In case anyone thinks I'm going to pull a John Rocker and follow my title
by saying something bad about foreigners--wrong. I am actually going to
be complimentary.
Several years ago when almost all the legal cardroom action was in
Gardena, California and Lowball or Ace to Five was "the game", I became
very interested in trying to discover why certain players were better at
reading their opponents than other players.
Lowball has always been a game that requires more reading ability than
any other poker game other than No Limit Holdem. It really is pretty
simple why that is so. Other games are usually played with more
participants in every hand, and more betting rounds, which means bigger
pots with much better pot odds. This, plainly put, makes calls more
automatic and diminishes the importance of reading a player. Let's face
it, if you're getting forty-to-one pot odds, you don't have much of a
decision as to whether or not someone is bluffing.
In Lowball once you have a good grasp of hand selection, the hardest
and most important decision you will have to make, over and over, is
whether or not you can bluff a certain person or on the other hand,
whether or not your opponent is trying to bluff you.
This leads me back to my original question which was, "Who are the
players with the best reading skills?" and more importantly, "Why are
they better than others?"
I began to observe early on that many of the good reading, intuitive
players were foreign-born. This then begged the question, "What would
give these foreign-born players this special ability?" I thought about it
and finally came up with what I thought was the explanation.
I reasoned that the people who come to this country not knowing our
language are constantly forced to pay much closer attention. Every
conversation when you're first learning a language is very tough. You
have to guess many times as to what someone might be saying and
therein lies the answer: One has to become much better at
understanding body language.
I remembered back to my childhood and thought maybe I could identify
with people who come to this country who do not understand the
language. I remember we would go visit my mother's parents, who were
both Italian immigrants. They spoke almost no English. My sisters and I
spoke no Italian. You had to pay very close attention to every little
gesture, movement, inflection and so on to try and understand what they
were conversing about.
Many years later when I moved to California and opened my construction
company, I had a large number of Mexicans employees working for me.
They were great workers but the problem was many of them spoke
almost no English. I spoke no Spanish, so again in order to get along
better with my men and try to communicate with them, I had to try to
learn to speak Spanish. After many years I became fairly proficient in
Spanish, but I still had to watch and listen much more carefully than
when conversing in my native English.
Maybe it is wishful thinking but perhaps the many hours of having to
watch a person very closely when communicating with them over the
years, is the reason that I might have a little better than average
reading skills.
The more I examined my theory, the more it made perfect sense. In a
way it's like people who are deprived of one sense compensating by
refining their other senses. Or more precisely put, people who lose their
hearing, see better--people who lose their sight, hear better.
Many years later, when I entered the world of No-Limit holdem, I
immediately saw the immense value in reading other players. I wondered
if my theory would still hold water. I asked myself the same question that
I had asked myself twenty years before. "Who are the best players for
reading skills, and why?"
It shouldn't have surprised me when I saw a large portion of the people
that were successful, and had what I considered very good reading skills,
were foreign-born.
Let's hope you think a little of what I've said makes sense. If you think it
makes a lot of sense, maybe you should go to a foreign country where
they speak a different language, and spend some time there. When you
come back, I think you may find that your Lowball or No Limit game has
improved dramatically.
For what it's worth …
by saying something bad about foreigners--wrong. I am actually going to
be complimentary.
Several years ago when almost all the legal cardroom action was in
Gardena, California and Lowball or Ace to Five was "the game", I became
very interested in trying to discover why certain players were better at
reading their opponents than other players.
Lowball has always been a game that requires more reading ability than
any other poker game other than No Limit Holdem. It really is pretty
simple why that is so. Other games are usually played with more
participants in every hand, and more betting rounds, which means bigger
pots with much better pot odds. This, plainly put, makes calls more
automatic and diminishes the importance of reading a player. Let's face
it, if you're getting forty-to-one pot odds, you don't have much of a
decision as to whether or not someone is bluffing.
In Lowball once you have a good grasp of hand selection, the hardest
and most important decision you will have to make, over and over, is
whether or not you can bluff a certain person or on the other hand,
whether or not your opponent is trying to bluff you.
This leads me back to my original question which was, "Who are the
players with the best reading skills?" and more importantly, "Why are
they better than others?"
I began to observe early on that many of the good reading, intuitive
players were foreign-born. This then begged the question, "What would
give these foreign-born players this special ability?" I thought about it
and finally came up with what I thought was the explanation.
I reasoned that the people who come to this country not knowing our
language are constantly forced to pay much closer attention. Every
conversation when you're first learning a language is very tough. You
have to guess many times as to what someone might be saying and
therein lies the answer: One has to become much better at
understanding body language.
I remembered back to my childhood and thought maybe I could identify
with people who come to this country who do not understand the
language. I remember we would go visit my mother's parents, who were
both Italian immigrants. They spoke almost no English. My sisters and I
spoke no Italian. You had to pay very close attention to every little
gesture, movement, inflection and so on to try and understand what they
were conversing about.
Many years later when I moved to California and opened my construction
company, I had a large number of Mexicans employees working for me.
They were great workers but the problem was many of them spoke
almost no English. I spoke no Spanish, so again in order to get along
better with my men and try to communicate with them, I had to try to
learn to speak Spanish. After many years I became fairly proficient in
Spanish, but I still had to watch and listen much more carefully than
when conversing in my native English.
Maybe it is wishful thinking but perhaps the many hours of having to
watch a person very closely when communicating with them over the
years, is the reason that I might have a little better than average
reading skills.
The more I examined my theory, the more it made perfect sense. In a
way it's like people who are deprived of one sense compensating by
refining their other senses. Or more precisely put, people who lose their
hearing, see better--people who lose their sight, hear better.
Many years later, when I entered the world of No-Limit holdem, I
immediately saw the immense value in reading other players. I wondered
if my theory would still hold water. I asked myself the same question that
I had asked myself twenty years before. "Who are the best players for
reading skills, and why?"
It shouldn't have surprised me when I saw a large portion of the people
that were successful, and had what I considered very good reading skills,
were foreign-born.
Let's hope you think a little of what I've said makes sense. If you think it
makes a lot of sense, maybe you should go to a foreign country where
they speak a different language, and spend some time there. When you
come back, I think you may find that your Lowball or No Limit game has
improved dramatically.
For what it's worth …
Don't Try to Bluff Foreigners
By Vince Burgio
By Vince Burgio
