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PRACTICING GAME PRESERVATION
As poker players we strive to maximize our earn at the game. We develop and refine a diverse array of skills, striving to win perhaps one big per hour. Accordingly, if someone were to approach you with an idea which could save you, say, one quarter of a big bet per hour, would you not listen with interest?
Yet there is an obvious idea which can save you much more. strangely, few serious players take much interest in it, but to ignore it can cost you your entire hourly rate. Educated readers might guess that I am referring to game selection, for it is an idea to which similar comments could apply. But the idea I wish to address is even more fundamental. It is game preservation. By game preservation, I mean acting to insure that your regular game (or games) thrives and does not dissolve, with the players no longer coming to the same cardroom for the same game on a regular basis. After all, without a game to play in you will have no opportunity to earn any hourly rate. It is therefore to your benefit to consider well what factors account for a game’s ongoing health or, on the other hand, its demise.
If you live in an area with as much poker as Los Angeles, and have no interest in games above about the $30-$60 level, you may have little need to worry about losing your game. There are always other games or casinos to chose from, and a constant stream of players to populate them. Anywhere else, however, the loss of a game above the small limits can be a real problem. Even Las Vegas is not immune. In about 1996 Binion’s Horseshoe lost its $20 – $40 holdem game, a game they had spread for years. Though Vegas has a couple of other options for $20-$40 players, this news gives one pause. It shows that even a well established game in a cardroom which should have no shortage of new and regular players, can die out.
Moreover, when it comes to the higher limits, even Los Angeles is not immune to losing games. In the San Diego area I have seen numerous middle limit games come and go. Some of these games were successfully spread in busy cardrooms for several years running. They appeared to be thriving. Then, sometimes gradually, sometimes suddenly, they died. For example, some years ago I took a break of about four months from poker. At the end of the break I returned to the cardroom which spread my regular game (then $10- $20 with a “kill” or sometimes $15-$30). This game had survived for several years. I was thus dismayed to learn that it had dissolved during my absence. Impacted by the marketing, comps, and the reduced drop (the method of collection used instead of a rake in San Diego) offered by a larger casino, this cardroom saw an important piece of its business simply disappear.
This was especially disturbing as I had become accustomed to playing in this, one of the few nonsmoking cardrooms in California at that time. Now I was forced to return to the smoke in order to keep playing. Thankfully, the game was revived two months later at the $15-$30 level, later changed to $20 –$40, and survives at the time of this writing. Needless to say, even such a temporary loss of a game is bad for both players and the house. The players lose their game which, for some, threatens their livelihood. The house sustains damage to its income which is even worse than it appears. If the cardroom manages to revive the game, they may find that some former players are reluctant to return, having found other games, quit playing, or developed resentment that the poker game they had counted on simply evaporated. So the house may have to work with a thinly populated, sporadically active game, and a need to rebuild a shrunken player base. One factor which may be involved in the loss of a game is the simple flow of money from the weaker players to the stronger players.
If there are too few players, or the weaker players are under-financed, the game’s health can suffer. This is largely out of the control of the players or the house, but there are a number of other phenomena which affect the health of a game over which those involved do have some control. Some are small things, others are more profound, but they all add up in contributing to the health or demise of a game. The dissolution of my game prompted me to examine some of these phenomena.
"The Best Player I' ve Ever Seen " / The Hit and Run Follies / An Illusory Winner /
On Randomness, Rushes, Hot Seats, and Bad Luck Dealers / Bad Beat? Think Again
Why Learn to Beat Tougher Games?
Short-Handed Play: Don’t Miss out / How I Learned Poker: Part I
How I Learned Poker : Part II