CHAPTER 00
                  WINNING IN POKER AND BUSINESS     
	The word "competition" evokes the image of move-by-move 
interaction between two or more players.  This suggests what 
athletes call "mind games", or what mathematicians call "gaming" 
-the attempt to decipher by one player of the other's intentions, 
and then choose strategic  moves to forestall the competitor's 
moves.  Chess and two-handed poker are the classic models for 
this kind of gaming, and business is often assumed to follow this 
model.  This image implies that the best player is the person who 
is best at gaming. 
     This chapter suggests that gaming is not a good model even 
for poker when there are several people at the table.  And a 
gaming mentality is even less appropriate for most business 
situations.  The inter-personal gaming approach to competition 
distracts people from the other aspects of their pastimes or 
business which are the really important determinants of whether 
they do well or not.  It also has the bad effect in business that 
when businesspeople focus on taking customers and market share 
away from their competititors, instead of focusing on making a 
better product, the public loses out.  Business is not a zero sum 
game; when the competitors attend to making a better product, all 
of them can make more money, as well as the public being better 
satisfied. [fn Scott Armstrong's paper]. 
     Another drawback with the gaming approach is that it 
obscures the role of cooperation among people and groups that are 
ostensibly competitors.  Outsiders usually underestimate how much 
apparently-altruistic cooperation there is among businesses.  
Consider this anecdote: [from ethics lecture about furniture 
factories, and about Carl Barnes and fire].  
     Other aspects of life share this confusing mix of competiton 
and cooperation -- even sports.  In squash, for example, two 
players go at it hot and heavy in a tiny enclosed court where an 
errant swing by one player can cost the other player a mouthful 
of teeth.  But by being careful of your opponent you often must 
give up strategic postion.  This means in turn that each player 
has an obligation to stay out of the opponent's way when it is 
the opponent's turn to hit.  But this can never be done 
perfectly.  Therefore, one can never press the game to the hilt 
but instead must make allowances and cooperate -- to protect the 
safety of your opponent in the short run, and to protect your own 
safety and to have someone to play with in the long run.
     Judo, too, requires that the players both compete and 
cooperate.  When you throw your opponent, after you have got the 
throw going you must then reverse course and pull up on the 
opponent to protect him/her;  you must be sure to keep the 
opponent from hitting the mat in such fashion that he/she breaks 
a shoulder.  Not only do you risk injury to another if you don't 
do so, but you won't have any opponents for long if he don't 
protect your partners.
How to Make Money Playing Poker
	To win money in a serious poker game when there are at least 
four other players, you need to do only one thing:  play the 
hands that you know you ought to play, and drop out when you know 
you ought to drop out.  That is, winning or losing depends almost 
completely upon your self-control.  It is really as simple as 
that.    In a serious poker game--that is, a game in which the 
stakes are large enough to matter to you, in comparison to a 
penny-ante game in which the players just get together to have a 
good time--almost all the players understand the odds well enough 
to know their chances of winning a given hand with the cards they 
hold (and the cards the oppo-nents show, if it is a stud game).  
If you don't know the odds that well, you can learn then in any 
standard poker.  (I like Jacoby, l940, and Morehead, l969).    
Often you'll hear a player say, "I know I shouldn't stay in the 
hand, but just this time I will."  Assuming that player is not 
trying to deceive--and in a great many cases he/she is indeed 
telling the truth--you have spotted a sure long-run loser.  The 
winning player says--and to _h_i_m_s_e_l_f_/_h_e_r_s_e_l_f and 
not aloud--"I know I shouldn't go in, and therefore I won't."    
	Why doesn't everyone do what they know they ought to?  
Simple. Games of chance--and poker has a lot of chance in it, 
though it also has much skill--are remarkably seductive.  The 
exciting possibility that you _m_i_g_h_t  win, even if the odds 
are clearly against you, is so that players are willing to pay to 
play--which is why you see people in Las Vegas or Atlantic City 
at the slot machines and crap tables.  And that is what keeps the 
loser at the poker table.    
	It is not easy to do what you know you ought to even if you 
are among the best-disciplined of people.  _E_v_e_r_y_o_n_e takes 
ill-considered chances.  But the loser "wants to dance every 
dance," as the old saying has it.  And so you can still make a 
few bad bets (but not many) and come out ahead.    
	Of course you must sometimes bluff, that is, bet even when 
you do not have a good chance to win.  But the purpose of the 
bluff is simply to ensure that other players know that you 
sometimes bluff, and there-fore they cannot afford to drop out 
whenever you stay in.  If they were to do that, you would never 
have any opponents calling your bets when you hold winning cards.  
But you don't need to bluff very often. And you bluff expecting 
to lose the hands when you bluff; if you do win them, that is 
just gravy.  Losers bluff too often, and they do so in hopes of 
winning bad hands by bluffing others out.    
	Games with less than five players are a different matter, as 
long as there is a fair-sized say, ante.  If you are playing 
"head to head" with one other player, you cannot afford to drop 
out so quickly because your "loose" opponent will win most of the 
antes.  In such a situation, you must often bluff with the 
intention of winning.  This is an entirely different sort of game 
than I referred to above. Neither I nor anyone else can give you 
much useful advice, because much of the outcome depends upon 
various psychological factors.  In contrast, in a game with five 
or more plays, you often do best to avoid _a_n_y psychological 
ploys or attempts to understand your opponents' behavior.  
Instead, you will win if you simply play soundly the odds, the 
cards and the money.    
	The biggest difficulty with the strategy outlined here is 
not getting thrown out of the game (actually, not being invited 
back) for being too tight a player.  The other players recognize 
that you're taking their money home with you, and (also) are 
causing them to be losers.  There is something faintly ludicrious 
about that criticism, since all the players come to win, and in 
essence they are criticizing the winner for beating them.  The 
only winner they won't criticize is the one that makes 
spectacular "intuition" plays.  And many or most of such players 
are only winners occasionally, and usually are losers).    
	The solution is partly a matter of appearance, of managing 
to look looser than you are by making a few grandstand wild plays 
when you can do so at little cost, together with not telling 
people how much you win.  Aside from that, you mostly count on 
the fact that poker players always have trouble filling up the 
table to make a game.  If you are honest, pleasant, play 
reasonably rapidly, and are not messy with cards or money, 
they'll usually be glad to have you even if you play tightly.  
Yes, they will recognize that their odds are against them when 
they play with you.  But those who want the thrill of gambling 
will play with you rather than not play at all.    
	How can I be sure that the strategy described here will 
work?  My strongest evidence is my income tax form for l973.  For 
most of a year, I spent perhaps every other Sunday evening 
playing in a hometown game, and I regularly won the equivalent of 
several day's or a weeks salary.  Then I went to Las Vegas to 
give a talk and I beat the tables there.  (In Las Vegas you have 
the added cost of the "house" take. But there you never need 
worry that they'll keep you from playing because you play too 
tight.)  And I reported the thousands of dollars of winnings on 
my income tax form.  (No one at the large accounting firm knew 
how to handle the matter; none had ever seen gambling win-nings 
reported before!).    
	Now we come to the bottom line:  If I can win money playing 
poker, why don't I devote myself to it, rather than quit playing 
as I did after a year or two?  The simple answer is that in the 
long run, poker is a waste of time, according to my values.  It 
produces nothing constructive, either for others or even for 
yourself, not even friendship except in unusual cases.  You see 
people at their worst--losing their cool, cheating in such ways 
as making "mistakes" handling money, trying to entice "fish" into 
the game in order to "fleece" them (I know fish don't have wool, 
but a mixed metaphor is not inappropriate here), trying to con 
one another about their playing styles in conversation before and 
after the game, and so on.  Without intending it, you may find 
yourself at the same table with some of the scum of the earth, 
which occasionally is dangerous.  (If you think it is a kick to 
find yourself next to a big-time drug dealer, then poker may have 
added attraction for you.)  Losers go home with guilt and self-
loathing.  Winners take home nothing good except money, though 
some enjoy their feelings of mastery.  I played when I did partly 
because I had a very strong need of an absorbing escape for a few                                 
hours a week, and poker is indeed absorbing.  (If you don't con-
centrate on what you're doing, you get loose and lose.)  I also 
played because I wanted to test out the theory described here, 
and in order to win enough money to prove that the system works, 
when I eventually would write this book as I've planned to do for 
a long time.  But now I have the sabbath as an oasis from the 
rest of the week, and I don't need escape into poker.  And I want 
to use whatever time I have on this earth either with family and 
friends or in trying to make what-ever contribution to others 
that I can with my writing and research, rather than trying to 
take money away from others, including some who may need it 
badly.  Life is much too short for serious poker, in my book.                             
_R_e_f_e_r_e_n_c_e_s 
Jacoby, Oswald.  _O_s_w_a_l_d_ _J_a_c_o_b_y_ _o_n_ _P_o_k_e_r 
(New York:  Doubleday: l940). Morehead, Albert H.  _T_h_e_ 
_C_o_m_p_l_e_t_e_ _G_u_i_d_e_ _t_o_ _W_i_n_n_i_n_g_ _P_o_k_e_r 
(New York:   Simon and Schulster/Fireside, l969). 
D/l2l do
page # thinking poker8-@ June 29, 1989