[Jimbo]

In the Scott Fishmann thread I made the below statement:

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After all in pool the key to wining is not being better than your oponnent, just in matching up better (getting the proper weight) so that you have the advantage.


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and got encouragement to follow up in a seperate thread. Here it is. Initially I may be brief but will add to it as required.

In many respects this applies to most sports and games including poker. I'd have a hard time thinking of any game or sport I couldn't match up and have at least a 50/50 chance of winning. Naturally this is the definition of matching up properly. Who want's to do that? The key to matching up is for your oponnent to perceive the matchup as either equal or to their advantage while in reality it is to yours.

This is most commonly done by sandbagging, golf and bowling are two great examples of where this is done. The limitations and downsides of sandbagging are many. First it limits you to people normally outside your circle of friends and locality. Easily overcome by either travelling or living somewhere like Las Vegas where they will travel to you. The major downside is unless you stay fully in control, and are very careful about when and how well you play physical punishment may be inflicted upon your precious body. So if you are going to sandbag, be very very good at looking lucky.

In the past I matched up by simply being willing not to play if the game wasn't in my favor. Heck once I played $5 dominoes for three hours listening to a well known one pocket player (who was of course being staked himself) run back and forth between me and his backers sweetening the spot untill I knew I had both the pure nuts and room to spare. Five sets and five grand later they figured it out too. Funny thing is just when we were about to adjust where they would have had a slight edge the stakehorse pulled up so I didn't have to give back a single barrel. If you are not sure what I mean by that or why I would be willing to do so feel free to ask.

Getting the nuts is good, getting that plus room to spare is much much better. After all the best thing about matching up vastly in your favor is that you can play a session, collect your cash, adjust, play another session, collect more cash and then adjust again. Nothing is more enjoyable than the rare occurrance to be getting the weight when you should be giving it. This used to happen to me more than was reasonable for two simple reasons. One, I didn't look like or act a pool player (what ever that means, at least so I was told). I wore glases and owned three businesses at the time that this happened most frequently. All the road players knew that I would bet high, and loved to "gamble". They were always half right, I never liked to be gambling against road players. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I've got three good stories about geting weight when I could have been giving it I'll share sometime as well. One involves George Breedlove, Big John and Jeanette Lee. Another is a solid road player named Garcia from Colorado Springs, I bet Ray Zee knows all four of these players as many of you will as well.

Getting close to lunchtime, I hope this post is entertaining, please feel free to comment positively or negatively. After all if I'm gonna dish it out to others I need to be willing to take it as well.

Jimbo