allaboutpoker

The most important thing there is in poker is realism.  Be realistic.  If you are realistic, there is hope for you to have a long and plentiful life of enjoyment out of poker.  If you’re not realistic, there is only gloom and doom in your poker future.

Realism comes in many forms in the world of poker.  You need to be realistic about your skills, the skills of the competition, the amount of money you’re putting at risk, the structure and cost of the game, and a variety of other factors.

Your skills are the first and foremost thing you need to be realistic about.  If you go back and read my blog entitled “The Question” you’ll start to see what I’m talking about.  And you need to be realistic about your skills, your answer to the question, and every other aspect of what you’ve learned about poker so far.  If you’re a beginner who’s worked your way through two poker books, but wants to join myself and nine of my most skilled poker buddies for a nine-handed game of no-limit Texas Hold’em, you’re fooling yourself!  It’s unrealistic!  If you cannot see this on your own, you’re NOT ready to succeed in poker!

And let’s get one thing clear: success in poker does NOT mean making millions as a professional on TV.  Success in poker means that you have a lifetime of fun and make a profit along the way.  At least that’s my definition of successful poker play.

The skills of your opponents are important.  You MUST be able to reasonably assess how skilled your opponents are, hopefully before you sit at the table with them.  However, if you wind up at a table and discover you’re outclassed, you should LEAVE.  It’s nothing shameful to realize you’re outclassed, it’s more of a mark of skill to recognize these situations and opt-out while you still have money left!  Even playing at a game of people who are almost, but not quite as good as me, I might realize that the rake is going to eat us all up, and realize that this is not the game to play in.  The skill to recognize when you’re outclassed is not something that can be taught overnight, but is essential to your success.

In tournaments you can’t leave the game if you’re outclassed.  Thus you must be realistic when entering tournaments as to which ones you SHOULD enter in the first place!  Whether you can afford it or not, you should NOT enter a tournament where everyone is a better player than you, because you have just allowed yourself to take a negative EV bet.  This might mean that when you’re in Vegas, your tournament dollar limit is $120 per tournament, or whatever.  It takes skill and practice to figure out these things, but if you start small and work your way up slowly, the skills will come with time.

If you want to know the truth, in the city of Las Vegas, I don’t enter no-limit Hold’em tournaments that cost more than $1000 to enter, because I no longer figure to have a high enough EV to beat the house fees (rake).  During very busy times, I might change this policy to entering slightly larger tournaments, but basically I’m realistic in knowing that I perform best in tournaments that have 100-200 people, with entry fees of $100-$500.  If H.O.R.S.E. tournaments were more popular, I would enter higher priced tournaments of this type, but these tournaments are so rare that in Las Vegas the only ones I typically enter at the $300 or $500-ish tournaments that happen during the Venetian’s Deep Stack events.

The previous paragraph shows one thing… I’m REALISTIC about my play.  I’m NOT the greatest poker player of all time, and don’t care to try for such a distinction.  However, I’m realistic, and I will remain successful throughout my life by maintaining realism and not playing above my skills or bankroll.

-Fin!

OK, someone has suggested that I do a weekly question/answer blog type party setup.  I’m considering doing just this in the future.  If you have any suggestions on the matter, please do elaborate in great detail!

-PG

Trackback URI | Comments RSS