Lindgren exploits weaknesses in new book
It was a recent Wednesday when the Travel Channel was airing the World Poker Tour's L.A. Poker Classic, and there was Erick Lindgren at the final table.
On that same Wednesday, in real life, the new World Poker Tour stop at the Borgata was being taped (to be shown later on the Travel Channel), and there was Erick Lindgren at the final table.
Good timing for a guy whose name and face are on the latest World Poker Tour book called -- ta-da! -- "Making the Final Table.''
"That's pretty sweet -- playing live and on TV at the same time,'' Lindgren said.
Last week, Lindgren won more than $261,000 by capturing the $3,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em event at the Five-Star World Poker Classic at the Bellagio, one of the big events leading up to the $25,000 buy-in WPT Championship. In the last two-plus years, Lindgren has won the WPT's Ultimate Poker Classic II no-limit hold'em championship, the PartyPoker.com Million III limit hold'em main event, and the Professional Poker Tour stop at the L.A. Poker Classic. He also has made eight other final tables in WPT, Professional Poker Tour and World Series of Poker events.
Sweet, indeed.
So the guy knows. Knows what he's doing. Knows how to make the final table.
And "Making The Final Table'' is filled with solid information, which is what you'd expect from a top tournament player such as Lindgren and a math guy/writing guy/poker-playing guy such as Matt Matros, who co-authored the book after writing his own, "The Making of a Poker Player.''
One of the best parts of the book is the way the insight to the thought processes of tournament poker is conveyed in a conversational style. It sounds like the Lindgren I've talked to many times, and it reads like the detailed Matros I've dealt with the last couple of years.
In fact, just so you understand their connect-the-dots communication skills, Matros has another title: poker coach. Lindgren could be one, too, if he wasn't so busy making final tables.
The book discusses different approaches at each step of the tournament, from the first day to the bubble to getting paid to the final table bubble, and then, finally, winning.
That is the primary point of the book: You are there to win. Not just to cash, but to win. Big difference in approach and style.
I mean, for players who qualified for a $10,000 buy-in tournament by winning a $20 online satellite, just cashing represents a big payday. Most of the 5,600-plus players who competed in last year's World Series of Poker main event, for instance, won their seats in some kind of satellite, and the lowest payout of $12,500 for those who made it into the money was a big deal.
But the biggest names weren't content with that. They were there for the biggest payday and the bracelet. It was win or bust, and sure, they all did go bust, but it was borne out of an all-out assault on winning that comes from the first commandment of tournament poker: accumulate chips.
"That's one thing the book really advocates from the first hand: Try to accumulate chips to make that possible,'' Lindgren says. "Of course, it's not going to work out every time, and you're going to have to play small stacks also, but if you do get that big stack, your chances of making that final table are just so much better than if you stick around at the average stack size all day.
"We advocate playing a bunch of pots and not just playing one pot for all the money as often as you can. It's playing a series of pots to try to accumulate a bunch of chips. It's not the crazy all-in stuff; it's constantly chipping away. A lot of times, it's not going to work and you're going to have to change your strategy to play a smaller stack.
"Have more chips than the guy you're playing a pot with. It's the fundamental theorem of poker. If you have more chips than your opponent, you can't go broke. You live to fight another day. You're picking your opponent, but you're also picking their stack size."
And when you pick stack sizes and pick opponents, Lindgren says, make sure you pick someone you can beat.
"In a tournament most of your tables are going to be nine- or 10-handed, and it's very important to figure out the players that play the worst and pick on them,'' Lindgren says. "Find a way to get involved in pots with them. Just avoid the players that are good. There's no reason to play with them until you have to. Pick lesser opponents. It's so important.''
Like Matt Damon's character Mike McDermott says in the opening of "Rounders:'' "Look, here's the thing: If you can't spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker.''
"You might be the worst player at the table, and that's a big problem,'' Lindgren says. "You're probably not going to have success if you do get a bad table draw like that. If Phil Ivey's there or Chris Ferguson, you don't want to get involved with them early.
"But you might see some guys who are playing too loose or making some bad overbets or maybe some guy playing too tight. You just need to find a way to exploit that.''
The next most important point Lindgren wants to make has nothing to do with playing A-10 offsuit from middle position. No, it has to do with understanding just how long you will have to play, period, to reach the final table.
"People get really frustrated and they tend to give up as the day goes on and just take their stand with a bad hand,'' he says. "I think the advice would be if you're going to play a big tournament, see how many hours you're going to play beforehand and be ready for it, because it does get long and grueling.''
Indeed, the patience and stamina required to play a weeklong tournament -- in the case of this year's WSOP main event, two weeks -- never comes through on television.
"No, it doesn't,'' Lindgren says. "The thing to tell the people at home is that tournament poker is freaking boring. It's very, very boring, so you have to figure out a way to be entertained at the table. A lot of people use music, and I think I'm going to get back to that because it stimulates the mind and it helps keep you alert at the table.
"I'd certainly be losing some stuff by doing it, especially with the amateurs. They tell you some stuff that's just unbelievable. Bill Edler [one of the hottest tournament pros who happens to be backed in events by Lindgren] was playing a pot when I was at his table at the Borgata, and this guy makes a very small bet on the turn and Bill called it, and this guy says, 'Heck, I'm drawing.' The guy that bet said, 'I'm on the draw,' which is hilarious.
"So a card that didn't fit in comes on the river, and the guy checks to Bill, and Bill bets it and takes it and admits that he missed his straight. If you had headphones on, it would be hilarious if they checked to you and you checked and not won that pot. So there's some stuff that you can give up, but you can turn your headphones off when you're in a pot.''
Lindgren has been playing tournament poker before television created the pokerpalooza mania we've seen the last three years, and he says he has seen a big change in players.
"I would say that almost everyone is questioning their game,'' Lindgren says. "Very few people are playing the way they were four years ago. I'm talking about the guys who've been playing tournament poker for 10, 20 years. I think they brought the same game every time. They were very predictable and they played the same game.
"But I think now, everybody's playing in a very aggressive fashion. They may not be that good at it, but I think everybody's playing better. They see odds on TV that they didn't even know. It's weird to say, but if a guy had A-J, he wouldn't even know the odds if he was up against two kings. I would say people understand the math better and they understand the game as a whole. That's also a result of all the books out. People have been able to learn so much so much faster now.''
And here's Lindgren putting out a book, helping people learn so much faster.
"Yeah, pretty stupid, huh?'' he says. "But it doesn't matter. It still comes down to execution.''
On that same Wednesday, in real life, the new World Poker Tour stop at the Borgata was being taped (to be shown later on the Travel Channel), and there was Erick Lindgren at the final table.
Good timing for a guy whose name and face are on the latest World Poker Tour book called -- ta-da! -- "Making the Final Table.''
"That's pretty sweet -- playing live and on TV at the same time,'' Lindgren said.
Last week, Lindgren won more than $261,000 by capturing the $3,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em event at the Five-Star World Poker Classic at the Bellagio, one of the big events leading up to the $25,000 buy-in WPT Championship. In the last two-plus years, Lindgren has won the WPT's Ultimate Poker Classic II no-limit hold'em championship, the PartyPoker.com Million III limit hold'em main event, and the Professional Poker Tour stop at the L.A. Poker Classic. He also has made eight other final tables in WPT, Professional Poker Tour and World Series of Poker events.
Sweet, indeed.
So the guy knows. Knows what he's doing. Knows how to make the final table.
And "Making The Final Table'' is filled with solid information, which is what you'd expect from a top tournament player such as Lindgren and a math guy/writing guy/poker-playing guy such as Matt Matros, who co-authored the book after writing his own, "The Making of a Poker Player.''
One of the best parts of the book is the way the insight to the thought processes of tournament poker is conveyed in a conversational style. It sounds like the Lindgren I've talked to many times, and it reads like the detailed Matros I've dealt with the last couple of years.
In fact, just so you understand their connect-the-dots communication skills, Matros has another title: poker coach. Lindgren could be one, too, if he wasn't so busy making final tables.
The book discusses different approaches at each step of the tournament, from the first day to the bubble to getting paid to the final table bubble, and then, finally, winning.
That is the primary point of the book: You are there to win. Not just to cash, but to win. Big difference in approach and style.
I mean, for players who qualified for a $10,000 buy-in tournament by winning a $20 online satellite, just cashing represents a big payday. Most of the 5,600-plus players who competed in last year's World Series of Poker main event, for instance, won their seats in some kind of satellite, and the lowest payout of $12,500 for those who made it into the money was a big deal.
But the biggest names weren't content with that. They were there for the biggest payday and the bracelet. It was win or bust, and sure, they all did go bust, but it was borne out of an all-out assault on winning that comes from the first commandment of tournament poker: accumulate chips.
"That's one thing the book really advocates from the first hand: Try to accumulate chips to make that possible,'' Lindgren says. "Of course, it's not going to work out every time, and you're going to have to play small stacks also, but if you do get that big stack, your chances of making that final table are just so much better than if you stick around at the average stack size all day.
"We advocate playing a bunch of pots and not just playing one pot for all the money as often as you can. It's playing a series of pots to try to accumulate a bunch of chips. It's not the crazy all-in stuff; it's constantly chipping away. A lot of times, it's not going to work and you're going to have to change your strategy to play a smaller stack.
"Have more chips than the guy you're playing a pot with. It's the fundamental theorem of poker. If you have more chips than your opponent, you can't go broke. You live to fight another day. You're picking your opponent, but you're also picking their stack size."
And when you pick stack sizes and pick opponents, Lindgren says, make sure you pick someone you can beat.
"In a tournament most of your tables are going to be nine- or 10-handed, and it's very important to figure out the players that play the worst and pick on them,'' Lindgren says. "Find a way to get involved in pots with them. Just avoid the players that are good. There's no reason to play with them until you have to. Pick lesser opponents. It's so important.''
Like Matt Damon's character Mike McDermott says in the opening of "Rounders:'' "Look, here's the thing: If you can't spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker.''
"You might be the worst player at the table, and that's a big problem,'' Lindgren says. "You're probably not going to have success if you do get a bad table draw like that. If Phil Ivey's there or Chris Ferguson, you don't want to get involved with them early.
"But you might see some guys who are playing too loose or making some bad overbets or maybe some guy playing too tight. You just need to find a way to exploit that.''
The next most important point Lindgren wants to make has nothing to do with playing A-10 offsuit from middle position. No, it has to do with understanding just how long you will have to play, period, to reach the final table.
"People get really frustrated and they tend to give up as the day goes on and just take their stand with a bad hand,'' he says. "I think the advice would be if you're going to play a big tournament, see how many hours you're going to play beforehand and be ready for it, because it does get long and grueling.''
Indeed, the patience and stamina required to play a weeklong tournament -- in the case of this year's WSOP main event, two weeks -- never comes through on television.
"No, it doesn't,'' Lindgren says. "The thing to tell the people at home is that tournament poker is freaking boring. It's very, very boring, so you have to figure out a way to be entertained at the table. A lot of people use music, and I think I'm going to get back to that because it stimulates the mind and it helps keep you alert at the table.
"I'd certainly be losing some stuff by doing it, especially with the amateurs. They tell you some stuff that's just unbelievable. Bill Edler [one of the hottest tournament pros who happens to be backed in events by Lindgren] was playing a pot when I was at his table at the Borgata, and this guy makes a very small bet on the turn and Bill called it, and this guy says, 'Heck, I'm drawing.' The guy that bet said, 'I'm on the draw,' which is hilarious.
"So a card that didn't fit in comes on the river, and the guy checks to Bill, and Bill bets it and takes it and admits that he missed his straight. If you had headphones on, it would be hilarious if they checked to you and you checked and not won that pot. So there's some stuff that you can give up, but you can turn your headphones off when you're in a pot.''
Lindgren has been playing tournament poker before television created the pokerpalooza mania we've seen the last three years, and he says he has seen a big change in players.
"I would say that almost everyone is questioning their game,'' Lindgren says. "Very few people are playing the way they were four years ago. I'm talking about the guys who've been playing tournament poker for 10, 20 years. I think they brought the same game every time. They were very predictable and they played the same game.
"But I think now, everybody's playing in a very aggressive fashion. They may not be that good at it, but I think everybody's playing better. They see odds on TV that they didn't even know. It's weird to say, but if a guy had A-J, he wouldn't even know the odds if he was up against two kings. I would say people understand the math better and they understand the game as a whole. That's also a result of all the books out. People have been able to learn so much so much faster now.''
And here's Lindgren putting out a book, helping people learn so much faster.
"Yeah, pretty stupid, huh?'' he says. "But it doesn't matter. It still comes down to execution.''
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