Nationalities And Great Poker Excuses

Playing some Omaha Rush Poker the other night, for ‘research purposes’ mostly as I’m getting some new material prepared for Omaha Planet. Anyway, I caught myself being a donk in an unusual way… justifying my ill-advised moves once too often using the nationalities of my opponents as a reason, here is an example:… I raise the button, get 3-bet from the big blind and call, he leads pot… my overpair + gutshot looks poor… and a call would be reasonably committing. Wait! The villain is from Denmark… we all know Danes are aggressive poker players right? Well, damn it, he must be an agro bluffer then! I raise pot and get shown top set and the nut flush redraw, oops!  …

I raise from 2^nd position with a decent hand, get flatted by the button… miss the uncoordinated flop… c-bet anyway and button flats, pair on the turn, fire again, button re-raises small – I consider folding, but WAIT! He is from the USA… they have a bigger proportion of ‘serious’ players (since the recreational average-joe players think poker is illegal). Thus he must have been floating the flop, and is min-re-raising to try and look strong on the turn without committing too many chips… he thinks I think he would not do this when weak – so he must be BLUFFING!

I call and get shown a full house which was the only aspect of the hand this player considered, yep, he was not thinking about what I was thinking at all – nuts = min-raise… I leveled myself like a good-un!  

… I hit the nut straight on a low board, a German bets into me and (having a higher straight redraw) I contemplate calling… but hang on, this guy is from Germany, the Germans don’t fold – it simply is not in their nature to fold a hand, I’ll stick in a raise to build the pot – poof – folds, doh!  Again and again, I played non-nut hands against the numerous Finnish players (they make even hyper-aggressive players look weak-tight in comparison!) and got shown the stone-cold jewels. From my own country (UK) I worked under the assumption that players were fish, only to be outplayed.  A serious point?  Yes, there is one!

These are caricatures of course and the specifics are a little fuzzy, the point is this: If you want to find an excuse to make a bad play you will probably be able to find one. I found it funny that the national stereotypes thing hit me one night… but previous hands, hunches, stats and even a player’s choice of avatar (or picture) can always be the reason…  Next time you play, just be sure that your decisions are being made for the right reason(s)!  

Gl at the tables, Mark