“Be water, my friend”
February 16th, 2006 | Published in Live play, Tournaments
“Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless. Like water. Now, you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle… now water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”
Bruce Lee, from “The Lost Interview†*, quoting a line that his character spoke in the US TV show “Longstreet†in 1971.
On Wednesday nights, channel five (here in Britain) have been showing an event known as the Party Poker European Open. The format is the now-traditional six-handed no-limit hold’em tournament where the winner of each heat goes through to a semi-final and subsequent final.
These have been running for almost two months now and occasionally one of the episodes is fun to watch. My favourite so far featured Dave Colclough being driven nuts by a (possibly Turkish) guy he didn’t know who was frequently going all-in whenever he entered a pot. Somehow they ended up heads-up at the end. Colclough had had enough at that point and on the first hand he called the inevitable all-in bet without even looking at his cards because he just wanted to get it over with. He turned over one seven then another seven, smiled at his opponent, who turned over Q8 offsuit which didn’t improve and Colclough took the win. After his opponent had left the table, Colclough sat with his elbows on the felt and his head in his hands and told the dealer that he didn’t think he could get up at the moment because his legs had gone.
They’re not usually that interesting though. Often, I end up sitting there wincing at the bonehead plays that the amateurs make, wondering how the hell some of these people qualified in the first place. Okay, so it’s easy for me to criticise people when I’ve never qualified for one of these events and I’ve never been in that game situation – under the hot studio lights, against pro players – but really, there are only so many times that you can watch people re-raising with QT offsuit before the flop at a full table before you flip out and start shouting at the TV, just like you do at a game show contestant who doesn’t know a really obvious answer.
The player who does this crazy kind of thing though is typically a bar manager or sales manager from the Midlands with one or two years experience in the game, who has been successful in his field and who sits there desperately trying to look casual in wraparound shades. And boy has he taken to heart the idea that aggression is rewarded in poker. I mean, god help you if he thinks you’re trying to bully him, because he WILL instantly call an all-in bet before the flop with say, Ah Qh on the first hand of the tournament (yeah, that’s a real-life example from a few weeks ago which backfired spectacularly). Because he is NOT going to be bullied. Hell no!
Okay, here’s what makes me laugh about these guys though. Last week, in the brief player interviews they show between hands to pad out the production, one of these guys described himself as an “aggressive” player, then went on to say how these tournaments were “anybody’s game”, blah, blah, etc. Clearly it’s very fashionable these days to be seen as an aggressive player. (That’s an understatement really). After all, it’s the way Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen and Layne Flack play and they are all winners right? But personally, I think it’s crazy to voluntarily label yourself like that. Ivey, Hansen, Flack et al like to promote the idea that they are aggressive players to intimidate people, because it makes less experienced players believe that they could be playing any two cards at any time – although sometimes they are, of course. The truth is that they do play aggressively… some of the time. But what makes them such good players is their ability to be selectively aggressive; to understand the flow of the game around them; to thrust or parry at exactly the appropriate time. All Joe Bloggs is doing by labelling himself as “aggressive” is putting up a facade. He’s trying to pretend that he’s just like the big boys, as if aggression by itself will be enough and as long as he plays aggressively, he can negate the gap in skill level between himself and his opponents. It’s really an admission that he can’t outplay good players but he’s still trying to convince everyone (most of all, himself) that at least he won’t go down without a fight. But really, what’s so wrong with waiting and giving yourself time to outplay people, rather than going all-in on the first hand when you’re 50/50 at best, thereby letting luck decide your fate? For me, there is much more merit in being adaptable, being fluid and picking your spots if the situation allows you to. I read a magazine interview with Scott Fischman the other day that described his style as “adaptive”. That’s how I would want my game to be described (if I ever got interviewed by a magazine – like that’s going to happen any time soon), or perhaps just as “Style: not applicable”. As Bruce Lee said, “Be water, my friend.”
* Bruce Lee – The Lost Interview:
Partial interview here:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/23744/bruce_lee_lost_interview/
Available on VHS from Amazon.com:
Instead, you can read Wil’s roundup of the tournament on the Card Squad website here: