Go All-In

The World Series of Poker on ESPN is a unique glance into the world of high-stakes gambling that the vast majority of us are too terrified or too poor (the entry fee to the main event is $10,000) to enter.



The contestants make for truly fascinating viewing- it's one of the biggest collections of oddballs, creeps, and weirdos outside of a Star Trek convention. Harvard PhDs compete with uneducated laborers, mathematic whiz kids stare down vice peddlers, and just-off-the-boat immigrants play alongside old-school Texas oilmen.

There are high rollers, Jesus freaks, pregnant women, and lots of fat guys. If only someone could invent smell-o-vision, we could also sense the cigar stench and the stale nachos and the B.O. (come to think of it, maybe we could do without smell-o-vision).

They all compete in one of the most ruthless varieties of poker, called No-limit Texas Hold 'Em.

The shameless plugging of the WSOP by ESPN has blurred the boundaries of the sports network. Really now...can poker legitimately be considered a sport?

No one would dare call card players athletes, as even casual observers can take one look at the players and tell that these aren't the smoothie-after-a-workout types.

So what is the appeal to the traditional sports crowd? For one thing, the complexity of the game has some athletic parallels, particularly to running. The most dramatic similarity occurs when players decide to "go all-in".

The most exciting aspect of the no-limit game is that anyone can go all-in on any hand, wagering their entire stack of chips. If you have a higher chip count, you can go all-in against a lower stack to intimidate them off a hand, further building your pile. If you go all-in with the low stack and lose the hand, you're out of the tournament.

You would think players would reserve such a gambit for only a few premium hands, but in fact it's done all the time. Tournament rules require increasing chip bids for each hand, so the player who plays conservatively will slowly bleed his chips away before the ideal hand comes along.

Thus, going all-in is a necessity, as players are unable to win large pots or knock other players out without this tactic.

Now think of going all-in as racing. To runners, every race represents a time to push all of your chips onto the table, reveal your cards, and see who comes out on top.

In poker, the decision to go all-in is partly based on your opponent: do you think he has a better hand than you? Can you get a read off of him that indicates what cards he is holding?

In racing, we are often concerned with how we will perform in comparison to others. Some of us try to beat our training partners. Others try for age group awards, while some are afraid of finishing dead last.

The apprehension in each of these scenarios involves the perceived strength or speed of the other runners. The training everyone has done before the race is like the cards that are held face-down- only the individual knows for certain, but others try to get a read on it.

On race day, every one of your competitors is going all-in, and the race itself will reveal who holds the better hand.

Without a doubt, the fear of losing is the most nerve-racking aspect of going all-in for professional card players. In no-limit poker, any given hand could result in sudden elimination.

Similarly, with every race, runners risk failure or disappointment with a poor showing. But just as there is no way to advance in the WSOP without going all-in, there is no better way to improve our performances without putting everything on the line in a race.

Any of us who are concerned with PRs, age group places, and comparative times from year to year need to go all-in on a regular basis, not just when we have the perfect hand.

Without the motivation of the next race looming over us, many of us would tend to ease up on our training, gradually losing our edge and our speed, the same way a pile of chips can dwindle away one hand at a time if never risked.

Although I would never have the stomach for entering a high-stakes poker game, I've had major-league cases of the jitters leading up to several races. This is the nature of any competition: dealing with nerves is simply a part of the game.

Longtime gamblers profess that this is the "juice" that brings them back to the table year after year- the panicky tension, the ongoing drama of exhilarating highs and gut-wrenching lows based on the fall of the cards.

Most of us that are hooked on racing are seeking the same thrill. Many coaches say that if you aren't terrified before a race, you aren't properly prepared for it.

Maybe poker players and runners have more in common than it first appears. Running brings together people from disparate backgrounds. Some of us are weirdos. A lot of us have B.O. Maybe there aren't quite as many fat guys in our group, but the internal makeup is largely similar.

Many runners use the phrase "go all-out" to indicate their maximal effort in any given race, but next time, try this: when you are lined up at the start line, envision yourself pushing a big stack of chips into the middle of the road, and commit yourself to going all-in.