I will now discuss the side of poker which makes profit for good players. It's a phenomenon know as 'dead money'. The players are called dead money because they are not sound players and are going to blow all their money if they hang around long enough. These are the types of players who play every hand. They will get lucky at certain points, but over the long haul, it's a losing battle.The first example of this was a guy I'll call Sancho. He was a guy who showed up with a rack of approximately $150 in chips. He played every single hand. He would bet and raise with nothing. A couple of times, he got really lucky with his hand and would win a big pot because everyone assumed that he was bluffing. But after 40 minutes of playing time, Sancho threw his last chips into the pot and walked off $150 lighter.
Second example is such a good example of this situation, I'll call him DM (Dead Money). He deserved this special nickname. He was a guy in his early 40's. He showed up at the table obviously a bit agitated. He sat down next to me and it was quickly obvious that he smelled like booze. He told me that he had just been at the No Limit Hold 'Em table and had lost $350. Judging from what I had already observed, I wasn't too surprised by this revelation.
Much like Jamaica, he made the rational decision that any compulsive gambler would make. Rather than walking away and making a sound decision to avoid playing on tilt, he decided to move to a limit table to make back all his money. Tilt is a phrase used by poker players to describe a player that is making plays that are not good because they are angry or upset about previous hands or situations where they lost money. You want a player like this at your table at all cost. It's an ideal situation. You just pray that you get a good hand to play to take advantage of all of the chips being thrown into the pot.
So DM starting playing every single hand. He complained and cursed openly about his 'terrible luck'. First of all, a note to all beginners in poker. If you look around a table and everyone else's chip stack is growing while yours continues to shrink, you may consider the idea that it may be a bit more than terrible luck. It may be that your simply not playing well and need to leave the table immediately to avoid large losses. After 45 minutes, DM was down $250 at our table, much to the delight of everyone else who had won a hand in those 45 minutes. He kept telling me how badly everyone else at the table was playing. I went out of my way to tell him just how right he was to make sure he hung around just long enough for my next good hand.
At that point, they made an announcement that there was going to be a $120 single table tourney opened up. DM heard this and asked how that all worked. I told him that there were 10 players in a single table tournament. Each of them put in $120 and the winner received $800 with 2nd place getting $200. Once again, he made the rational decision that a compulsive gambler would make.....he decided he would drop another $120 and try to win the $800. He shook my hand and said it was nice to meet me. He went off to play the tourney. Several minutes later, I saw him leave the poker room looking agitated again. I'm guessing that the $120 could be added to his losses.
If you ever play poker at a poker room, you can't let your feelings for what these people are doing to themselves influence how you play. You have to remain focused on the game and the fact that you are playing for your money as well. You should never play with money that you can't lose. But you are there to some extent to make money. The fact that these people are reckless with their money to an extreme should not affect how you play. In the end, they more likely have more problems than just the fact that they lost a few hundred dollars gambling and nothing you can do or say will change that over the course of a poker game.
