Learning From The Greats
🍔 What McDonald's Can Teach Us About Poker
As you may know, I’m a bit of a Burger Boy1.
I was reading the Wall Street Journal article “McDonald’s Revamps Ranks to Speed Burger Breakthroughs” and it reminded me of trying to “revamp” my poker habits.
I mean, here is McDonald’s, the dominant brand of fast food, being willing to rethink how it approaches the fundamental core of their business. What an amazing reminder that no matter our own level of success we can all benefit from a little innovatio2.
🎂 Reminder: We’re playing Poker on May 13th, which will be Mike’s BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION, and the only present he wants is at least two tables of players for the tournament!
How McDonald’s Burger Strategy Can Make You a Better Poker Player
I know that I fall into predictable poker playing patterns. I’m a little lucky that these patterns are not always obvious to my opponents, but that is only because my pattern is erratic behavior.
The longer I play the more likely I am to fall into playing lazy, dumb, or “on tilt. This pattern3 makes me a worst player, and is why I am so often the bubble. But if I know the pattern, then like McDonald’s making shitty burgers, perhaps I can innovate my way into more success.
In our Shareholder Tournaments we generally play the same people over and over. It’s not exactly the same people every week, but after years of gathering at the virtual table we’ve learned a lot about each other. We have come to expect certain behaviors from Nick which are different than what we expect from Beau.
This is analogous to McDonald’s facing competition from other burger joints. All these places are learning not just from their own operations, but from what everyone else is doing. They are all improving, experimenting, and testing new ideas to beat one another in the quest for the burger dollars.
This means, just like McDonald’s, we need to be evolving with the ever-adapting poker landscape. The players in my game are getting smarter about playing me! Many of us are easily read4.
So let’s see how I can adapt McDonald’s “Burger Breakthrough” strategy to my poker game…
Streamline Decision Making
I play my best poker when I set some rules for myself. Something like my Quibi Strategy (BB/FF) or just a reminder to play tight. Rules help cut my hesitation about what to play. And it helps me restrain from playing bad hands when i get bored. Setting up my own rules helps me streamline decisions.
Constant Innovation
McDonald’s has an army of folks who can test, track, and analyze numbers. They make enough burger bucks to afford to spend a bit of their money on constant innovation and smaller experiments. I’m only playing poker once a month, but I can still decide to test some news tactics in a game. Like next month maybe I will try to play with more overbets5.
Tweaks Not Resets
It seems fun to radically alter how I play. I know there are a thousand ways of playing poker that are better than mine! But just as McDonald’s has a burger, I also have a “core style.” While it can be improved, I can’t just switch to serving pizza6 without serious consequences.
Speaking of serving, I remember my tennis coach Ron had to totally undo my awkward and terrible serve. I have never thought about how to do it right, and I just naturally a way to get the ball over the net. In order to get a better serve it took more than just tweaks. I had to undo the way my body wanted to hit the ball, and it made me so much worse!
As I practiced I got better, eventually getting back to my previous ability of “getting it over the net.” but then I was able to surpass it and serve with power! (then I stopped lessons and now I have a sloppy serve again.)
But I don't want to do this in poker! We only play once a month, and I don’t want to study super hard and be bad for along time for a game I play twelve times a year.
So like McDonald’s I’ll “tweak” the way I play by paying more attention to a few small new rules for myself. And I’ll try to be more aware of smaller things like my position at the table and the size of my bets.
Adapting With a McProcess
Since I left McDonald’s I’ve been thinking about applying “McProcess” to my life. I continue to be impressed with the power of a McDonald’s three-ring binder. They are to break down the operation of a billion dollar enterprise so that it can be run by teenagers. Clearly there is power in McProcess!
But also, the binder is not a Bible. In fact it’s the opposite! It has to be updated, changed, tested, and tweaked. The game is always changing, so I should be changing the way I play. In this elaborate and unnecessary burger analogy I’m not just the fry cook, I’m the General Manager of my poker playing. I have to set up the rules and the experimental tweaks and then play that way consistently.
The New Erratic
Next month I’m going to try to replace my pattern of falling into erratic play with intentional tweaks.
Pick Three Rules - and follow them all night!
Keep trying the Katzenberg Quibi Strategy: BB/FF
But… shift and change in relation to the game. Don’t play the same at the end as the beginning.
Adapt to who is playing. Don’t play against Josh how you’d play against Nick.
Don’t drink whiskey.
My “New Erratic” means playing with intentional changes, not falling victim to whiskey thoughts, boredom, or a run of bad cards. And I’m definitely going to play with some overbets (and probably lose a lot of money).
-Mike a/k/a The Birthday Boy
not a boy who eats a lot of burgers, but a boy who knows a lot.
in my case it’s not so much a pattern of “success” in my poker playing :(
usually this is related to whiskey
if i wasn’t such a bad player i’d be doomed to be read by everyone!
an overbet is a term i learned recently that i almost NEVER do, which is betting more than the size of the pot. it’s kind of the “shock & awe” of poker tactics. not as dramatic as an all-in, but still a powerful signal. from what I understand an overbet is best used when you want to apply maximum pressure because you believe your opponent has a strong, but the not the strongest hand (and you have them beat). Or when the board is SO SCARY that you can imply you have, or are likely to have the best hand. there is probably more to it than this, but on May 13th I’m going to try some overbets!