Poker players come in every size, shape and form.
Some of the best ones are high school drop-outs like Puggy Pearson, a redneck gambler from down South. Others are highly educated with university degrees and PhDs. Still others come from Third World Countries like Vietnam and Cambodia where they had to fight to stay alive.
I had a friend, Russell Nelson, who was a certified public accountant from Phoenix, AZ. I talked him into going to Las Vegas with me for a poker weekend. There for two days he watched me play poker. I sat down at tables spreading seven-card stud, Omaha High-Low and Texas Hold'em. Russell did little gambling and contented himself by enjoying the sumptuous buffets at the Rio and The Orleans where we were staying.
On the way back to Phoenix, he said, 'I could back you financially in a game like seven-card stud or Omaha High-Low. That wouldn't be a problem. But that Texas Hold'em is crazy. It's all chance.'
Russell was probably right about the games, but he is a logical person who reasons everything out in his mind. Most poker players don't do that. They play for action and they play by emotion.
I like to talk to the other players at my table to find out a little about them. Sometimes I do it to get line on how they play, I admit. But for the most part, I am simply interested in them as person.
You can sometimes pretty well guess an individual's profession by the way he dresses. One respectable looking man wearing glasses, a suit and a tie intrigued me. I told him, 'I think I know what you do for a living.'
He smiled and said, 'Tell me.'
I said, 'You're either an educator, a minister, or a serial killer.'
He gave me a high five. He was a school principal vacationing with his wife in the City that Never Sleeps.
Dan Bilzerian, a bearded muscular poker player, has won an estimated $150 million in poker tournaments, on-line and in cash games. He is an actor and trained to be a Navy SEAL. Phil Ivey was working for a teleprompting firm when he started playing poker with his fellow employees and learned the game.
Chris Ferguson, who has won $25 million, worked in computer science while Antonio Esfandiari, worth an estimated $17 million, was a professional magician before he turned to poker. Sam Farha, who has won around $100 million playing poker, came to America from Lebanon.
I once got tangled up with two country types wearing bib overalls. We were playing pot limit Omaha High-Low and in three hands they wiped me out with nut hands. I smiled, gave them a bow, and left the table. They may have been country, but they were too much for this urban cowboy.
It pays to spend the first hour or even the first two hours just sizing up your opposition. Play the blinds and your best hands, but don't get serious about gambling until you know what you are facing. You may end up feeling like a kid with a slingshot facing a grizzly bear or two.
Every poker player has or had an occupation. Find out what it is. Learn. And then play the other players accordingly. You can't win at poker without having this kind of valuable information at your fingertips.
Author: Geno Lawrenzi Jr.
(Geno Lawrenzi Jr. is an international journalist, magazine author and ghostwriter and poker player who lives in Phoenx, AZ. He has published 2,000 articles in 50 magazines and 125 newspapers. If you want to share a gambling story or book idea with him, send an email to glawrenzi@gmail.com ).
