Money Saved Equals Money Won

Money saved is money won. When we sit down to play poker, we come out swinging with good hands, so we can stack the chips.

It makes us happy. After all, when we drag a pot and display our primacy at the holy game of poker, it's visible evidence of skill, knowledge, cunning, and luck. What's more, our opponents can see it too, and breathes there a poker player alive who is not justifiably proud of a terrific bluff, or an ability to convince an opponent to bet into the stone cold nuts?

Dragging a big pot is a moment every poker player loves. But that's only half the battle, because money saved by not calling a bet with a weak hand spends just as well as an extra bet garnered through an impressive display of offensive poker skills.

We love offense. Maybe it's inherent in the American character. Quarterbacks who make the big plays earn a lot more money than the cornerbacks and safeties who prevent big plays. We prefer home-run hitters and big RBI guys who can't field a lick to gold-glove shortstops with anemic .243 batting averages earned by beating out bunts and punching singles into the opposite field with only a little more regularity than a good-hitting pitcher.

You can argue all day about which player is more valuable. But in poker there's no argument at all. Defensive play is the equal of offensive play, only many players never realize it, and if they do, they give it short shrift-if it gets any shrift at all.

What you don't spend, you don't have to earn. The money that stays with you because you saved a bet spends just as well as chips acquired by betting and winning. And it turns out that this is quite an important notion, more so than you might realize at first glance.

In a hold 'em game you're in the blind about six or seven hands per hour. Some of that time your blinds will be raised. If you routinely call each raise from the blind you may be costing yourself quite a bit of money. The same thing holds true if you make weak calls when the flop neither hits your hand nor provides a draw to a flush or a straight. These are all opportunities to save a bet. While it seems small because it is, after all, "...only one bet," they add up. A bet here and a bet there and pretty soon you might traverse the line separating consistently winning players from those who regularly lose money.

When the skill gaps are small between opponents-when everyone has the theory pretty much down pat-often the determining factor between who wins and who is a contributor is the discipline to save a bet here and a bet there with hands that do not offer the right price to continue on in the fray.

Saving a bet is neither dramatic nor particularly ego gratifying, but it produces spendable cash just the same. And knowing when to save a bet by folding may be a major key to your success at the poker table.

If you examine your own game you might find any number of opportunities to make money by saving a bet here and there. While it's not the kind of stuff that would make Sports Center's plays of the week if ESPN had poker plays of the week, it is the stuff that contributes to your bottom line. It also might be the reason why, when you watch a player with a big reputation and never see him do anything seemingly special, part of his reputation is undoubtedly tied to his ability to save a bet when it's needed. There's no mystery here, and it's not rocket science. After all, even Kenny Rogers knows "...you gotta know when to fold 'em." Do you?

Visit Lou Krieger online and check out all his books at www.loukrieger.com. You can read his blog at http://loukrieger.blogspot.com and write directly to him at loukrieger@aol.com.