Forget the aquarium - is poker a safari?

[Dingdell]

Having spent the evening with almost 200 poker fanatics, and spending most of that time comparing good and bad beats I got to thinking – is poker the average mans safari?

Not that long ago safari shooting was one of the most revered and attended sports for the wealthy and landed gentry. Following a days shooting the battle of gun against game was discussed tirelessly. How the impala herd scattered in different directions, desperately darting to find cover only to be shot down mid run by an unexpected bullet. The bigger the animal or the faster it ran the better the kill. Arguments over who actually got the kill, and which assassin did the most harm were animatedly and tirelessly repeated time and time again.

Last night at Walsall I saw and heard exactly the same discussions taking place, except that the animal and shooter were all poker players. The mortally wounding of a player claimed by two players, rejoicing in the actual kill and the death of the player as he went down for the last time.

It became obvious to me how to spot the final table players. There are two types of player, the guns and game. The game are the players who are hoping to dodge the bullets, and the others have guns and are not afraid to use them!

Anyone who knows Phil (Snatiramas) the eventual winner of the BB3 tournament would never think of him as anything but a gun, he never comes to the table as anything but an assassin and his recent results bear this out. Last night Simon Nowab came out shooting every time someone attacked him, and outside of Blonde Luke Patten has an automatic machine gun which he doesn’t have a license for. When he pulls the trigger he showers the table with bullets and has everyone ducking for cover, including the other guns.

In the main the gun wins without much of a fight, once shot the animal retreats to the bar licking its wounds. Tilting could be likened to a wounded animal attacking the safari jeep without any hope of penetrating the steel doors, the best they can hope to achieve is scratching the paintwork to exact revenge on their executioner. 

In nature it’s unusual to find animals attacking as a group, but when they occur they are remembered.  Elephant charges are a rarity but every one of us knows to get out of the way. Conversely the number of bird attacks is increasing, police had to close down an entire street in Houston this year after a gang of grackles attacked pedestrians, knocking some of them down.

So why in a poker game don’t the game stick together?  Why in a poker game do we become Impala and head for cover, allowing the weakest and slowest to get caught? Should we become grackles and elephants, ganging up on the shooters, and knocking their jeeps over?

Discuss.

[DazzaT]

Interesting thought, but I think the main point is as true in poker as it is in the animal kingdom and that is.... you will very rarely find to 'game' evenly matched, that usually means although the stampeding elephants win as a whole, there's usually a few little ones that die due to not being able to keep up with the 'attacking' heard and actually get wiped out by the very ones they have sided with.

If the 'herd' ganged up on the tactics of the guns, it would be inevitable that a few would fall in the attack, leaving maybe just one lone attacker, and even a wounded gun is more than a match to the slightly-empowered game.  I have evidence to back up my theory...

We have home games every two weeks, on a Sunday night.  One of our 'herd' is a guy called Gaz, now safe in the rest of the heard, he can do a reasonable amount of damage but when his fellow game fall, he's easy prey.  One night, with about over £7,000 in chips against my £450, heads up, he eventually lost because even though there is power in numbers, the guns can duck and dive long enough to re-gain strength and finally hit back where it hurts.

Guns will aways re-gain strength, game will always wander off and slowly bleed to death, bleed in life and bleed in chips.