[melioris]

climbs on the soapbox...

Brian-I am a consistent winning player at $25NL and $50NL full-table and 6-max. I don’t make a lot of money, but enough to keep me happy and allow me to make a few large (1K) purchases a year from my poker money. I play because I enjoy it, because I learn about myself and the human condition playing poker, and because at this point in my life I have all the intellectual stimulation I need and so I don’t feel like I am wasting my time by not doing something else with my poker time.

To improve at these levels is mostly internal, I think. I have started an assload of poker books, and I have yet to finish my first. Sure I probably have read most of them, hoping around chapter to chapter but I haven’t read one start to finish yet. I am interested in cardrunners.com and probably do it if I ever decide to play 100NL and above. But for 25NL and 50NL I think what you need to do to be a good player is self-control. And the bitch of it is you need that for EVERY hand you play. If you don’t have that, you will not be a winning player. No book, no video, nothing else but you can do that. And it doesn’t make you a bad person if you don’t do it, a lot of people work their asses off, take care of their family and play online to blow off some steam. That is great, but they aren’t going to be winning players unless they have self-control in EVERY hand. It will take you an hour to win a buyin worth of small pots, and one hand to blow it because you are not going to let that donkey push you around. Playing winning poker isn’t a shit load of fun most of the time and maybe you would rather have fun.

You need to consider the time investment. Family and job are the two largest time commitments most men have. It is tempting to carve out some time from one of those to play poker, but you got to ask yourself if spending less time with your family is worth it to play 25NL? Also, I believe it is our obligation as humans to spend some time each day trying to improve our self and the world in which we live. Becoming a better poker player ain’t satisfying that human instinct. The culture is which we live leaves a lot of people feeling unfulfilled, and I believe it is because culturally we don’t recognize this basic human instinct. So if you have the time to play, make sure you have already satisfied your commitment to your family, to your job, and to yourself.

This leads to my final point. To be a winning player I think you need to understand why you play poker. You got to spend some time reflecting and learning about yourself and understanding why it is important to you to play and win. I think this is the most important aspect of being a winning player. If you understand your motivations and you are clear with the desires that playing poker is fulfilling, then it is much easier to be discipline in EVERY hand and it is easier to justify the time you spend playing poker.

gets off the soapbox