Fish Bites Man: Where I Draw the Line

Topics: Epic Poker League, Fish Bites Man, Poker Strategy

By the time you read this, I will be home from Bulgaria, but at the time I write this I am very much in Bulgaria, in the lovely capital city of Sofia (the saint of holy wisdom as it happens, and in my experience a saint of holy wisdom is a damn handy saint to have). Why I’m here – recruiting and training writers for the Bulgarian version of Married… with Children – is largely beside the point. What’s more or less directly upon the point is the fact that probably not two hundred yards from where I sit tonight there’s a juicy poker game going on. A soft game. A game full of players who are “not the last float on the clueless parade, but they can hit it with a heavy rock from here.” A beatable game, then; the sort of game I could likely tear up, and pad my bankroll with. Yet here I sit, alone in my hotel room, turning my back on poker. Wow, that doesn’t sound like me at all. Can anyone guess why not? I’ll give you a hint.

“Пушенето забранено”

That’s Bulgarian for “no smoking.” And “no smoking,” I’m here to tell you, is a concept largely unknown in this otherwise fair and fine land. It’s certainly unknown in the country’s fair and fine casinos, where the right to smoke is considered sacred, right up there with the right to play 9-4 offsuit for a raise (which is one of the things that makes their games so juicy.) And that’s the reason I’m here writing about poker, rather than around the corner at the casino playing poker. In a nutshell, I just can’t stand the smoke.

Okay, first of all, I’m not some sort of smoke Nazi. I believe in free will, free choice, Free Willy, free samples, and pretty much every other variation of “free” you can think of (except free electrons – for some reason those piss me off). If people want to smoke themselves into a puffy oblivion, I say more puffy power to them. However, working in Bulgaria means working in smoky environments, and since I’m such a freedom Nazi, that means that my days are, well, filled with smoke. By the time I get back to my hotel in the evening, shower off, and purge myself of the day’s aromatic film, I’m hardly in the mood to plunge myself back into that pungent purgatory.

So here we are: I’d rather not smell stenchy than play poker.

Is it sad? I think it’s a little bit sad. In a sense, I feel like I’ve turned into someone’s crusty grandpa… “You kids and your smoking, you’re driving me crazy!” Then again, free will cuts both ways: If you have the right to smoke, I have the right to… just… not… be… there. And what’s more, exercising that right is profoundly good for my game.

Because here’s the thing: It doesn’t matter how soft and squishy the game is, if I can’t go into it prepared to play my best, I really can’t hope to beat it. And frankly – call it a character flaw, or too many years in smoke-free California, or whatever you like – if I go into a smoke-filled poker room, I can’t expect to play my best. Hell, I can’t even expect to breathe my best. So you could say that in declining to play poker under adverse circumstances, I’m exercising one of a poker player’s great skills: game selection. In this case I am selecting none of the above, but in any case I am making a choice, and it is a profitable one I believe.

It hasn’t always been this way. I remember playing in a poker tournament in Romania years ago, so starved for poker that I plunked myself down in the smoke-filled back room of a restaurant, where the air was not only short on oxygen, but heated by the Bucharest summer sun to damn near 100 degrees. Did I money in that tournament? Heck, I barely survived. Yet I thought it was a good idea at the time, based on the illogical logic that even a bad game of poker is better than no game of poker at all. Perhaps I have matured since then; maybe I’ve just gotten old. Or it could be that I have a better sense of my own self-interest than I did back then.

Forget about the damage that second-hand smoke would do to my lungs. Seriously, forget about that. Think about the damage the second-hand smoke would do to my bankroll. I would inhale resentment and exhale contempt with every breath. I would immediately form an adversarial relationship with everyone around me. How… I ask you, how… could I expect to play profitable poker in that state of mind? I couldn’t, and I know it, and thus I stay here typing these words.

Do I miss it? You bet your sweet non-smoking ass I do. I’d much rather be playing poker than sitting all alone in my hotel room. I love the game, and I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I could crush this one. But I’m not willing to pay the price of this one, not in terms of mental well-being, and not in terms of bankroll. I have found a poker game I’m not willing to play. I have, you could say, drawn my line in the smoke.

How about you? Are you of the opinion that any game of poker is better than no game of poker? Or do you have the mental fortitude and the self-awareness to recognize that, for whatever reason, the game conditions don’t favor you? It’s a useful trait to have, the ability to look off a poker game. It will save you tons of money in the long run. To put it another way, not playing poker well beats hell out of not playing poker well.  

For the record, if I thought the game conditions were unfavorable but still expected the game to be fun, I probably would go play. But smoke, for me, is double-plus un-fun, so I shall excuse myself tonight, tomorrow night, and pretty much every night I’m in Sofia. It seems the sensible thing to do.

The saint of holy wisdom approves.