Unexpected Poker Truths

I will be honest, I am not much of a poke player. Even with the craze in the last couple years, I've only played a hand full of times.

Last night I was invited by my 2nd cousin Russ Hopwood, a futures day trader here in downtown Lincoln to a weekly poker game at his hometown of Shelby, Nebraska, population 700. It was pretty neat. They have a private room set up with a $20 by-in and cheap $1 beers that come out of a soda machine with only the classics; Busch Lite, Bud Light, Miller Lite, and Coors Light!

Now this is where I found my new respect for poker, that I had not understood before. Sitting around the table of blue collar working types and farmers, I couldn't help feeling a little guilty, like perhaps my cousin and I were the smartest people there. All the talk of cattle and corn sure didn't make my first impression seem any less accurate. Now, smarter in the sense I was thinking was because both my cousin and I had professional office jobs and formal educations with a four-year degree. I soon realized that the "smarts" or skills learned in poker aren't learned in schools and that I definitely didn't have the them either.

As we started playing I thought my first impression had been right, when I started winning some bigger hands and amassing a large little fortune of my own. After about an hour in and 5 wins to my name the tide shifted and I started to loose and didn't win again until I had lost all my chips. It turns out that these small town boys had read me and let me win, to learn my "tells," then proceeded to out smart and out bluff me the rest of the night!

I learned, the hard way, life lessons that I already knew but often forget and some I didn't know:

1. Never rely on first impressions, no matter what you assume.
2. Don't assume.
3. Small town farmers are some smart and tactical poker players.
4. Reading people's emotions or "tells" is a valuable skill in any deal or negotiation.

With this said, for this year I plan to play more poker by setting up a weekly or monthly game of friends to hone my skills. Not that I like gambling or loosing money, but I feel valuable skills can be gained from learning to read people and as the song goes..."know when to hold em or know when to fold em."