Once upon a time, a Soviet satirist of renown wrote a book satirizing a con man who set out to make some quick rubles. He was able to convince a small town chess club that he was a traveling chess professional wanting to organize a tournament. This went over big in the township and our man charged entry fees to those gathered about in eager anticipation to let the games begin. He structured the tournament with “twelve identical matches” and began the play knowing very little to absolutely nothing about the game of chess, this being only his second attempt at it. He managed to move the pieces around in a somewhat normal and convincing manner, greatly impressing the gathering who were awestruck by such a “professional” in their midst, reading glory into every play. Alas, the maestro lost all twelve games, but maintained his good humor. By the end, enough time had elapsed for him to run off with the fees he collected at the onset of the games. So, while he didn’t know squat about chess, he came out a winner.

The satire is titled The Twelve Chairs and has been translated into English and even a film adaptation on DVD available at Amazon.com. Mel Brooks was featured in the first film adaptation, a comedy. This was a very loose adaptation and for those of you are not Mel Brooks fanatics, it is best avoided. See instead a Russian adaptation of a 1976 mini-series by that great Russian director, Mark Zaharov. Though not as familiar a name as Tarkovsky, he is a directorial genius.

At the heart of the satire is that a good player, poker or otherwise, can be defined by what his goal is. The fictional con man of the satire was an effective chess player because his goal was to make some money and run, and he did just that. In addition, he was ever so cognizant of his shortcomings as a chess player and structured a plan to play fast and get out with the money before the townsfolk were onto him.

Now, a surprisingly large amount of poker players are reluctant to admit their less than average abilities. Ego is often central with poker players, it seems, perhaps because of the peculiar aura around the game. How they fail to realize that poker is a complex game one spends a lifetime learning is something of a marvel, but these pros-in-denial are exactly what makes poker a profitable game for the serious and talented players.

Then there are those who play by rote, repeating a learned set of rules and strategies with no cognitive activity to gum up the works. No point in improving because they win more than half of the time and are therefore good players - they have met their goal.

If one would look at poker as an art form, the above types of players do not cut the mustard as real players (we dare not call them bad players). True they sit on the stage of the poker club, do their little act, but they are not stars. The good poker player understands that the real joy of the game lies in learning its complexities and is eager to learn and to develop skills by experience at the table as well as reading the abundance of literature devoted to the game. Poker is a game of skill, theater, perception and strategy. The good player will be his own best critic and learn to emphasize his strengths and minimize his weaknesses to fully enjoy the game.

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