Question for Johnny Hughes and other old timers

[fungaimike56]

One of those suckouts endured by Bobby Baldwin is featured in the first page of 'The Theory of Poker' in which Baldwin is quoted to the effect that good players are at war with luck and that though they will be sucked out on a lot by bad players, it's an illusion--the good player simply will not have all his money in there on the worst hand as often as the bad player will. It's timeless wisdom and Sklansky's book has been through numerous editions, with editing and tightening of the text all along the way, and Baldwin's quote's have been left alone. So think twice before you judge these great players by what you see on an edited tv show. Already several posters have made that point. The knowledge you've gained via travelling on-line was got by them travelling the white line from game to game in town to town before only the best could ever get to Vegas and then only the best of the best could stay in Vegas. Those guys made the World Series. As a favour to Benny Binion. Those guys paid dues where you've only paid entry fees. Print yourself a copy of your post, stick it in a poker book on your bookshelf and pull it out thirty years from now to remind yourself that maybe, just maybe, you didn't know everything in the old days of 07.

[mo42nyy]

Fungmike-
Im not saying I know everything or am even any good
Im sorry if my post came off as ripping the older players
Clearly poker would not be what it is today if not for them, and with computers we know a lot of things that they did not know back then. Im sure in 30 years we will know a lot more than we do now.
But being that the top players in the world did not have the knoweledge that we do now, was the gap b/w them and the fish even bigger than it is now? I realy wasnt trying to insult anyone, just curious if guys liek Johnny Hughes thought games were easier back then.

My comments about Baldwin were actually out of respect for him and everyone at the table. When Im playing my usual cash games I almost never get upset at a suckout(im only human after 5or 6 in a night I get pissed)
But i doubt I can sit there in 2 huge tournaments after getting top set rivered or turned and not even react at all. The only time Ive seen this in a big hand is on HSP where Farha sucked out Greenstein for 400k and Greenstein doesnt flinch.
From what Ive seen back then there was a lot less [censored] talking,showboating and talking between players during hands.With that said angel shooting seemed very accepted.

Im hoping I stumble across more of these old videos, they are facinating.

[Max Raker]

Yeah, i was kinda wondering this myself. I really think that a winning 10 20 NL player today would be +EV in the WSOP when it got up to maybe 30 players or so. I remeber reading somewhere that Doyle used to deal out situations over and over again to get a feel for what the odds where. Just having a calculator and some training in math would seem to really help in alot of tourney situations when the blinds get big.

Also I once heard somebody who looked like an old timer claim that the main reason Stu Ungar had such tournament success was beacuse he was one of the few people who could play well deep stacked and had an intuitive understanding of the math for short stacked poker. I thought his results where alot of luck, but if the other players where that bad short stacked poker it could be possible.

[Max Raker]

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Are you seriously suggesting people wouldn't go broke on that flop today with a 4?

I like how you can tell people are better now than then based on one hand. The best part is you can see 500 hands played worse than on the recent WSOP broadcasts.

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Well imagine if they made the buy in big enough so only the 30 best people in the world would play, then going broke with a 4 could actually be terrible. Of course the play is bad in the WSOP, but some of them got in for like 50 bucks.

[Johnny Hughes]

I wrote a post on here, Poker History: Ole 186. I went back and added a second long part where I discuss insurance and the reasons to go for it.

Let us compare the skill in the old days and the skill now. There is a whole lot more money around now. More players. It appears to me it would be a lot easier now to be a professional poker player than it was when I did it. A young player should start out winning and studying and working his way up as his bankroll grows, slowly.

I did not play nearly as well as I do now. Before Sklansky and Mamuth, the only book we had was The Education of a Poker Player by Herbert Yardley. Basically, he told a few stories and said play tight, so I did. For many, many years, I carried my dog-eared copy of Sklansky and Mamuth back and forth to Vegas in my suitcase re-reading some every morning before I played poker. I am a huge believer in reading poker books. Any one good play you make from the book will more than pay for the book. I just finished a novel and I always kept the how-to-play-poker theme in the back of my mind.

I do not think the young pros now play any better than Johnny Moss in his prime or Doyle back then. When I was young, I challenged a couple of world champions, Bill Smith and Jack "Treetop" Straus to play heads-up. I still would.

However, I have a big poker and gambling library. I have read about poker and played it for decades. Of course, I am better. The field is better too. It used to be taboo to wake up the suckers. You did not discuss the play of the hand, especially starting hands. You certainly didn't give lessons to your regular opponents. I still don't. They have no idea I write all this. The field was weaker. Finding a game and getting up the players was the hard part. Beating them was pretty easy. It's harder now because of TV and books. I met and played against Dutch, Bret, et.al. in the cheap no-limit Hold 'em before they cashed in the World Series. I could predict this twentysomething revolution in poker. Hooray for them. When I was twenty and twenty-one, I could play poker and bridge with the best in the world but I know a lot more about poker now.

Beating the other professional players was not easy. Many of those old timers that I have written about on 2 by 2, Bill Smith (sober), Longgoodie, Pat Renfro, and E.W. Chapman could more than hold their own today. I think Bill Smith, E.W. Chapman, and Treetop Straus would take the play away from Gus Hansen or get broke quick. I don't think any of these newer players move their chips as fast. I also think the young pros have more tells than Marcel Marceau. If they attempted to get in those watermelon conversations with the old timers, they'd be conning world class experts at conning. The old timers did talk but they usually had canned responses such as, "I can't be stooling off my hand."

I am a bird-dog, trained to spot cheaters. I usually refuse to show my hand for an insurance prop because I don't want the dealer knowing what my opponent needs. I am not sure the casinos let players bet on insurance props among themselves.

The old style seat-of-their-pants bookmakers would look at a Hold 'em matchup on fourth street and state a price based on counting the outs. You did not want all your money tied up in one big pot with either side of A,K versus 9,9. Remember the pot had extra money in it from the people who had folded and had no chance. Sometimes, the bookmaker would count the pot and offer to buy half of it for some set price, always calculating the odds in a way to give himself a little piece of the best of it. Sometimes, it was a good deal for both parties.

At the early World Series, gamblers and bookmakers, and later dope dealers, came from all over. You could carry a lot of money around the country without Homeland Security getting their panties in a wad. The cash games were bigger than the tournament. When a couple of guys got all in on fourth street, a couple of big bookmakers might be called over from other tables and more or less bid on the price. People might stand up and someone not in the pot or even in the game might take the insurance bet. Some of this was showing off.

There was talk on 2 by 2 about Stuey asking Mr. Zee about the odds. That was common. There were no odds calculators. Gamblers counted outs based on the cards they could see and the cards left in the deck. It was a rough estimation. Old uneducated, even illiterate, professional gamblers were good enough at math that they rarely took the worst of it.

Suckers didn't know the odds. Folks would bet even they could hit six or eight on the dice. In Texas, gamblers are real careful about their word. If they say something they will bet on it. This leads to a lot of trick prop bets. When a big pot was over, I've seen people challenge each other to run them again for a side bet or go the prop "hot and cold." I've seen two guys quit a poker game to sit on the motel bet and bet on 9,9 against A.K over and over. It takes a while for the nines to iron it out.

[manonamission]

Check out alluc.org and search poker under sports for lots of old WSOP footage

[fungaimike56]

Tournament poker was brand new in 73, that years' WSOP being the subject of the film you saw. Doyle Brunson said it took him a lot longer to win it that it should have because he did not make a fundamental adjustment. That adjustment was to realize that unlike a cash game where he could pressure the game with action and rebuy the three times out of four he would lose his first buyin because of his aggressive approach, in tournaments, he was gone using that successful cash game approach. There was no fourth buyin in which he would get on a rush and, because he had given so much action, would get all that action back and more and end the game big winner. So he crashed and burned in several WSOP big ones and watched his old hero Johnny Moss have tournament success all through the seventies. Brunson saw Moss never risking his chips early on coin flips, he just kind of 'hung around' and later in the tournament would press small edges that he would pass up early. Brunson learned tournament survival--protect those chips early because you can't buy more of them--from watching Moss. Through observing Moss Brunson essentially learned the first tournament 'theory' of survive then thrive. Remember, he had to figure it out on his own.

mo42nyy I think I just want to tell you how truly fortunate you are to be a young poker player now. Johnny Hughes has given you a little flavor of what those guys had gone through to get to that 73 WSOP. I'm fifty years old. Love poker. Always have. So when I'm twenty-four as you are now what did I have. My regular college game evolved into once a month which we kept going for a few years. Guys get married, leave town. The game goes every other month. A ton of fun by the way--dealers choice, stupid games with wild cards, 'Guts'-- drink a lot of beer, just a ton of fun. Outside of a trip to Vegas every couple of years, that was it for poker. And until a few years ago that was all there could be. Guys would have a game now and then, small stakes, fun, that was it. Now there's on-line poker, B&M cardrooms, casinos all over the country, great literature--essentially from 2+2 authors--and you can go as far as you can in poker. The opportunity is right there for you. Realize how fortunate you are. Look at those old films and understand they were the best players in the world playing a new game, tournament poker, they didn't yet understand. A tournament pro of today magically travelling back to that 73 WSOP would have an edge. But those guys were just playing that tournament as a favour to Benny Binion who wanted to do good for poker. And those old guys could play. That time-traveling tournament pro would get killed in their side games. Enjoy your opportunity to play this game. Learn some of the history. It will enhance your play. Good luck.

[Admo]

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lotsa great stuff

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Gold.

[Cactus Jack]

Mike, nice post.

I, too, am over 50. 51 to be exact, and know how lucky these guys are to be young and in love with poker. I came to this very late, but am fortunate to have found it better late than never. I moved out here for one last adventure, and it's been a great one, so far, with no end in sight.

If I'd only known then what I know now...

CJ