It was a pretty bad poker session in my $3/5 game. My pairs didn’t flop sets, my draws didn’t arrive, but the other people’s draws did arrive. Or maybe they didn’t arrive, but I wasn’t willing to pay to find out if they were telling the truth. After a while, I found myself in a 200 BB hole. As any honest poker player can tell you, 200 BB holes are not unusual events in Texas Hold’em, but they’re still not any fun.
And speaking of telling the truth, I made a couple of triple-barrel bluffs, one of which was (correctly) called by king-high, and the other by pocket fours on a Broadway-filled board. To my credit, after the latter hand, I decided that it was time for fresh air, and I walked down the block to the convenience store to get a bottle of sparkling water.
The walk to the store was filled with self-doubt as I wondered if I had some screaming tell that allowed my opponent to find that call. But by the time I was walking back, I had decided that no, they just had a penchant for hero-calling that I hadn’t fully grasped.
The rest of the return walk was devoted to congratulating myself on leaving the table immediately after the hand. And that’s what I’m here to talk about.
The first rule of holes
There is an old adage called “The first rule of holes.” It says:
If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
There is a poker term for continuing to dig when you’re in a hole – we call it “tilt.” Now, I’m a cash game player, and don’t play tournaments. But there is a wonderful self-limiting component to tournament tilt: if you become sufficiently tilted to dust off your chip stack, they make you leave. It’s like a barkeep taking the car keys from an inebriated customer and putting that person into a Lyft – already the damage control has begun.
Cash game poker players don’t have this fail-safe – there’s nothing except running out of money to prevent you from digging deeper into the hole.
Fortunately, as I’ve aged and matured (like a cheese, I suppose) I’ve gotten much better about putting down the shovel. For instance, jumping up from my seat after a hand like that, and taking a full orbit off to reset, evaluate, and re-center.
On my walk back to the club, I made up the following FAQ:
Q: “Is the game still good?”
A: “Indubitably. There are many bad players at the table, all of whom love putting money in the pot with weak hands. And on the bright side, I’ve helped a few of them have deep stacks.”
Q: “Am I playing well?”
A: “Yes. I think that I am playing well. Even that last bluff that got picked off was well constructed. And it probably works plenty often to be profitable. This just wasn’t one of those times.
Q: “Am I having fun, or would I rather be home reading a book?”
A: “Yes, I’m having fun. It’s an enjoyable game and the people at the table are light of spirit and good-humored. I don’t have to fade any toxic energy.”
Q: “How am I feeling physically and mentally?”
A: “Great. I was thirsty, but this 20 oz sparkling water solved that problem.”
So I was well positioned to go back and play a solid poker strategy. Yes, I was in a hole, but that is the nature of the game we play. It was simply a time to think about ladders rather than shovels.
Given that my opponents seemed to be in a calling mood, I resolved to simply show up with the goods whenever we piled money into the pot. Certainly the pocket fours hand had attracted plenty of notice, and they all saw that I’d gone three streets with a combo draw that never arrived. Hopefully that marketing expenditure would pay off.
While I waited for my turn to make the best hand, I reflected on the “First rule of holes.” There’s a poker pro named Charlie Wilmouth who I deeply respect. On the subject of bad sessions, and downswings, Charlie restates the “First rule of holes” even more succinctly:
Don’t make it worse.
As I retook my seat, and posted my big blind, I found that to be a comforting mantra. The cards would come, or they wouldn’t, before I decided to go home. But while I was waiting for the deck to make up its mind about favoring me, I had a really important job: “Don’t make it worse.”
- QJo is not an open from early position.
- You don’t call 66 cold behind a 3-bet.
- Second pair, no kicker, and a three-flush is not enough to call a bet in a four-way flop.
Finding a ladder
Again, there was no promise that I would receive a ladder out of the hole during the remainder of my session. My job was to look for the ladder, and keep my hands off the shovel.
As it happened, though, a ladder did indeed appear. I got queens all-in versus a shorter stacked opponent, who had AK. There was a queen on the flop, and that made things easy.
Then I flopped a set of tens against an aggressive player, and got to jam over his raise on the turn. He tanked for quite a while, but ultimately made the right decision and folded.
The final couple of rungs on the ladder came when I flopped a set of fives on a T♣️-5♠️-3♣️ flop. Hint: sets make good ladders if you’re in a hole. I bet small, and, much to my surprise, got two calls on the flop. Another ten came on the turn, solving any concerns about the flush draw. I bet more, the first opponent raised, the second opponent shoved, and, well… It took the dealer three scoops to get the entire pot to me.
A little while later, I discovered that I was out of the hole, and actually into the black for the first time in the entire session.
I ended the evening not long after that, with a modest profit. If you’ve ever been stuck heaps, then recovered and booked a small win, you know that there’s little more gratifying in this game.
One rung at a time
If a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, then a ladder to the stars begins with a single rung. It helped me to focus not on the depth of the hole that I was in, but on building one rung of the ladder that would get me out.
One good decision is one rung on the ladder out of the hole.
And I kept Charlie Wilmouth’s words in my head: “Don’t make it worse.” By focusing on decisions, and a determination not to make it worse, I kept my head above water until the right cards came along to rescue me.
As I wrote the above paragraph, I had to chuckle – it sounds so easy when I’m sitting here at my laptop. Stop digging. Don’t make it worse.
But just like climbing out of a hole, “Not making it worse” is a ladder too. The first rung is to repeat those phrases to yourself. Maybe the next rung is walking down to the corner store for sparkling water. Sometimes the next rung is getting in your car and driving home.
Good playing decisions will build the ladder out of the financial hole. Mastering your poker mindset and making good quitting decisions will prevent you from digging any deeper.
It really is that simple: Don’t make it worse.
