Good and Bad Poker Advice From Pros: Deeb, O’Kearney And Lappin

The English romantic poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge once said:

“Advice is like snow - the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.”

Poker players are a strong-minded, strong-willed bunch who perhaps need advice to be delivered in the right way. Nonetheless, it’s a fact that those of us who have humility and are keen to learn give ourselves the best chance of succeeding in a game which has constantly evolved.

As the meta has changed down the years, heeding advice whether it came from other players or extrapolated from solver output has been and continues to be vital for our improvement. That being said, one must be vigilant against pieces of bad advice, those that take us on wrong turns or bring us down logical cul de sacs.

With all the opinions that have bounced around in the past twenty years of poker, it is inevitable that you would have absorbed both bad and good advice. Earlier this year, myself and my Chip Race co-host Dara O’Kearney interviewed Shawn Deeb and at one point, we asked him about the bad and good advice that he received.

Deeb Mistakenly Adhered to Concept of Reverse Implied Odds

Deeb said that early in his career, the prevailing wisdom was to adhere to the concept of reverse implied odds. Looking back, he wishes that he had discounted that advice. He over-applied the concept and, these days, he thinks more about the realizable equity of a hand. He understands that folding so many hands when getting almost 5:1 was just silly.

Deeb elaborated on the idea of over-folding more generally by pointing to how in vogue it used to be to either “4-bet or fold” to 3-bets. A decade or so ago, “you could not call”, whereas nowadays “there is a lot of flatting because players have increased their pre-flop range to include hands with more post-flop playability and they understand the bluffing frequencies better”. The fact that there are more passive lines and smaller sizes in the modern solver-informed game also means that equity can realized more readily.

O’Kearney Used To Avoid Difficult Decisions

When O’Kearney was starting out, the old-school approach to poker was to, where possible, simplify it by not making a decision that could lead to a more difficult decision on a later street. After years of heeding that advice and avoiding murky spots, he had a eureka moment of sorts, realizing that “the point of poker is to make good decisions” and not clunky decisions that beget obvious future decisions.

A renowned poker coach and author, O’Kearney teaches his students to weigh up their options and then choose the lines that are most profitable, “whatever they may be, even if they result in more complicated situations”. Poker is a battle of wits and, in the longterm, the winner will usually be the player who can figure out what to do in the more complex and intricate parts of the game tree.

Beware Those Who Advocate for Shot-Taking

I think the worst piece of advice that I received early on was in a Bluff magazine article by Paul Wasicka who famously took 2nd in the 2006 WSOP Main event to Jamie Gold. Wasicka recommended that players take more shots early on because they could “always build it back up”. I initially thought that made sense because I was in my 20s and I thought I could just drop right back down if it went poorly and rebuild.

What I realized, however, before any real damage was done, was that Wasicka’s advice was the perfect example of survivorship bias. It worked out for him so I guess he thought that it was good general advice. In reality though, a much more incremental wealth creation strategy like Kelly Criterion is better in the vast majority of universes.

Not only that, but by adopting a less aggressive and more balanced bankroll strategy, it meant that my emotions have rarely been tested by the sharp downswings that shot-taking would surely have caused. The bottom line is that poker is a game in which having money can make you money. If a good spot comes up, it’s nice to be able to take it whereas if you burned three-quarters of your role last month taking shots, now that opportunity will pass you by while you build back up for a long period of time in small games.

Deeb Eventually Learned to Leave Ego at the Door

When it came to good advice, Deeb began by saying that you don’t have to take the game too seriously but if you do, expect variance to be worse than you think. That’s sensible as the swings in poker can be brutal, especially when you are relying on the game as your primary income source. Flippantly, he added: “Make sure your opponents play worse than you do or you suck at game selection”. Indeed.

His best advice, however, was a lesson it took him years to learn: “Leaving ego at the door is everything. Ego caused me so many problems early in my career.” Deeb said that he did not understand the extent to which people were scared of him. He wasn’t responding correctly to the actions of an opponent who was intimidated. “They knew I was aggressive and they tried to trap me a lot.” Instead of recognising that adjustment and toning down his aggression, he cost himself “millions of dollars” by falling into those traps.

It was not until he became a seasoned veteran that Deeb got better at recognising those spots and picking up more generally on game-flow. Poker versus opponents of varying ability is always a game of calibration and as time went by, he got better at “weaving between the four styles, adjusting to the table dynamics, stack sizes and how other players are playing”.

O’Kearney Gave Satellites A Try And The Rest Is History

O’Kearney was quick to acknowledge a plethora of pearls that he received down the years, wisdom that has stood the test of time, but the singular best piece of advice was to do with game selection. About fifteen years ago, online Limit Hold’em was dying and the Sit n Go liquidity was drying up. Both of these had been his bread and butter games and so he was, by his own admission, “floundering around” in multi-table tournaments and other formats. That was until a fortuitous conversation with a friend named Declan in the Fitzwilliam Card Club in Dublin that would send his career on a very specific trajectory.

Declan recommended that O’Kearney try playing satellites, a format that he insisted was soft, in part because there was a stigma attached to playing them. “Pros just played the target event and they thought of qualifiers as beneath them”, said O’Kearney. Nonetheless, he heeded the advice and quickly realized how profitable satellites could be. Cut to today and he is the preeminent authority on satellite play, having authored a best-selling book on the topic.

There’s Always Another Game

I don’t remember who said it or whether it was so often said that it became an oft-quoted poker aphorism but a great piece of advice that I received is ‘there will always be another game’. This one is more about life advice as a poker player rather than specific poker playing advice but, to be honest, managing yourself as a poker player is as if not more important than playing the cards.

Early on in my career, I felt like I had to play everything and I couldn’t miss anything. The next big event, live or online, always seemed so huge, loomed so large and was bursting with potential. However, as I got older, and particularly after I had children, I realized the importance of life balance. A good counter-argument is how much tougher the game is with each passing year so you certainly have to be careful not to take this advice too far. Nonetheless, there will always be another poker tournament or series, live or online on the horizon.

In conclusion, I would like to finish with the words of poker commentator and legendary comedian Norm MacDonald who said:

“There are two things which a man should scrupulously avoid: giving advice that he would not follow, and asking for advice when he is determined to pursue his own opinion.”

Photo Credits:

Shaun Deeb - Antonio Abrego for Las Vegas Review Journal
Dara O'Kearney - Danny Maxwell Photography for Irish Open
David Lappin - Danny Maxwell Photography for Poker.org

David is a professional poker player, strategy writer, podcast producer, and poker brand ambassador. He has written over 600 blogs and articles on poker; including news, opinion and strategy. He has been a professional poker player since 2006 and is the producer and host of the 2-time GPI Global Poker Award winning podcast ‘The Chip Race.’ David has also been a brand ambassador for Unibet since 2017.