The poker playing strategy of President Richard Nixon compared with that of President Harry S. Truman
Following up on our piece about poker playing Presidents of the USA a little while back, a journalist friend reminded us that although Richard Nixon tried the biggest bluff of all time when he openly challenged Congress to impeach him over Watergate, he made the classic mistake of showing his cards (the infamous doctored Oval Office tapes) prior to the bluff and his raising of the stakes. The consequence of that tactical error resulted in Congress “calling” Tricky Dicky’s bluff and bringing him down in the final showdown.
"I'm not bluffing!"
President Harry S. Truman, however, was an altogether smarter poker player. He would frequently fleece the press reporters who followed him around in high stakes games that they could ill afford to lose on their comparatively low salaries. The World War II President demonstrated his skill at deception by playing weak hands after a big win so as to re-distribute money to the financially ravaged reporters. Having demonstrated his nice side for everyone to see and read about, he promptly dropped the atomic bombs on Japan. Keep ‘em guessing. That’s the art. Truman was the true President of Poker.
OLD TRUTHS You’ll often hear older, experienced poker players grunt, “Any two cards can win it!” They are referring of course to your hole cards. This statement pretty much flies in the face of accepted modern wisdom that a high pair or ace-king as starting hole cards are much more likely to reward you with a pot of gold. The latter is of course valid but old timers are quick to recall all those occasions in low-limit games in particular when they’ve held on to some of the worse two hole cards imaginable (8-2 of different suits for example) only to find the flop delivers 8-8-2. Their point is if the flop is 8-8-2 what would you sooner be holding? Ace-king or an 8 and a 2? It’s an amusing idea to run with but strictly in LOW LIMIT games for the fun of it. In the real world the fact remains pocket aces are going to land you the better hand almost ninety percent of the time.
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SAD BUT TRUE A few of us were at a social poker game a couple of Sundays ago and the host put on his traditional sunglasses prior to the game to protect himself from any eye-expression “tells”. This is very common among professionals at top tables around the world. After we’d finished playing he took his sunglasses off and we had a few drinks and began to leave. As we were leaving we could see through the front window that he’d sat down in front of his PC for some online poker and was putting his sunglasses back on?
ALL THE ACES daily poker column: Monday, September 26, 2005: The Mixed Fortunes Of Poker Playing Presidents
