The Quicksand Theory

            The final piece I’d like to focus on for our blog assignment is the theory of “The Quicksand Trap”. It’s common knowledge that if one gets stuck in quicksand that they will sink faster if they are struggling harder. The same can be said about poker. One costly mistake can lead to several others and before a player knows it, they are totally broke. It’s not a new concept to the game; in fact most people call it “tilting”, but I found quicksand to be a more appropriate metaphor for the actions that take place.

            There are fundamentals which should be followed in order to avoid falling into the Quicksand Trap. First is good bankroll management. If you walk into a casino or start playing online, the general rule is that you should have at least fifteen buy-ins for the game you wish to play. So if you want to play $1/$2 no-limit where the maximum buy-in is $200, then you should have at least $3000 that you are willing to play with so that you can handle the swings of the game but not go broke. Another, and while this sounds simple, it is a hard discipline to master, is patience and self-realization. You need to be able to see where mistakes are made, and in the world of online poker there are several different forms of software that will help you detect leaks in your game. Unfortunately this doesn’t exist in the real world.

            Let’s say you’re playing at a $1/$2 6-max cash game and your opponent raises in middle position with A♠K♠ to $8. We obviously can’t know exactly what his exact holding is, but we call on the button with A♦T♦. Both blinds fold and we go to the flop. Both players have exactly $200 in their stacks and the pot is $19. The flop comes out A♣T♠4♦. So we’ve gotten lucky here and outflopped our opponent. In this situation we are a huge favorite to win the pot. Our opponent continuation bets to $16 and we just call. We go to the turn with a pot of $51 and the turn is the K♦. This is by far the worst card in the deck for us. Not only does it make a better two pair for our opponent, but it’s also going to be hard for us to believe that we’re beat here. Maybe we were slow-playing the flop so we could hope for another bet from our opponent on the turn. He bets again, this time he for $40. Again, in our minds there isn’t much to think about here. The pot is $91 and we have $168 left behind. We could shove all-in now, but we decide to just call. We go to the river with $131 in the pot and $138 left behind. There’s almost no shot that all the money doesn’t go in here. Hoping to get paid off, our opponent shove all-in for his last $138. We call and see the bad news. This is where the Quicksand Theory comes into play. Many players would then reload for another $200 and go after the $200 that they just lost in the previous hand, so they start raising with weak holdings and playing super aggressive. This is something that your opponents will pick up on very quickly and by doing this you’ve just put a target on your back. There’s not much you could have done to avoid losing that pot; it was just bad luck. However, by realizing that this was just one hand out of many that you will play and not struggling to get “your” money back, you can continue to play your best game and avoid this trap.

            These kinds of things do happen in poker. While skill and knowledge can give you a huge edge over your opponents, luck does factor in. Even the best in the game go broke. The most important thing to do is move on, accept it, and continue to play to the best of your ability.

            As always, questions and comments are welcome.