Regularly I enjoy long discussions with a friend of mine that plays online poker professionally. He rarely ventures into the live tournament arena and has played the game long enough to understand some of the key Meta concepts that most players do not consider. We had a long discussion last week about scared money and why it is such a large factor in whether or not a person makes money playing online poker.

Tom “Durrrr” Dwan is regarded as one of the best Texas Hold ‘em players in the world and he makes a good living from the highest stakes cash games, winning around $5 million dollars in 2008 from his online poker activity. Dwan is the personification of playing poker without a fear of losing money. If Dwan loses $3 million in one session, which he has done on numerous occasions, you can bet that this hurts him but you would not notice if you only analysed his play. He comes back and continues to play his best poker game, something most players would struggle with having lost such a massive amount of money in such a short time.

I use Tom Dwan as the benchmark where I assess how players react to poker losses. The players I think react best to losses are Patrik Antonius, Daniel Negreanu and Illari Sahamies (better known by his online name, Ziigmund). These players play their A game at all times when playing high stakes poker whether live or online. If you believe you are not playing with scared money, then assess how close your attitude is to the players listed above. They also play the same in the face of big wins, another form of scared money at the poker table.

A polarised version of scared money is often found at the final table of the World Series of Poker. Players are very close to a payoff in one tournament that for many of them would see a permanently positive change in their standard of living. They would buy a massive home, with beautiful furniture and invest the money so they never need to do anything but sit by a swimming pool again. Would you play recklessly given the opportunity to genuinely achieve these things? Would you play your normal game?

Every poker player says that they would play their normal game but in a spot where a marginal re-raise all in could give you a chip lead or see you eliminated, or you could just fold and maintain a good chip stack many players would make the fold. At the very least, that big raise would be more difficult to make under the circumstances when in an ideal world the best play should be made at all times. It is easy to say forget about the money and think of things in terms of chips rather than cash. Some players just cannot do this.

Gamblers are normally pretty bad with money. We advocate using bankroll management when playing poker but many players ignore proper bankroll management and just want action. This can lead to disaster for them, but it happens all of the time. This type of approach can be harnessed into a sensible approach to poker because successful players have a positive disregard for the value of money. In many walks of life this is a negative thing, but for a winning poker player it becomes something that allows them to make big risks and earn big rewards.

Depending on your life experience money might have come very easily to you and you know ways where you can always obtain it. For others, the value of money is gained from their appreciation that it can be hard to earn. I am excellent in terms of bankroll management, but I also hoard money rather than spend it which makes gambling investment more difficult for me than a gung-ho gambler.

Look out for other players who may be playing with scared money as this hugely tightens their range at the big moments. Many will even tell you this is their intention to ladder up in poker tournaments. When there is big prizes on offer, you will see the scared money concept emerge as a key factor in the development of the poker game you are playing, particularly in Texas Hold ‘em poker tournaments where the massive fields lead to really big prizes.

By Malcolm Clarke

Related posts:

1. How Many Hours Should You Play? Playing poker for a living sounds great, we have discussed...
2. A Few Money Management Tips When it comes to play any type of game, be...
3. Why Playing Low Limit Poker Is Fine Texas Hold’em poker at the end of 2009 is currently...
4. Why Durrrr is so Interesting Tom Dwan is the poster boy of high stakes cash...
5. Online play vs live play part one So where do you play Texas Hold’em poker? Are you...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.