Slain by Students

Part of my work with The Asia Poker Academy is to keep an eye out for good players who also happen to be great human beings.  These are the guys who make even greater coaches.

We've invited many good players to help us in the Academy, but the invitation is not always met with enthusiasm.  Quite often, it is met with this common reservation:

Aren't you afraid that if you teach the fish, there will be no more fish?

I guess what they are trying to say is "Thanks for the invite, but my secrets will remain mine.  Cheers!"

I sigh.  Hey, not everyone gets it.


There was a conspiracy theory when The Super System went mainstream.  The theory was that the book was written to teach players to play badly.  

Raise 56s under the gun to mix it up.

Always play the next hand after you win a big pot.

It was easier to believe in the conspiracy theory because the alternative - that these great minds were just trying to share the joy of the game - did not make sense.

As it turns out, those great minds knew exactly what they were doing - and there was no trickery to it either.  They understood that the more they shared the game, the bigger the game got.  The more secrets they revealed, the more players revealed themselves.

They got it.  

Cut to 30 years later, and poker is bigger than anyone could have imagined in 1979.

Education as aphrodisiac.

The more poker tips available, the easier the game seemed.  The easier it seemed, the more the fish came out.  It was win-win. What did it matter if a thousand guys read every single word of every poker book, if it meant they could do well versus the millions who only bothered to read the chapter titles?

So the serious players got better, and there were more casual (read: hopeful) players than ever to help them pay their bills.

Teaching players the game turns out to be a +EV proposition for the industry's long run.


Lately I got a few jabs from poker friends regarding my recent work as game analyst for the televised Philippine Poker Tour legs.  The episode covering the fourth leg, in particular, was one where some say I may be revealing too much and ruining the game for the sharks.




To them I usually say this:  If a fully-armed Knight in Plate Armor hands a squire a dagger, is the Knight fucked?

Hey, you've got to give them something, or else they will never get into the tourney with you.  And unlike Knightly tournaments, poker tournaments are actually still gross mismatches disguised as a level-playing field, but where a lucky squire can often still come out on top.

Possibility as aphrodisiac.

That dagger-wielding Squire is one day going to cut that Knight in half!  Our coaching applicants are also specifically worried about this.  How can we guarantee that their students won't be crushing them and chasing them out of their own playgrounds when they are done learning everything we know?

Our only guarantee against this is the sheer size of the playground.  But even if the Student does run his Mentor out of town, I see that as a good sign.  Any Student's road to manifest destiny necessarily includes surpassing his Mentor's achievements in the process.

Proof of upgrade.

As a Mentor, I want my Student to know everything I know.  He will add that to everything he knows and discovers for himself - which he doesn't necessarily teach me - and what we are supposed to get is a new superior breed.  One with more weapons than I can imagine.  Him with the submachine gun, and me with my broadsword.

My crowning achievement as a Mentor is to be slain by my Students.