Your Edge in Poker is Smaller Than You Think

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I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but poker players, especially poker players that have amassed a bit of knowledge and experience, have a tendency to overestimate their ability –this most likely applies to you by the way. As Steve Badger once quipped, “Besides lovemaking and singing in the shower, there aren’t many human activities where there is a greater difference between a person’s self-delusional ability and their actual ability than in poker.”  Actually, it would be quite hard not to overestimate your ability when the guy in Seat 5 just flatted a 3-bet for 40% of his stack with a suited connector. But the fact of the matter is this: In virtually any poker game you play, your edge is a lot smaller than you think, even when you’re playing against someone like Seat 5!

You’re probably thinking: If your edge is so small then how can players of seemingly equal skill and ability end up on the opposite ends of the success spectrum? If it’s not a slight difference in skill level then what is it? Do they go on monkey tilt? Is it a drug or alcohol addiction? Is it their personal life? Is it some secret insider knowledge? Do they cheat? Are they more frugal? Does it really all come down to luck? How is it that some people make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year while others struggle to even show a profit?

Part of the problem is not just what you know, but how you apply it at the poker tables. Playing your “A” game so to speak, and more precisely, what goes into playing your “A” game. Your “A” game goes beyond a fancy bluff, or having a great read on an opponent; playing your best means not just outthinking your opponents, but outworking them as well: If you’re not outworking your opponents than you are not playing your “A” game.

As a tournament player you can do a number of little things to increase your edge with just the tiniest bit of effort; check the seating assignments for your Day 2 seat draw and Google the players; if you play online find a poker site or skin that offers rakeback or the best VIP Program; leave the iPad at home and take some notes on your opponents. These things seem rather insignificant, but when your edge is miniscule to begin with they can make a huge difference.

If you feel you can beat the game without taking notes, or while playing Chinese Poker on your iPad, you may be right, but you are beating the game in spite of this. Worse yet, you may be wrong –you may not realize you’re a lousy singer either. Regardless of whether you are right or wrong, disregarding small advantages like giving the game your complete attention or feeling a rakeback deal is a pittance and not worth the time or energy to investigate is costing you money, and in a lot of cases turning you from a potential winner into a break-even player, or even a losing player. Even if you are a solid winner it could be holding you back, and keeping you from reaching your full potential.

These little edges add up over time. A dollar here and a quarter there add up. As former Minnesota Senator Everett Dirksen once said, “A million here, a billion there, pretty soon, you’re talking real money.” If you’re a tournament player and have a 20% ROI you can expect to win $20 for every $100 of buy-ins you wager. However, this doesn’t include expenses, tournament fees, tips, backing deals, and so on. Your edge is so small, so miniscule that the slightest bit of tilt can turn you from a winner to a loser; playing just slightly above your skill level can turn you from a winner to a loser; not taking advantage of small edges like rakeback or being lazy with notes can turn you from a winner to a loser.

The good news is that even if you are a losing poker player you are probably on the right path, doing a lot of things the right way. But since the difference between being a winner and a loser in poker is extremely small there may be a number of little things you aren’t doing. It’s so small that it’s almost microscopic, and requires walking a very fine-line for the entirety of your poker career. Barry Greenstein guesstimated in his book Ace on the River that a winning player’s edge in a game is around 3%. This means that even winning players are only 3% better than the average opponent they will face. I wouldn’t exactly term a person with a 3% edge a world-beater, especially when they can fall off their “A” game and lose that 3% edge pretty fast.

For instance, suppose you are fairly new to the game, but you’re learning and have a 6% ROI, even though you’ve been lazy with notes, studying, and so on. But what happens when you hit a downswing and start playing less than you’re “A” game? Well, you’ve probably just gone from a 6% ROI to a break-even or losing player, and those little edges you have been dismissing because “you’re a winning player and they are fairly meaningless” could be the difference between bombing out of poker altogether and keeping your head above water until you can right the ship. Instead of starting your downswing with a 10%-11% ROI (which you would have if you took advantage of the little edges) your high-water mark was much lower that it should have been.

If you think along the lines of, “Well I only pay $40 in tournament fees a week, so 30% rakeback doesn’t really matter,” you are throwing $12 away every week. Even if you are crushing these tournaments and have a 40% ROI, you are leaving what amounts to 13% of your profit on the table.

Now suppose you’ve been lazy with notes, a misstep that is costing you a mere $.10 per tournament; who cares right? “I have a 40% ROI and I’m crushing these games; who cares about an extra $.10?” Well, once again this $.10 every tournament starts to add up. Imagine you play 100 tournaments every week, it adds up to $10 every single week!

You could keep going down the list and finding all of these little edges you are ignoring or brushing off as meaningless. By the time you add all these things up you’re likely looking at a couple thousand dollars a year you are disregarding! These things will always add up to more than you could have ever expected, and when you hit a downswing these are the edges that will not disappear; no matter how bad you are running your rakeback deal will always be 30%, taking solid notes and using them will always add $.10 to your expected return on tournaments; watching training videos and talking with other winning players will always add to your win-rate. Just because lady luck has turned against you doesn’t mean EVERYTHING goes south; you can’t control the deck but you can control how diligent you are and how hard you work.

If you think back to the opening of this article (or you could just scroll back to the top and reread it) you can now see why players of equal skill can have such different experiences in poker. Let’s compare two decent but fairly new tournament players with identical ROI’s of 6% where Player 1 works hard and Player 2 is a bit on the lazy side. We can see just how impactful these small edges are for these two: If Player 1 was as lazy as Player 2 he’d probably be a break-even player at best, and if Player 2 had a better work ethic and took advantage of the little edges presented to him he would likely have an ROI of over 10%. Player 1 and Player 2 may have similar ROI’s, but that’s where the similarities end: Player 1 is over-performing while Player 2 is underperforming.

Player 2 is actually more skilled, but Player 1 is using small edges to close that gap: Player 1 is the hard-working late-round draft pick who turns into an All-Star, while Player 2 is the first-round draft-pick who turns out to be a bust. If we flipped their personalities Player 1 likely quits after a year of A-ball, while Player 2 is a perennial All-Star. The same is true for our hypothetical poker players: Player 1 would be a break-even player and Player 2 would have an ROI above 10%. That’s how important these little edges can be.