes all-in would you call? I surely wouldn’t.

Now there’s the PPT on TV and they show the event from start to finish. Much better in my books and you will see people laying down KJ suited to a raise. However, it is not the end all to TV poker as they only show TV worthy hands. So take TV poker with a grain of salt. Pick up a good poker book instead, hey maybe I will write one.