Poker is Like Golf

I was thinking about this the other day, and thought it might just be interesting enough to write about. So here goes. I think that going to the casino to play poker is a lot like going out to play 18 holes of golf. Or at least I think I can talk about in such a way that we can see some contrived similarities.

1. The Teebox

When you go play a round of golf, you'll hit 18 tee shots in about 4 hours. When you head to the casino for a round of limit hold 'em, you'll probably enter the pot preflop a little more often than that, but not too much if you play like me.

Amateurs focus on the tee shot. People who suck at golf (like me) spend a lot of time at the range hitting their drivers. Amateurs tend to focus on preflop skills. People who are just learning poker (as I once was) often start with a preflop hand chart that tells them what hands they can play from what position and so forth. This chart is helpful, but falls pretty short of telling the whole story. Hitting a pretty drive is helpful, but hardly assures one of making a respectable (or even recordable) score on a given hole.

Tee shots vary greatly in terms of type and degree of difficulty. Downhill par 3, playing with the wind and no bunkers? Gimme the wedge and I'll just whack it down there. Now to the expert, there is of course much more involved. 440 yard par 4 with water up the left side and trees on the right? Yeesh. Preflop spots are the same. 2 players have limped and you're on the button with JTs. What should you do? The answer is "Put some damn money on the pot". How much? Doesn't much matter I don't think, and if it does answering the question requires a discussion of a ton of factors (how tight are the blinds? what about the limpers? will they check to you if you raise, or do they like to donk? what about your image?) An expert golfer would probably take a ton of things like these into consideration before "whacking" the wedge down at that par 3. Are there plateaus on the green? How much spin can I put on this? Should I play a fade or a draw? I'd just hit it. And an amateur poker player probably just picks an option with JTs on the button without thinking about any of the stuff I mentioned.

2. The Fairway

At this point in the hole you have to make the best of what you've left yourself off the tee. Sometimes, you'll be sitting pretty in the middle of the fairway, about to hit a nice 6 iron into a green the size of an Ikea parking lot. Others, you'll find yourself in jail, amongst a grove of sycamores, 270 yards from the hole with water in the way and two bunkers where you'd like to try to pitch out back onto the fairway in some hopes of scrambling together a bogey.

In poker, the analagous spot is the flop. You've hit your tee shot preflop, and sometimes you end up in just beatiful position. You could have Ace King in late position with only two opponents. The flop comes down K82 rainbow. This, my friends, is a pitching wedge from the short stuff. Sometimes, however, you find yourself in the proverbial woods. You raised with pocket 6s from the high-jack. Both players behind you called, then the small blind made it 3 bets. Now you're 4-handed in a bloated pot, and the board comes down the same, K82 rainbow. You could try to just pitch out onto the fairway, or even pick up your ball and walk to the next tee box. Or, you could go for the the power draw, hitting your driver off the bed of pine needles through the tiny alley you think might be clear all the way up to the green. The only problem is that a good portion of the time your ball is going to come rattling back towards you in the form of a re-raise. Now you're in even deeper, as the pot is huge and you've practically got odds to draw to 2 outs.

3. The Green

I've often heard that improving one's play around the green is the quickest way to shave strokes off a bloated handicap. My personal experience contains no evidence to refute this claim, as I often spend over half my strokes on a hole trying to move the ball the last 10% of the way to the hole. I leave my iron shot 15 yards short, then chip the ball onto the green....but it rolls off the back. Then I putt from the fringe, but leave myself a 5 footer to make 6. Which I often miss.

Turn and river play are like this in limit hold 'em. Amateurs and beginners tend to go with their first instincts when they play the big streets, especially the river. They bet when they think they have the best hand, and it's about as simple as that. More experience players realize that it's not nearly so simple. If you rate to have the best hand 60% of the time on the river, in position, you probably shouldn't bet. Sure, your hand is probably winning, but how do you like your chances once he calls? Assuming he doesn't fold any winners (a safe assumption about many of the players I play against), he'll call and win 40% of the time. If he can fold even 1 out of 3 of his losers, your bet is break even. Any more than that and you'll actually be driving yourself to value town. The point I'm trying to make is that most beginners struggle mightily on the river and don't even really know it, just like most crappy golfers struggle around the green and aren't really sure why. And in both cases, putting some work into improving would show immediate dividends.

So there you have it. This honestly didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, but I don't have the heart to scrap it. If you want your 5 minutes back, please submit a request to the customer service department.

So I wrote the above about a week ago (well, I started it then and finished it a few nights ago) and just now put it up. But today I learned of an interesting poker/golf related challenge that has been thrown down by leatherass, much in the same way durrrrrrr has laid anyone in the world 3:1 that they can't whoop him (for those of you who don't know, Tom "durrrrrrr" Dwan made an open challenge to any takers that over 50,000 hands of absurd stakes heads up poker that he will win. He laid all challengers $1,500,000 : $500,000 on the bet). The leatherass challenge, so far as I understand, works like this.

Step 1:

Play eight (8) nine hole matches for 50K a pop. I'm not sure if it's stroke play or match play.

Step 2:

Award the cumulative 72 hole winner 100K

Step 3:

Play ten (10) 50K headsup no limit hold'em freeze outs

Step 4:

Profit

I think the challenge is interesting and certainly shows that leatherass has some big cahones. But I'm at a loss for why no top PGA tour pro has taken him up on this one. Rumor has it that leatherass is about a +4 handicap. By the metrics generally used, I'd assume the 10th best PGA tour player would be something like a -3. Perhaps I don't understand something about golf (as I noted above, I suck), but wouldn't the tour pro basically be on a free roll? What are the chances that he'd lose even a single 9 hole match? The challenge is supposed to be scheduled over 4 days, leaving 2 days for the heads up poker matches. Even assuming they'd take 3 hours a piece to complete, we're really only talking about using a structure that expects hundreds of hands per match. In a match that short, in a game with as much luck as texas hold 'em, I have to believe that a reasonable player (one with basic heads up NL hold 'em skills) could expect to win at least 1 or 2 matches, even when he's obviously outclassed (leatherass is one of the most accomplished online cash game players...ever).

I'm curious what other people think, so feel free to post comments.