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The Difficulty Of Measuring Success As An Online Poker Player
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Author: Marc Weinberg
I was talking to a top poker pro the other day, a guy who has won world series of poker bracelets and who now makes most of his money playing online poker, and we were estimating the percentage of poker players that show a profit at online poker. I went for 10% winners and 90% losers. There was a pause, and he replied: "You're being very generous. It's more like 5%."
Let's be wildly optimistic and say that only 85% of online poker players lose overall. That is still a huge number, and it got me thinking - how does one measure success in poker? Every top poker player has had losing years. Not losing sessions, losing weeks, or even a losing month, but losing years! That must be very tough to overcome, both pyschologically and of course financially as well. I'm only in my second full year of playing poker for a living, and I have to admit that three losing months in a row would make me doubt my ability to pull this off.
How does one measure success at this game? It can't be done strictly in terms of money won and lost, because the balance sheet changes so dramatically depending on when you take that snapshot. Look at a world-class player like Barry Greenstein, widely regarded as the finest cash game player - even he has endured those huge fluctuations, going from a millionaire to owing a million. I guess one way of rating your own success and improvement is the level of poker you play. If you've competed with the very best and held your own you are moving in the right direction.
However, this argument has (at least) two major flaws. First, you can stay at a low to mid limit game your whole career and make a fortune. I know players constantly want to move up in cash games, but there are smart individuals who have the necessary discipline who stay at $10/$20 and murder it day in and day out. They treat poker like a business, and they aren't interested in the ego factor. They're not in it to appear on TV (I feel I am guilty of this desire) or to win a bracelet. They want to net $10,000 a month and they can do this at a lower limit.
The second flaw in the argument is that there is a lot of luck in poker so on any given day a complete palooka can somehow find his way at the final table of a major event. Anyone can beat anyone else at least once in poker. If I beat Johnny Chan in a hand of no-limit it does not mean we are equals, in fact it probably means nothing at all. That's what made that one scene in "Rounders" so laughably untrue.
It's easy to bluff the rest of the world, but very hard to bluff yourself. At the end of the day you alone know how you are faring as a poker player. If you're beating the game and still improving or if you're in a rut and losing more than you win. Like so much of poker it ultimately comes down to what your instinct tells you.
Related Poker Articles And News Items:
> The True Odds Of Cracking Pocket Aces
> World Series Of Poker 2005 - Poker Hand Analysis
> Don't Start Out With No-Limit Hold'em - Work Up To It!
> How To Win At Limit Poker - Some Thoughts
> Online Tournament Poker Meltdown
> How To Win Online Poker Tournaments
> Recovering From The Online Poker Satellites
> Poker Odds And Assessing Your Outs
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