Poker: Can you Execute?

I'm a devourer of poker knowledge. If a well known pro comes out with a new book, I have it preordered on Amazon. When the box arrives I rip it open and lie on my bed reading straight through without a break. I TiVo every poker show on TV even if I've seen it before, I skim the internet everyday for new poker articles. I'm sure you know the feeling, because you're just like me. Every article online, every pros video you are there inhaling. Trying constantly to understand what it is that makes them better then you and how you can bring yourself to their level.

One of the most common questions that beginning poker players have is: what is the most important skill a poker player can have? I've heard many pros answer this question with: patience, the ability to read an opponent, or the ability to put pressure on other players. I think the pros have heard this question so many times that they script their answers and give up on really providing a significant answer. Its not patience or reading ability that makes a player a top pro, because these are skills that can be learned by most of us. While patience is important, it is not a skill that really separates you or me from the best in the world. Most good players are willing to be patient in the right situations, and know its ok to continually fold hands in. Hand reading skills are also learned. If you play thousands of hands it is virtually impossible not to gain the ability to read your opponents hand. The ability to read is just ingrained in you because you've been in the same situation many times before.

Being able to execute is what separates the top players from everyone else. This means constantly acting on your instincts and following through when you have a read or a plan for a play on a hand. It's easy to say "I have bottom two pair here and if he comes over the top he has me beat I'm going to fold". It's much more difficult to actually make that fold. It's easy to say "If I check to my opponent in this un-raised pot he's going to bet 90% of the time so I should try a check raise". It's harder to make that play continually in the right situations. You can constantly see this problem for players online. A player bets into them big on a later street, and they know they have the worst hand. The timer is ticking down and then they make the "I'm not a good enough player to make this fold" play. This play loses them tons of money in every session they play. This is a play that the great player doesn't even think about making. They aren't letting the timer tick down, because their hand is in the muck. They have the same instinct telling them to fold their big hand as you do; they just follow through with their reads when most others can't.

They can execute.

Executing:

A great example of this is concept occurred in a hand on the High Stakes Poker TV show on GSN (if you haven't seen this, I suggest torrenting it right now, just stop reading I'll forgive you). Barry Greenstein raises and Antonio Esfandairi calls in EMP with AA. The flop comes KQX and it checks to Antonio who makes a bet and is called by Greenstein. The turn is a blank and both players check. On the river Greenstein leads out for a pot sized bet. Antonio thinks for a minute and throws his hand into the muck, his opponent having KQ for two pair. Would you be able to make that read?....probably. I would definitely consider that I had the worst hand in that situation. But would you make that fold even with that read? Most people wouldn't.

They don't execute.

Not executing:

Here's a great example of my own failure to execute. I had reraised this player preflop multiple times prior to this hand. His play had been to call my repop before the flop and fold to my flop bet. Obviously he was looking to outflop my big preflop hand and then felt me.

***** Hand History for Game 3552629530 *****$100 NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, February 14, 07:57:32 EDT 2006Table Table 85428 (6 max) (Real Money)Seat 3 is the buttonTotal number of players : 6Seat 6: skihood ( $177.12 )Seat 2: TheJar3d ( $157.45 )Seat 1: Captain54173 ( $192.55 )Seat 5: KardPlayer1 ( $179.78 )Seat 3: AceManhattan ( $98.50 )Seat 4: cardiac777 ( $155.90 )cardiac777 posts small blind [$0.50].KardPlayer1 posts big blind [$1].** Dealing down cards **Dealt to TheJar3d [ Ah Ad ]skihood calls [$1].Captain54173 raises [$4].TheJar3d raises [$10].AceManhattan folds.cardiac777 folds.KardPlayer1 folds.skihood folds.Captain54173 calls [$6].** Dealing Flop ** [ 6h, 9s, Td ]Captain54173 checks.TheJar3d bets [$15].Captain54173 calls [$15].** Dealing Turn ** [ Qd ]Captain54173 checks.TheJar3d bets [$30].>You have options at Table 85464 (6 max) Table!.Captain54173 calls [$30].** Dealing River ** [ 3s ]Captain54173 bets [$50].>You have options at Table 85464 (6 max) Table!. TheJar3d calls [$50].Captain54173 shows [ 6s, 6d ] three of a kind, sixes.TheJar3d doesn't show [ Ah, Ad ] a pair of aces.Captain54173 wins $209.50 from the main pot with three of a kind, sixes.

On the river my opponent makes the obvious, lead in because I want my big hand paid off and I am out of position. I sat there and let the timer click down, my read saying I should fold and then I called. I didn't execute.

Another great example:***** Hand History for Game 4239100812 *****$100 NL Texas Hold'em - Thursday, May 11, 01:46:49 ET 2006Table Surf Rider (No DP) (Real Money)Seat 4 is the buttonTotal number of players : 6Seat 1: elmerfuddpi ( $99.85 )Seat 3: Spazz233 ( $122.68 )Seat 5: Metygl ( $104.60 )Seat 6: BottledFly ( $110.70 )Seat 4: TheJar3d ( $146.40 )Seat 2: fzilco ( $106.95 )Metygl posts small blind [$0.50].BottledFly posts big blind [$1].** Dealing down cards **Dealt to TheJar3d [ 9c 9d ]elmerfuddpi calls [$1].fzilco raises [$4].Spazz233 calls [$4].TheJar3d calls [$4].Metygl folds.BottledFly folds.elmerfuddpi calls [$3].** Dealing Flop ** [ Qs, 9h, Ks ]elmerfuddpi checks.fzilco checks.Spazz233 bets [$4].TheJar3d raises [$20].elmerfuddpi folds.fzilco folds.Spazz233 calls [$16].** Dealing Turn ** [ 2c ]Spazz233 checks.TheJar3d bets [$40].Spazz233 calls [$40].** Dealing River ** [ Kc ]Spazz233 bets [$40].TheJar3d raises [$80].Spazz233 is all-In.TheJar3d shows [ 9c, 9d ] a full house, Nines full of kings.Spazz233 shows [ Kh, Qd ] a full house, Kings full of queens.TheJar3d wins $21.32 from side pot #1 with a full house, Nines full of kings. Spazz233 wins $251.86 from the main pot with a full house, Kings full of queens.

Sure I have a near nut hand here. There's a lot of money in the pot. But I had an exact read on his hand, I knew it was KQ. This is what I like to call the "fuck you! You outdrew me now here is the rest of my money play". I knew this was a situation where I should make the river fold, or at the worst just make the call. There is just no reason to give him the rest of my chips when I have the right read. As a great player you need to be able to execute on your instinct in every situation. The majority of players would just look at this situation and say "well you had a great hand and lost...it happens" These are solid players who don't realize how much money they are losing each session because they can't execute on their instincts.

The reads that really matter are the ones that let you fold a great second best hand. Folding that AA in the right situation makes you more money then folding ten high after the flop. Why? Because your opponents can't make the same fold. The money you make in poker is from situations that if they were reversed your opponent would lose more money then you. If you are going broke every time your opponent out flops your AA, then you aren't really making money when you out flop their AA. Folding a good hand that is beat or calling a bluff with a marginal hand is how you make money off other solid players. If you are making folds that they aren't capable of making you will come out on top. You need to be able to execute on this play, because it's your bank.

When you get down to the fundamentals, poker is just a game of comparing your hand strength to your opponents. All experienced poker players can read hands, and can compare hand strengths. The difference between the people who wins 5PTBB/100 hands versus the person who wins 10PTBB/100 hands is their ability to constantly execute on their reads and instincts. This is the most important poker skill out there. To guess what your opponent has in each situation then follow through, being able to execute on your read, make that big fold, or fire that second barrel when you know they are weak is what will make you a great poker player. It doesn't matter if you have all the poker knowledge is the world, or if you can make the great read in every hand if your chips aren't backing up your read.

Don't be a bitch, execute.

For more great No Limit Holdem articles visit http://www.pokerdynasty.net

Jared Devlin-Scherer is a no limit holdem cash game pro and a contributing writer for http://www.pokerdynasty.net.

5 Materials and Technologies That Just Might Eliminate Digital Camera Shutter Delay

Bob pushed the shutter release button andNOTHING HAPPENED. The football passed into his son's hands and the actual photo he took was one of a cheerleader's pom-pom. Bob missed the touchdown too. He resisted an insane urge to slam the camera to the ground and jump on it.

This was his first digital camera, and Bob had just experienced an unpleasant surprise. He had used film cameras all his life, but when his Yashica went into the shop a friend loaned him a digital camera. He naively decided to take some action shots and discovered the most maddening "feature" of digital cameras the shutter delay.

MADDENING AND FRUSTRATING

Articles on this subject have attributed shutter delay to:

1. The camera's focus system

2. The time it takes the camera to digitally process the image

3. Reaction time of the photographer

Numbers one and three are lag times that most people using digital cameras are accustomed to. Most have used a film camera and know it needs a few milliseconds to focus.

The no-brainer solution is to reduce the aperture of the lens to increase depth of field, or aim the camera at the object you wish to be in focus and depress the shutter button half way in order to "tell" the camera what to focus on, then move the camera to center the image and depress it the rest of the way.

As far as human reaction time, well, it hasn't really changed much for users of film cameras, and people experienced in taking action shots usually get what they want.

So let's look at number 2, the time it takes to process the picture.

TIME TO DO THE PROCESSING

Processing the picture (so the camera can be ready for the next one) comes in several steps to move it from the image sensor to flash card storage:

1. Color corrections. The camera has to examine each and every Charge Couple Device (CCD) element on the photo sensor. It adds green, blue, and red to achieve the right color balance. For a 3 mega pixel camera, the processor has to make 9 million calculations.

2. Sharpening. This boosts the contrast by detecting and sharpening edges.

3. Compression. This process converts the 12 to 14 bits of each CCD sensor to 16 bits by "padding" the information and compressing it to 8 bits. This compresses the file size to 9 megabytes.

These steps require a tremendous amount of computational time. No wonder Bob missed his shot!

CATCHING THE ACTION

There are two ways of capturing action:

1. The "consecutive mode". If the camera has this mode, you can take a series of rapid shots moving through the event. This requires a camera with a large buffer" to hold photos for processing.

2. Anticipating shots by depressing and holding down the shutter release prior to the event. This requires an ability to predict the future, something most of us don't possess.

THE FUTURE OF FASTER SHOOTING

Obviously this would all be simplified if micro processing were faster. Even with large buffers, the speed in which data is transmitted to the processor is prohibited by the rate at which data is conveyed from the CCD. Micro processing speed is the next bottleneck.

Faster clock rates and data transfer speeds would reduce or even eliminate "shutter lag" time. There are several technologies in the wings that offer hope:

1. Nanotube and nanowire technologies. These are both the offspring of "nanotechnology", the ability to make tiny machines at the "nano" level, a billionth of a meter in size rather than a millionth of a meter (micrometer) and offer hope for a 500 GHz clock rate or more.

2. DNA Yes, you heard me right. Computing based on DNA strands in which information is stored and processed.

3. Other materials

Gallium Arsenide with much a faster speed has been used for years for military purposes.

Silicon-Germanium chips increase the transfer of light signals to silicon. These traditionally have worked best at ultra cold temperatures, but many computer simulations have shown that they may be made to approach 1000 GHz (1 THz) at room temperature.

Indium-antimonide. Much faster than silicon

Optical transistors. A glass material known as chalcogenide becomes a switch as its refracting properties are changed. No need to translate those photons into anything else.

Coated Viruses. The latest research involves coating viruses with a conducting material. Much higher speeds at the molecular level can be obtained. This will give a new meaning to the term "computer virus".

4. Parallel Processing As we've noticed lately with the war between Intel and AMD over the number of parallel processors crammed into a CPU, digital camera processing would benefit from parallel processors handling the focussing, sharpening and squeezing.

In addition, improvement in instructional efficiency by reducing the lines of code would make the whole process more efficient.

HOLD ON AND WAIT FOR THE FUTURE

The REAL solution to this maddening shutter delay appears to be in the material the processor is constructed of, as well as advancements in the software.

But we've got awhile to wait for it. Although a few alternate materials have been around for awhile, everything else is still in the research and development phase. Even when it finally trickles out of the labs, it will probably make your future digital camera cost around $10000 - $15000.

Quite a price tag for the ability to take pictures as fast as a film camera! Still

Except for the lag, the digital camera has it all over film cameras, once the photo is captured by the memory card. The new technology will be worth the wait.

Digital camera owners are known for their ability to waitas they desperately punch the shutter release trying to grab the fleeting smile of their new baby, or the football that lands in his hands eighteen years later, when he scores the winning touchdown.

John Young is a writer and editor with a technical background living in California with his wife and cat Bear. Take a look at his new ezine The Digital Zone at http://www.pcreveal.com/digitalcamera.Hotel New Kamakura