Credit check

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Quote of the day: "Do not use this one day wastefully...this one day cannot be retrieved once it is lost" Dogen Zenji


When you are trying to buy a house, it is important to know your credit score. When you are trying to make money in poker, your credit becomes equally important. I am talking about how your opponents perceive you. Manipulating your credit and using it to your advantage is one of the most important tools you have in no-limit cash games or tournaments. Based upon how your opponents perceive you, you can formulate a gameplan around it, either for just one hand or for the entire session. You can make money regardless of whether you have good credit or bad credit, but you usually profit by making plays that are contrary to your normal line of credit. This is one of the most important concepts in poker. If you are aware of your approximate credit score, you can use this knowledge against your opponents.

Just like in life, a poker credit score is made up of many things and is a bit complex. But we can start by breaking credit into two general categories, good credit and bad credit. In general, a player like Dan Harrington has good credit. He can use this image to get others to lay down better hands. When he makes a big hand it is more difficult for him to get paid off because of his good credit rating. So he must find ways to manipulate his good credit to his advantage. He does that by getting other players to lay down hands that they should be calling him with. A player like Sam Farha has generally bad credit, he is seen as someone who plays a lot of pots and makes raises with weak or suspect holdings to try to get others to fold. Because of this, he cannot get others to lay down hands easily. So he learns when not to bluff, and uses his credit rating to get paid off on his big hands by players who should fold. Let’s look at a hand from each of them from ESPN and see how they use their credit to their advantage.

There was a hand during the 2004 World Series final table that involved Josh Arieh, Greg Raymer, and Dan Harrington. I would consider all three as solid players and all aware of credit scores, both their own and of the others at the table. Josh’s credit was not very high, as he was raising and involved in a lot of pots. Greg’s credit was more complex. While on one hand he was perceived as a “bully” at that final table and was raising and involved in many pots, on the other hand most of the cards he showed down were winners, so his credit while not high, was sort of a more complicated mix. In addition, he was chip leader so it made it less likely the others would make a play on him even with a lower credit score. Dan’s credit was high, he was seen as someone who would almost always have a big hand when he raised. So, on this particular play, Josh raised from early position (with K-9). Greg called with a semi-weak hand (A-2s). I would imagine he called because of the combination of Josh’s poor credit, his position advantage on Josh, and because his large chip stack was likely to intimidate all the players behind him into folding unless they held a big hand. After the raise and call, there was a very significant amount of chips in the pot. Dan had reason to believe that Josh did not have a real strong hand (based on his bad credit) and that if Dan raised Josh would likely fold most hands he might have based upon Dan’s credit score and the addition of Raymer’s call with an intimidating stack behind him. Dan was also to believe that Greg’s call represented a hand that Greg called because of position, his intimidating stack, and Josh’s poor credit. In addition, Greg’s credit was as a bully, so there was no need for Greg to slow play a big hand in that spot, so Dan did not figure Greg to have a big hand. So Dan looked down at his hand, 6-2, and made a significant raise into the pot. David Williams, who had AQ this hand, folded quickly based partly upon Dan’s credit. Josh and Greg folded as well and Dan picked up the blinds, antes, and the amount of Josh’s raise and Greg’s call, which was a significant increase to his stack. In addition, he did not have to show his 6-2 hand, so his credit remained in tact. A play like this is where Dan can make a profit from to make up for the lack of times he actually does get paid off when he has a good hand. If players started to call him in these spots because they know he can make this play with 6-2, then Dan’s credit would go down, and then he could simply play tight knowing he could get paid off when he hits a big hand.

In thinking of an example of bad credit that has been seen on TV, look at Sam Farha on the first episode of the 2005 World Series. On the very first hand, he was able to double through. With blinds at 25/50 and each having 10,000 in chips, Oliver Hudson and Sam Farha played a hand. Farha raised to 200 with A-T and Hudson reraised with T-T making it 450. The flop came A-A-T and both players checked trying to slow play. The turn was a Queen and Hudson bet 300 and Farha raised to 1300. If you think about the play, Hudson’s hand is not as strong as it appears. There are four hands that beat him AA, AQ, QQ, or AT. It’s unlikely that any opponent there would be willing to put all his chips in the pot unless he held one of those hands. But he was up against a player with a bad credit rating and so under that camouflage Hudson raised all of his remaining chips. Granted, Oliver Hudson may not be the best of poker players, but in discussing this hand with other players whom I respect, some say they would have also gone broke on the hand because it was Sam Farha. Yet none of those players said that they would have lost all their chips if it was a player like Dan Harrington. Against Dan, most would have just called the raise and either bet/folded or checked/called on the river. Sam’s bad credit here allows him to make a huge profit when he hits a hand.

This is the first of several blogs I’m going to do on the credit issue. In future blogs I’ll go a little more into credit using hands I’ve played recently and also talk more about being aware of your own credit and when it means something and when it doesn’t, specifically why credit does/doesn’t matter as related to small stakes games.