Focus on Long-Term Results

I've heard this phrase so many times that it has all but lost its meaning to me. I think that sometimes its utterance is really just a more polite way of saying "I don't want to listen to your bad beat story. You probably didn't play the hand as flawlessly as you claim, anyway. So spare me." It has come to be kind of a sob-story blocker, a means of avoiding the undesirable fate of becoming the proverbial company to a good friend's misery.

So to avoid letting myself grow completely numb to this very-important principle, I decided to actually do it. I forced myself to look back at old hand histories I'd mined from my favorite online poker haunts. I went through most of the posts I had made on this very blog. I thought about all the things I had bought over the past two years with my poker money. All the casino trips -- first to Hollywood Park, then to Commerce and the Hustler, the Bicycle, Morongo, Vegas, Florida. All the bonus whoring online. Countless hours in home games where I'd gotten my poker start.

After thinking through it all, I was forced to conclude that the good far outweighed the bad. I started out playing serious poker on fire. I had no idea what bankroll management was, so I bought in for $50 on PartyPoker during the summer of 2005 and made it $2,200 in four days by running over Sit-n-Go tournaments. I have no idea how I did that. Back then, it all seemed so easy. The money just kept coming.

Somewhere along the line, I lost my way. I was a break-even player for a good 8 months -- winning big playing at Commerce. But when I couldn't make it to the casino (usually due to girlfriend pressure) and I ended up playing online, I would go on ridiculous winning tears in short periods of time only to lose it all back even faster, and more. This cycle went on and on for a while. I thought I had the potential to be great, indeed, showed flashes of that greatness. But I didn't have the self-control to stop when I wasn't playing well. I was skilled (and wild) enough that I could build a bankroll from $20 to $700 in a day, but competitive enough to lose it all back in 3 hours. I went into self-doubt, and eventually left the game for several months. It seemed to me that there was something about winning consistently at poker of which I was destined to remain eternally ignorant. So I gave it up.

But now I'm back. And for the first time in my poker career, I am realistic about my skill level. I know what I'm capable of, and what I'm not. I no longer think I am the best player in the world, but I recognize that I'm still better than the majority of the competition I'll face. I have a better understanding of what it takes to be a consistent winner (at one point in the Spring, I actually considered it sound poker advice to recognize when your luck is good and when it's not so good. I offered that as a pearl of wisdom back in March -- yikes!). The funny thing is, I don't remember a specific moment when the light-bulb clicked on. All of a sudden, I just got it. I knew how to beat the Hustler $1-2 no limit game. I knew how to get myself back off tilt relatively quickly. I found that I was able to lay down overpairs in big bet hold em, when I never remember doing that before.

It's like a new me.

But I feel more-or-less like the same player. I haven't seen any huge cataclysmic events that have changed the way I look at the game. I'm still the same aggressive, slightly loose player I've always been.

It's only when I take a moment to look back ... that I'm able to see how far I've come.

So my advice is to not make the mistake I did. Earlier in my career, I thought focusing on long term results meant basically ignoring the results of individual sessions. I think a lot of players and writers have made that assertion. I now feel (and here I must give credit where it is due -- thanks, B) that to ignoring short-term results is fallacious. It is absolutely critical to analyze individual sessions, and individual hands, in terms of their results. But the trick is to not get caught up in that. Once in a while, take a step back -- I mean, really take the time -- and just ask yourself these questions:

1) How much has my bankroll grown over the last six months? Over the past year?
2) How much has my skill-set grown over the past year?
3) What personal and poker goals do I have over the next six months? The next year?
4) How will I reach those goals?

This gets into the issue of keeping records, etc. That's a topic for another post. My main point is this: as you continue along your poker path, don't let those words of wisdom you learned early on fade into background noise.

Think of them like Beatles songs -- oldies but goodies.