Politics as Poker: Are we down to the river card?
Tue Feb 26, 2008 at 06:49:34 AM PDT
I'm a social gambler. I was playing cards for money with my family from the time I was eight years old. Gambling and poker is a family tradition for me. Our Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners are followed by no-limit Texas-holdem tournaments where three generations play and compete together. The losers go to the loser's lounge where they play Rock Band together until the tournament is over. Poker is a wonderful way to learn about life, especially about people's character and personality. Recently I was playing in a friendly game with a few friends and one of them brought a new player. This new player was relatively inexperienced and so we regular players did what we always do to fresh meat, we test their character. One simple way to do this is to wait until you draw a strong hand, and then lure the player into a trap and then to ensure victory, you make a kind of psychological attack: you question the player's manhood or competence. An inexperienced player will often react the wrong way, by standing their ground or pushing back. It takes a little more experience to realize when you are beaten or when you are being provoked and to have the maturity to fold. So I take these lessons to our current Primary race:
Obama and Clinton are both good poker players. They wouldn't be where they are today if they weren't. To make the analogy: Clinton started with a big stack, a dominant lead and she got a bit careless. Obama played his game, stuck to it, making good consistent decisions and waited for his opponents to make mistakes. In Iowa, Clinton made a big one. She didn't take her opponents seriously enough and they hurt her bad, took a big chunk of her stack. But then in New Hampshire, Barack got a bad beat. He was up in the polls, up in the exit polling and Clinton rivered him. She took a big chunk back and things were looking good for her again. Obama reacted like a seasoned player after a bad beat, he didn't change his strategy much, he kept playing his game, consistently, waiting for his opponents to mis-step. And they did, Clinton made major mistakes going into the South Carolina primary and Obama took advantage. They both gobbled up the smaller players' stacks: Biden, Dodd, Kucinich and finally Edwards.
It was now head-to-head action. They played fairly evenly into and through Super Tuesday with Clinton winning some big hands, but Obama winning more, smaller pots. She needed to close him out, because she was tiring while he was gaining strength. But she couldn't do it. And then came a string of Obama victories. She's now crippled, with him having the big stack and momentum on his side. She began questioning her own play early, firing campaign managers, etc. And now before the Texas and Ohio primaries, where she has pushed all-in, she's been playing like a crazed dog, what Phil Helmuth calls, the "Jackal" style. She has become unpredictable, oscillating from reasonable and friendly, like at the end of the Texas debate to being angry and sarcastic, like her mocking of Obama's hope and unity message. She's attacking when and where it makes no sense and generally just doing illogical things to make it tougher on her opponent to get a read. But Obama has played the same, consistent game all the way through and he appears to be doing the same now. The best approach to playing a "Jackal" style, crazy, illogical player, is to be patient and play your own cards. When you have strong cards, you attack, when you don't, you fold. The Jackal eventually pushes all in at the wrong time, when you yourself have a strong hand, like for instance in Texas, where Clinton has bet the future of her candidacy and aptly, the namesake of Texas Hold-em poker.
And this is where i come back to my personal story: I beat the inexperienced newbie with my flush to his pair because he could not accept that he was out-gunned and pushed all in anyway instead of ignoring the taunt. Good players, mature players, when faced with a difficult decision, calculate the odds, factor out emotion and psychology and play what they are dealt. Obama has done that throughout the campaign like a great poker player and think he will prevail in Texas.
Anyway, I'm getting sick of this current game, anybody up for some Omaha hi-lo eight-or-better?
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