Champion of Poker

In my capacity as a poker student and poker writer I read many articles everyday on poker. I also extensively read the online poker forums and read a post recently written by a very disgruntled member who said that no matter he did he just could not seem to win. When he played cash games he lost, when he went all-in he was nearly always outdrawn and when he played an online poker tournament he invariably busted out in the early stages, despite doing everything according to “optimal poker strategy”.

You may have heard that “history is written by the winners” and I am sure that in the world of professional poker this is also the case. Recently I turned up the volume of my poker playing and for the first time I am suffering the dreaded downswing. Like our forum poster, my pocket pairs are being outdrawn and opponents are hitting their gutshot straight draws and flush draws with alarming regularity. This type of occurrence goes against every logical principle we learned growing up as we were told by well-meaning teachers at school that if you work hard you get rewarded. As we grow up we learn something else; that effort does not mean effectiveness. I heard this quote from a lecturer in Economics in my first term at University and I have remembered it ever since. It most certainly applies to your poker game and is worth bearing in mind.

To any player suffering losses that you cannot explain you must look carefully at what happened to cause the loss. Did you misplay the hand? Most likely at some level you did make a mistake. Look for leaks in your game and you identify those leaks by analysing hand histories with blunt objectivity. My biggest weakness in my poker game is that I just play poker. What I mean is I often forget to take notes and I just play my cards. Faced with the all-in re-raise in the third level of the poker tournament I suddenly realise my error, I have no idea what my opponent playing tendencies are. The mistake is already made. Observations are critical and you can improve your poker game immediately by intensifying your concentration towards your opponents.

What volume do you play? Poker players can suffer long runs of bad luck and some graphs I have seen show talented and profitable poker players suffering runs of 100,000 hands where luck has not been balanced for them. This can happen both positively and negatively. You will know whether 100,000 is a monthly amount of poker for you or a yearly amount, perhaps more! But be aware that luck is fickle and never balanced so only over the long term can you know with reasonable certainty that assumptions over your skill level are correct. It is vital you analyse your game so the only thing contributing to bad runs of form is luck itself.

It can be difficult to keep encountering players who have had a big win. Every time I switch on the television I listen to someone discussing their $500,000 score from their big poker tournament win. This is also not balanced. Would you go on TV to discuss how you lost $250,000 or more on the tournament circuit? Most people do not openly discuss their losses. Unfortunately only hearing from winning poker players can make you feel like you are the only player in the world who cannot beat the game. This is not true, there will always be players who win and there will always be losing players.

The important thing is to keep believing, keep working hard and keep improving. Eventually you will learn to beat the game if you stay positive and motivated to succeed. No-one ever said playing poker was easy; certainly no-one says that winning poker is easy either! Fortunately there are enough players out there succeeding so it is definitely achievable.

By Malcolm Clarke