Poker gems, #205

David Mamet, in a Los Angeles Times op-ed piece, September 16, 2005 (available here). (Hat tip to James McManus's most recent Card Player magazine installment on the history of poker for referring to this essay, which I had not seen before.)


One needs to know but three words to play poker: call, raise or fold.

Fold means keep the money, I’m out of the hand; call means to match your opponents’ bet. That leaves raise, which is the only way to win at poker. The raiser puts his opponent on the defensive, seizing the initiative. Initiative is only important if one wants to win.

The military axiom is “he who imposes the terms of the battle imposes the terms of the peace.” The gambling equivalent is: “Don’t call unless you could raise”; that is, to merely match one’s opponent’s bet is effective only if it makes the opponent question the caller’s motives. And that can only occur if the caller has acted aggressively enough in the past to cause his opponents to wonder if the mere call is a ruse de guerre....

In poker, one must have courage: the courage to bet, to back one’s convictions, one’s intuitions, one’s understanding. There can be no victory without courage. The successful player must be willing to wager on likelihoods. Should he wait for absolutely risk-free certainty, he will win nothing, regardless of the cards he is dealt....

One may sit at the poker table all night and never bet and still go home broke, having anted away one’s stake....

[One] may be bold and risk defeat, or be passive and ensure it.