There is no other way to say it, bad cards equals bad bets. There is a big difference between playing aggressive and playing cautious. But in the end, the good players start only when they have good cards. And bluffing won't stop a good player stop from betting more and trying to take as much from you as they can.
I have done it, tried to stay in too long on a bad hand, and I have done it enough to write this all down. I lost worst trying to protect bad cards with a bluff.
So I have a new rule; one bet after the flop with a bad hand and then out.
I believe after losing some bad hands that there should be a rule for new players that the don't try bluffing at all. You won't be good at it and a good player won't stop if they do have a good hand. So I would recommend that you don't play bluffing - at least not off the first turn - the flop - so you can concentrate on the good hands.
I would guess that the good players are like lions in the weeds. They wait for bad or aggresive players to make an ambitious move and then they pounce by meeting your bets with more bets. And they are returning the favor for the time when they were new players and they were pounced on again and again. So if you do try to get better the only way is through patience and timing.
Good players want you to be vain and try and bluff them with bigger bets - that's how they make money!!! Everyone has this idea from TV, sonething that Daniel Negreanu talked about in his book, that every hand is a winner and an exciting affair. But actually if you sit in a long game at a casino or online and even in your local game you will find that the most of the action is dull and predictable. Good players fold out quick and try and keep their winnings. Some good players wade in with a soft bet on the flop and try and win a sleeper had from players holding onto aces and kings. Bad players have a streak of good luck or a streak of bad luck and they come and go. And so the cycle of poker continues, all day long, day after day with winners toasting their good fortune and losers borrowing money from their landlords. There is a simplicity to it all.
That does not mean to say you cannot try to win hands with oddball cards like 7-2 off suit, it just means that you need to know when to say when.
Decide to bet or fold based on the strength of your cards, and if you need to get out fast. It doesn't matter that you could have won the hand after you see the cards. The good players are factoring in their odds of winning to what you bet.
Instead of using bets to try and win a hand, when you are starting out, just use the cards to do it. That will make you a more feared poker player than bluffing tactics. You can win a couple of hands with bluffing only if that other player doesn't have a good hand. Since that player is good, they are going to have good hands.
Using the cards to win does not mean playing only aces and kings. It means that you should concentrate your creativity on the possible winning hands and not the bluff.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
The Tactics of Mantracker Part 5
The game of Mantracker versus prey has many twists and turns. While the TV show ( a 30 minute show for the first season or 1 hour for the rest ) tends to amp up the hype and the suspense so you will watch next week, I guess that the actual race is a lot like being in a war; long periods of absolute boredom punctuated by moments of shear terror.
Many competitors do not realize just how hard it is walking / running 50 km let alone running from a horse that can run 50 km/hr. Few people walk more than the distance from a restaurant to the car. If you compete on Mantracker you need to be ready for the adrenaline dump and the long dull pain of sore legs and bruises. You need to bring electrolyte supplements and water, and advil or Tylenol so you can keep feeling normal.
The race is a game of patience and skill as much as it is about endurance or intelligence. Mantracker has made big mistakes and cashed in on some really bad mistakes. If you are the prey you need to be right 100% of the time, so you better keep thinking and keep focussed. There will be openings to exploit just like any other competition and if you try and force them then that's when mistakes cost you the game.
Many competitors do not realize just how hard it is walking / running 50 km let alone running from a horse that can run 50 km/hr. Few people walk more than the distance from a restaurant to the car. If you compete on Mantracker you need to be ready for the adrenaline dump and the long dull pain of sore legs and bruises. You need to bring electrolyte supplements and water, and advil or Tylenol so you can keep feeling normal.
The race is a game of patience and skill as much as it is about endurance or intelligence. Mantracker has made big mistakes and cashed in on some really bad mistakes. If you are the prey you need to be right 100% of the time, so you better keep thinking and keep focussed. There will be openings to exploit just like any other competition and if you try and force them then that's when mistakes cost you the game.
Friday, March 12, 2010
The Tactics of Mantracker Part 4
I have watched Mantracker episodes over and over just like Mantracker looks for each and every footprint. His methods are revealing.
One of Mantracker's strengths is his ability to get inside the thought process of his prey. He knows how to escape and he knows how to move over all types of terrain. So he makes a simple guess as to how smart the prey is and how much he needs to out think the other side. He guesses right most of the time, and sometimes that can be his undoing.
The game of mantracker versus prey is really a mental game. His horse is the muscle and he is the brains. He has seen all the tricks, and while some of them work he knows that people are trying hard to beat him. When you try hard to trick him that is when he knows not to trust the trails he has been given. If it is too good to be true, then it is and he will distrust what he sees. That too can be taken advantage of.
Here is what he knows about you as the human prey: you are human, you need water, you are slower but can climb obstacles, you are trying to outthink him and you were dumb enough to sign up to a 36 hour foot race against a horse.
Here is what he knows about you as a human trying to outthink the Mantracker: if you can figure out the terrain ahead and how to lose mantracker, then he knows that is what you are trying to do at all times and he predicts your next move. This is the most important factor to take advantage of. If he sees you pointing right he knows you are going left. If he sees a fake trail that makes no sense to the direction of travel then he knows its a deception. More on this later on.
In an earlier post, I talked about his strategy of A & A: antagonize and ambush. He can antagonize you by keeping you from water. He can antagonize you by separating the prey and keeping you apart. He can antagonize you by sitting in ambushes or sprinting down the road at you and making you waste energy or driving you out of your way. He can antagonize you by sitting on the tallest hill or on the only bridge and force you to punish yourself through bad terrain to avoid capture.
Basically, he has it pretty easy. While he doesn't know the finish line he has a lot of time to find you and a lot of time to correct past mistakes. Of course it is easy because he is very good at finding tracks, and those times he wasn't then he was also extremely lucky. As the saying goes, you need to be good to be lucky.
One of Mantracker's strengths is his ability to get inside the thought process of his prey. He knows how to escape and he knows how to move over all types of terrain. So he makes a simple guess as to how smart the prey is and how much he needs to out think the other side. He guesses right most of the time, and sometimes that can be his undoing.
The game of mantracker versus prey is really a mental game. His horse is the muscle and he is the brains. He has seen all the tricks, and while some of them work he knows that people are trying hard to beat him. When you try hard to trick him that is when he knows not to trust the trails he has been given. If it is too good to be true, then it is and he will distrust what he sees. That too can be taken advantage of.
Here is what he knows about you as the human prey: you are human, you need water, you are slower but can climb obstacles, you are trying to outthink him and you were dumb enough to sign up to a 36 hour foot race against a horse.
Here is what he knows about you as a human trying to outthink the Mantracker: if you can figure out the terrain ahead and how to lose mantracker, then he knows that is what you are trying to do at all times and he predicts your next move. This is the most important factor to take advantage of. If he sees you pointing right he knows you are going left. If he sees a fake trail that makes no sense to the direction of travel then he knows its a deception. More on this later on.
In an earlier post, I talked about his strategy of A & A: antagonize and ambush. He can antagonize you by keeping you from water. He can antagonize you by separating the prey and keeping you apart. He can antagonize you by sitting in ambushes or sprinting down the road at you and making you waste energy or driving you out of your way. He can antagonize you by sitting on the tallest hill or on the only bridge and force you to punish yourself through bad terrain to avoid capture.
Basically, he has it pretty easy. While he doesn't know the finish line he has a lot of time to find you and a lot of time to correct past mistakes. Of course it is easy because he is very good at finding tracks, and those times he wasn't then he was also extremely lucky. As the saying goes, you need to be good to be lucky.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
The Tactics of Mantracker Part 3
Mantracker has a few ways of finding where the prey have gone: ground signs ( tracks, love notes left behind, snapped twigs, etc.), audio signs, and visual signs. And on a few occasions eye witness help but that's a rare help.
When you plan your movement you need to consider all these signs and try and minimize them as you go. Consider moving in stages, sneaking up to ridge line to run along behind it and then duck into bushes to stop and determine if you were spotted. With this tactic in mind, here are my helpful points about the various signs.
Of course ground signs are the well known part of what he does. He looks for disturbances and mantracker prides himself with his skills. Most times he can figure out what is going on and he has the time and space to correct wrong guesses and wrong trails. He tends to look for clues to decide where the prey is going and but sometimes he forgets his discipline. He wants to stay behind the prey to confirm he is right. Since he has so much faith in his ability sometimes he has a problem admitting he went the wrong way. When he is wrong it takes him some time to admit that he was wrong and retrace his steps to find the true direction. You can exploit that, and I talk about that in a later post.
The two underestimated signs are visual and audio. If you are running from mantracker, you need to stop talking and stop standing in the open and you willl take away a lot of his extra luck away.
If you are unfamiliar with military terms, then lets use the term silhouette that means something (an outlined form) that stands out. One way to avoid giving yourself away is to not silhouette your body as you move in the open. That means keep lower than the things around you because moving objects are easier to see than static ones and the more "human like" then the more noticeable. If you move quickly it is very easy to see you from even kilometres away. When you move in the distance you are more obvious when you cross the viewpoint of an observer and less obvious if you move towards or away from observer. Slow movement over small open areas can be just as effective as running the entire distance if you move undetected. Try and stay lower than the height of the hill beside you. Try and guess where mantracker is behind you and stay on the other side of trees, hills, and dead ground (ground that drops away from the surrounding so it doesn't look like its lower) so mantracker can't find you from a kilometre away. Running along ridgeline is a very novice way of escaping. Mantracker wishes for simple mistakes like this so he doesn't have to work so hard and still keep his reputation.
In the open, sound is not such a big deal unless mantracker is near you or near water or steep slopes. Sound carries down hills and across water so you need to be aware when you cross hills and water. In the bush, sound reverbs around off trees and rocks and will give you away from any direction. So hiding in the bush does nothing unless you are quiet. Speaking should be kept to a minimum. You should speak in a low voice and as rarely as needed. Low frequencies travel farther but are less detectable further away by the human ear. The best way to talk to your team mate is to lie right on the ground facing each other and talk quickly.
To keep the signs to the minimum, it makes sense to plan out every move down to the places you will stop, the places you observe open areas and where it makes sense to move without visual detection. Mantracker thinks inside the heads of the prey. So what? So he is going to think like an escaped convict and guess at how much field smarts you have. He will think where you should go next from he thinks you are.
When you plan your movement you need to consider all these signs and try and minimize them as you go. Consider moving in stages, sneaking up to ridge line to run along behind it and then duck into bushes to stop and determine if you were spotted. With this tactic in mind, here are my helpful points about the various signs.
Of course ground signs are the well known part of what he does. He looks for disturbances and mantracker prides himself with his skills. Most times he can figure out what is going on and he has the time and space to correct wrong guesses and wrong trails. He tends to look for clues to decide where the prey is going and but sometimes he forgets his discipline. He wants to stay behind the prey to confirm he is right. Since he has so much faith in his ability sometimes he has a problem admitting he went the wrong way. When he is wrong it takes him some time to admit that he was wrong and retrace his steps to find the true direction. You can exploit that, and I talk about that in a later post.
The two underestimated signs are visual and audio. If you are running from mantracker, you need to stop talking and stop standing in the open and you willl take away a lot of his extra luck away.
If you are unfamiliar with military terms, then lets use the term silhouette that means something (an outlined form) that stands out. One way to avoid giving yourself away is to not silhouette your body as you move in the open. That means keep lower than the things around you because moving objects are easier to see than static ones and the more "human like" then the more noticeable. If you move quickly it is very easy to see you from even kilometres away. When you move in the distance you are more obvious when you cross the viewpoint of an observer and less obvious if you move towards or away from observer. Slow movement over small open areas can be just as effective as running the entire distance if you move undetected. Try and stay lower than the height of the hill beside you. Try and guess where mantracker is behind you and stay on the other side of trees, hills, and dead ground (ground that drops away from the surrounding so it doesn't look like its lower) so mantracker can't find you from a kilometre away. Running along ridgeline is a very novice way of escaping. Mantracker wishes for simple mistakes like this so he doesn't have to work so hard and still keep his reputation.
In the open, sound is not such a big deal unless mantracker is near you or near water or steep slopes. Sound carries down hills and across water so you need to be aware when you cross hills and water. In the bush, sound reverbs around off trees and rocks and will give you away from any direction. So hiding in the bush does nothing unless you are quiet. Speaking should be kept to a minimum. You should speak in a low voice and as rarely as needed. Low frequencies travel farther but are less detectable further away by the human ear. The best way to talk to your team mate is to lie right on the ground facing each other and talk quickly.
To keep the signs to the minimum, it makes sense to plan out every move down to the places you will stop, the places you observe open areas and where it makes sense to move without visual detection. Mantracker thinks inside the heads of the prey. So what? So he is going to think like an escaped convict and guess at how much field smarts you have. He will think where you should go next from he thinks you are.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The Tactics of Mantracker Part 2
Mantracker is a guy on a horse. He tracks people for a living and he tracks prey for TV. He has 36 hours to find you while you run like a scared chicken. That is unless you know what you are doing.
Here is the reality: you cannot move without leaving tracks. No matter what you do: wrong footwear, double back, wiping tracks, and all the other tactics, he will eventually find your tracks. So what? So there should be a simple limit to how much effort you spend in trying to confuse the tracker. Eventually, he will catch up. So what? You need to prepare for an ambush or for mantracker to just luck out and stumble on where you are. Often times prey run through the bush only to see mantracker 50 yards down the trail. Walking in thick bush may make it hard to track but you need to leave that cover eventually.
Another realization is that sometimes you want to let him find your tracks. More about this later on.
If he finds your tracks from time to time he will eventually figure out your direction of travel. This is important, and often overlooked. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. If you were to follow a trail of bread crumbs, and then none, and then bread crumbs again soon you don't need anymore bread crumbs. You can extrapolate from the line where the line is going. If you miss it at one point, then you have a line to follow based on history. If a horse moves at twice the speed of a man then the mantracker can catch up over and over. The best way to avoid getting caught is to consider a path that doesn't give away your true direction of travel. A longer path may mean more running but it also means less predictability and that may mean less mantracker.
There are a lot of simple obstacles that stop the horses: fences, steep terrain, cliffs, thick trees, bushes, and soft sand. Very few mantracker episodes happen in complete prairies with no cover. So you need to know what the local obstacles are as you move over the terrain.
Here is the reality: you cannot move without leaving tracks. No matter what you do: wrong footwear, double back, wiping tracks, and all the other tactics, he will eventually find your tracks. So what? So there should be a simple limit to how much effort you spend in trying to confuse the tracker. Eventually, he will catch up. So what? You need to prepare for an ambush or for mantracker to just luck out and stumble on where you are. Often times prey run through the bush only to see mantracker 50 yards down the trail. Walking in thick bush may make it hard to track but you need to leave that cover eventually.
Another realization is that sometimes you want to let him find your tracks. More about this later on.
If he finds your tracks from time to time he will eventually figure out your direction of travel. This is important, and often overlooked. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. If you were to follow a trail of bread crumbs, and then none, and then bread crumbs again soon you don't need anymore bread crumbs. You can extrapolate from the line where the line is going. If you miss it at one point, then you have a line to follow based on history. If a horse moves at twice the speed of a man then the mantracker can catch up over and over. The best way to avoid getting caught is to consider a path that doesn't give away your true direction of travel. A longer path may mean more running but it also means less predictability and that may mean less mantracker.
There are a lot of simple obstacles that stop the horses: fences, steep terrain, cliffs, thick trees, bushes, and soft sand. Very few mantracker episodes happen in complete prairies with no cover. So you need to know what the local obstacles are as you move over the terrain.
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