Chardrian's tip o' the week

This week's tip is sponsored by The Luckbox.

The tip of the week is ... Sometime's no matter how much better you are then everyone at the table, you will still lose. How you deal with this losing is what separates the winning players from the losing/break-even players.

With all the (much of it inflated) talk about how much money people make playing online, and how a skillful player can't lose, a beginning player can lose sight of the fact that winning poker equates to a playing well over a long long long period of time.

Yes, you can make money by playing well. And yes there are players out there who read other players better than others and will make even more money. But no matter how good you are, you will at some point lose to a 2 outer on the river. You will put all your money in on a flop of J high when you have KK only to find that you're 80/20 dominating hand preflop actually took the butt end of that 20% and lost to JJ.

The important thing to realize from this, is not that online poker is rigged, although there are times where you will swear that someone or something MUST be against you for your luck to be that bad, but instead that EVERYONE goes through it.

If luck weren't a part of poker, then that ATM across the table from you would not play. There's a reason that there aren't any online gambling chess sites. And that reason is no one except for the most skillful would play. Poker has developed such a following, because me, Joe Schmo, can play Phil Ivey on any given night and beat him.

So, keep your eyes on the long-term, don't let luck play games with your mind, and remember that no matter how good you are, at some point you are going to lose and that's just part of the game.

nice post. I lost 3500 in a day once where I was only betting hard with 2 pair or better on the flop. I lost with sets, straights, flushes, etc. Over and over again. This isn't about bad beats. It is what it is. P.O.K.E.R.

I took the long view and still won alot more that that for the month (august) and tons more for the year (05). And In December of o4 I posted my first post in the Beginner's forum on FTR. It basically said, "Hi, I'm new. I'm trying to get a winning poker game together."

In December of 04 I had a $300 bankroll and never imagined that 9 months later I would shrug off a loss of 3500 in a day and still make big bank for the month.

The only goal I ever have is to play my best poker every hand. My goal - which plays into Chardrian's tip - is to never take "a hand off" and get stupid. I kept (and keep) tuning my game and playing it to the best of my ability. I know that if I do that I will win hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not a million) over the course of my online poker "career". And I play the same stakes alot of beginners who haven't won much (yet) play. NL25 to NL200, $10-$30 MTT's, $5 - $50 SnG's.

See what I'm saying. You don't have to play NL1000 to win alot of money. You just have to have a net+ game, and keep your head screwed on right. And the "head" thing is what this tip is about. I just added the rest of this stuff to say that - as an un-inflated winner who is also no long-time pro - the 6" between your ears is more important than the 6" stack of chips on the table in front of you. Money will come and go. How you play over months and years is what matters.

Great post, man!!

Oh, BTW Chardrain, I took a peek at your blog and I'm guessing you posted this to remind yourself as well. I saw alot of "this is frustrating" type stuff where you didn't do as well as you wanted in an MTT or whatever. A quick piece of advice as a "thanks for the post" - try to take some of the emotion out of what's going on. Did you play your A game? Yes! then the results are what they are, but you did your job. If the answer is NO, then find out why and correct it. If your A game has a hole in it (as seen over the long term), find it and fix it. Emotion makes for sub-par decisions. Can you be truly emotionless at poker? Yep. Most people don't because they haven't developed the discipline, they are playing above their emotional or monetary bankroll and "need" to win (like needing something ever made it happen, really), or they want the emotional high of walking the high wire more than they want the deep, rewarding feeling of playing a growing, solid, "professional" lifetime of poker.

Thanks again for the post.

two great posts.

Originally Posted by aokrongly

Oh, BTW Chardrain, I took a peek at your blog and I'm guessing you posted this to remind yourself as well. I saw alot of "this is frustrating" type stuff where you didn't do as well as you wanted in an MTT or whatever. A quick piece of advice as a "thanks for the post" - try to take some of the emotion out of what's going on. Did you play your A game? Yes! then the results are what they are, but you did your job. If the answer is NO, then find out why and correct it.

I definitely posted it as a reminder. I don't use irc or ventrillo so I use my blog as my time to vent (which probably makes for a not so very nice read). I know that I tend to get into the frustrated, feel the poker gods are against, don't understand why I am not winning tons of money mentality. And my feeling is that many (most) other players do to.

Taking the emotion out of the game is easy to say, but not as easy to implement. It is human nature to think that you are somehow getting cheated when you lose and you see and hear how well others are doing... It is also human nature to think that your luck must change, that the poker gods must start letting you hit your flushes, that if others can hit 2 outers so can you. And it is this mentality which will decimate your bankroll. For me, reminding myself that poker is a long term game, helps me to not fall into that dangerous tilt mentality.

Poker can and will be frustrating. The basic steps of tightening up your game, learning position and odds should make anyone at least a break-even player. But learning how to deal with the frustration of poker is, in my opinion, the first step in becoming a winning player.