Measuring My Poker Success

I mentioned in a previous post that I own several books about poker. I also subscribe to CardPlayer magazine. I enjoy consuming just about any media related to poker strategy. A common characteristic among most of these is the assertion that poker success should not be measured by the amount of money one leaves the table with.

I argue that profit is the only way to accurately measure one's stature and effectiveness as a poker player.... and it is completely independent of a poker player's level of experience! Take for example a beginning hold 'em player who barely has any knowledge of the rules, much less what starting hands to play or fold. What expectation would you have for this player among a group of seasoned card players? Over time, until the person had enough knowledge and experience to consistently compete, you would expect him to lose most of the time. In consideration of measuring success, however, if this person has little knowledge of poker basics, walking away with any profit whatsoever for him is a tremendous success!

In the case of an individual who is a well-rounded card player and plays in games with people of similar capabilities, it is possible for a player to make seemingly outlandish calls, bluffs and raises from out of left field, and still walk away with a significant profit -- flying in the face of textbook, ABC poker.

Poker scholars would argue that poker success should be measured by the correct decisions made during play, regardless of profit. I argue that if I walk away from the table broke every time I play, there is no better measure of poor decision making! Sure, it is possible to have a game once in a blue moon, make all the right decisions, and still walk away with a loss. If this remains the case over time, though, I am definitely doing something wrong.

By playing people and not playing cards, it leads me to do things at the card table that earlier in my career I would have never even considered. Sometimes the moves I make would be considered 'wrong' by most of the poker literature out there. Don't confuse this with making 'high risk' plays. I am not one to make a big river call on a 1-outer just because I see a juicy pot. What I will do is act on my reads, and if my reads are right, the moves that follow are no risk. This is what makes them 'right' when the odds say they are wrong.

Besides this, there are certainly the fringe benefits of playing cards that do not involve profit in any way. For some people, it is probably worth losing a few hundred dollars on a Saturday night just for the adrenaline rush of the game. For others, it might be a rare opportunity to gather with friends and family for a nickel-dime-quarter game. Still for others, it might be the charge we get from making quick mathematical calculations on the fly. In the long run, I suppose we should all measure poker success by what is important to us. Come to think of it, 'correct' decisions mean very little if it's no fun making them!