The art of Poker is being able to get the biggest pot out of the hand that you know is a winner. If you come on too strong, you will scare everyone out of the game unless they, too, have a good hand. If you lay back in the weeds and let them come to you, your chances of a big pot increase. So I like your strategy. There is a Taoist feel to it that a frat-boy or stand-up comic could never fathom.

As for life, there is an old saying, that no one thinks about anymore in our loud-mouth society: "Still waters run deep".

i really enjoyed this article. I'm a mix-it-up player as well and have played poker since I was a kid. I have never read a book on poker. My mix-it-up strategy invites a lot of criticism from my poker friends. Good article, keep it up man.

Nobody actually wins at the game of life, the ending is always the same for everybody, ya end up holding a dead hand. The only thing to do is to try is to play the game with some kind of passion,that is off center, that brings knowing looks for those around you, knowing that you see life as more then just some straight set of rules from some book or governement above you, yet doing your obligations towards family and friends. In the end you just vacate your chair so somebody else can sit down and play. Hopefully you set an example to be followed.

Slowplaying a set can get you in a lot of trouble, but I think it's the right play on a flop and turn like that with no straight or flush draws, especially since Fratboy overbet the hell out of the pot on the turn, certain that you were a complete donkey. But why do you not check-raise all-in on the river? Is there any real chance that he has QQ or, even more unlikely, 33? Worst case scenario, he all-of-a-sudden decides you're not a donkey and makes a big laydown, in which case your winnings are the same as if you just call his river bet. More likely, he snap-calls without even considering that he may not have the best hand, and you're a lot richer.

I realize that that's all beside the point of your post. But I guess my point, as a fellow poker- and lifeplayer inclined towards slowplaying, is that it's valuable to let people underestimate you most of the time, but if action falls right into your lap and you have the option either of shocking people mildly or blowing their minds (and chipstacks), you make your move. No reason to be prudent on that river. You said you could tell he didn't have the nuts; make him pay even more for having a read on you that is inferior to yours on him.

My brother gambles for a living - yes - that is his 'job'. Much of his gambling is at the poker table. I've seen him in action and he is a slow player like you. He actually wants other players to think he doesn't know how to play. That's his strategy. He comes away winning every time and still manages to make the table think he was just 'lucky'. It's genius and I've witnessed it. Difference between him and you is that he doesn't give a rat's ass if the other players think he sucks. He's got their money.

So my advice, ditch the pride and play like you play and keep on winning. As far as life goes, well, you are on your own!

Thanks for comments, all. It's good to see a poker-related blog post gets this kind of healthy response.

Baroque, your point that I could have gone all-in is a good one. In this case, I had a specific personal reason not to -- I was playing this tournament with my brother, my father and my stepmother (poker players all), and since it was a "family affair" I did not want to risk being knocked out so early in the match even in the unlikely circumstance that frat-boy was sitting on queens full or (even more remote) four threes. So, yeah, I failed to make the "balls of steel" move and risk my participation in the tournament on the hand. I hedged my bet. One could say I didn't play this perfectly for this reason, but given my desire to enjoy a long tournament with my parents and brother, I do think I played it perfectly for my specific circumstances.

The other night I was at dinner in Las Vegas listening to the man next to me unburden himself of his poker tactics to me. In the process he also included his credentials, which were more impressive than mine given that he had lived for an extra 50 years. Most of his information sounded like a basic college statistics course. He included favorites like pot odds, percentage bets, and necessary raises. Other proffered information included never to raise low pairs pre-flop and such book-heavy advice.

I am always ready to listen to strategy arguments as it helps me to hash out my own to hear it out loud, whether poker, political, literary, etc. But when I brought up my point, hardly revolutionary, that although it is important to know the odds, you cannot play them every time. If you did play the book every hand, anyone at the table who knew the book would know your hand every time. Plus it takes all the fun out of it. And I know theres money involved, but I generally walk away as soon as it stops being fun.

That same night I wandered into the poker room at The Wynn around 4.30 am on my way home from a long night, also with family. I bought in, sat down, and started playing. The rest of the table turned out to be all local players waiting for slightly intoxicated people to come in and try their luck. The whole table underestimated us and tried to bully us around, which I allowed until I hit trips on a flop. I let him bet every time and reluctantly called. On the river I checked, he bet big, I raised small to appear weak, then he put me all in. Which I called immediately. This caught quite a few chuckles from his local buddies at the table. Having been more than doubled up I cashed in after a few more hands, went to bed, and slept well, pondering what the book would have told me to do.

Nice description of the poker game. It could be part of a novel. Maybe a follow-up to Summer of the Mets.

And remember, maybe the guy meant for you to "overhear" him, as a tactic to make you careless. I'm not much of a poker player, but we used to play spades in the Navy, and one guy would always rag somebody about "sandbagging" - bidding low - until the victim would feel "shamed" into overbidding and lose bigtime.

That's great, Rubiao -- sounds like my story is more universal than I realized. I feel so loved.

I'm not sure what "the book" that everyone is referring to is, but neither conventional wisdom nor any actual, reputable poker book advocates playing transparently at a poker table. You vary the way you play based on how everyone else is playing and to keep from being predictable.

Plus, slow playing is not an unheard of or unconventional tactic. In fact, the reason many poker books generally advise against it is that people do it too often.

Baroque, "by the book" is actually a misnomer that means "by the numbers". A player who flops three of a kind is making a statistically smart move by betting big, thus preventing his opponents from catching a straight or a flush or a bigger hand (which is exactly what happened when I failed to bet big on my three eights in the story above).

I agree that most actual books encourage players to mix it up. That's exactly my point. A conformist, "by the book" approach to poker is obviously self-defeating, and yet if you sit at a poker table today I bet you will hear a lot of the same kind of "me too" rules-based betting that I describe. It's amazing to me as well.

I know the tale above is about the hands played but rather than "frat-boy": "His hair had so much mousse, the lights reflected it giving a halo effect. The brand-of-the-month swiss chronometer and the Cohiba cigar in the pocket of the sports shirt that cost the price of a rack of discount t-shirts completed the image of a man projecting an image, a man so alone and uncomfortable with himself, that the uniform said what the absent frat pin would have."
There could be descriptions of the other players.
This is only a suggestion.
Sometimes the cookie-cutter stereotypes work best in flash fiction.