Let’s make it a good time

Reading the title of my first point it seems much more pessimistic than I intended. The idea was that I hope to be playing poker for years to come, or a “long time”. The experience is going to involve some downswings and breakeven stretches, which are not generally fun, but enduring poker is the goal. A key strategy for achieving this is to truly enjoy the game and continue to learn how to enjoy the game.

Many books (including the original Super System I think) touch upon the importance of playing with a clear, level head and enjoying the game. Whether it is a matter of sobriety or emotional well-being, my experience with this advice is that it gets closer to becoming law with time. It can be difficult to judge the true state of your own level-headedness and in dire circumstances tilt results after a series of misjudgements. Any sort of substance abuse or emotional tax will only make it more difficult to make correct judgments about your own well-being. This spills over to judgements at the table and in bankroll management making it a long-standing good piece of advice. The support that poker authors give to this idea is large enough that talking about it more seems excessive. In my experience, something else that can be skewed is the actual enjoyment of the game.

When I first started playing poker it became an obsession. When I wasn’t playing, I thought about playing and a vast majority of my free time was spent playing. I loved the game, looked forward to playing and couldn’t wait for my cards to appear on the screen. I was slowly building a bankroll when tilt entered the scene and reared its nasty head. Days of playing “well” would be evaporated within a single session or a few hours, sometimes even a few hands. The steady bankroll climb became a level walk that slowly turned downhill, and I just strolled along. Suddenly the enjoyment for the game became less apparent. I wasn’t so thrilled about poker anymore. Bleeding my bankroll away was not fun at all. Fortunately, I took a break.

Life without poker was fantastic. I was catching up with friends, catching up on sleep, and felt refreshed (showering a little more often helped with this). I started to realize that I had pokered myself into a zombie-state of existence, spending hours in front of a computer counting virtual chips, and it was this that had contributed to my loss of enjoyment for the game. I had failed to balance life with poker. Even though I wasn’t playing high stakes or 16-tables at a time, I had invested too much time and energy into online poker and didn’t leave any time or energy for anything else, including sleeping and showering. I was fatigued and the break was more than necessary. As great as things became when I took a break from playing, many of my thoughts were still dedicated to poker. I often thought about hands, strategy and other aspects of the game, even after not playing for weeks.

Slowly, I incorporated poker back into my life. My focus was on keeping a level-head (to counter tilt) and truly enjoy the game. I’m still learning, but feel I have improved immensely. I’ve tried to approach every hand with a balanced outlook and gather as much as I can from each experience. I’m enjoying the game on an entirely different level mainly because of this. Rather than allowing my bankroll to dominate my level of enjoyment, I’ve tried to approach the game from a theory and strategy angle. Before, I would get upset and usually tilt after losing a large pot to a play I deemed ridiculous after a quick, angered judgement of the hand. My thoughts would gravitate towards this hand and everyone at the table would transform into a donkey. Now, I try to learn from my hands, even the big pots that don’t go my way. I do my best to avoid getting emotionally upset and passing quick judgement on someone’s play. A play by one of my opponents that I might have immediately and permanently deemed as stupid a year ago changes. The truth (or as close as you might get in poker) now appears much different. Some of the plays by my opponents are very bad, but others are creative, well-planned and near optimal. Sometimes, I was the player that made a terrible mistake. A year ago, because of tilt and not really enjoying the game itself, I was blind from even acknowledging mistakes I might have made during a hand. Luckily this has changed.

Always looking to learn, improve and enjoy poker has made it much more fun this time around. The game is wonderful and dynamic and doesn’t care if you’re mad because of that suck-out call last hand. Enjoy it, study it, use it. If you’re in for a long time, might as well make good times out of the bad.