Be honest with yourself

A problem I see a lot of my friends run into now an then is that they’re not honest with themselves. I’m sure I have the same problem sometimes.

What do I mean?

Well, lets say you have a good session and make $600 in a $1/$3 NL game. You’ll immediately look back on the game and think about how brilliantly you played those trip kings and how well you disguised your nut flush. Well, that’s great, but obviously you had some big hands. Lots of people can play trip kings well, even more can play a nut flush well. Did you really do anything spectacular or did you just catch a good run of cards?

Then of course, there’s the other side of the story. Maybe you had a bad night at the $3/$6 table and you lost $250. You immediately think about how much bad luck was involved and how many times you got outdrawn. But were there times where you were beat the whole way and made bad reads? Isn’t there one hand where you lost money because you got outplayed? Sure there is, everyone gets outplayed sometimes, even Phil Hellmuth.

You need to be honest with yourself if you want to get better at poker. Too many people think about how great they played when they won and how unlucky they got when they lost. Focus on your long term successes and think about whether or not you’re really as good as you imagined. Have you consistently beat the $2/$4 table for 6 months prior to the bad night? Do you regularly win $100+ at the $1/$3 NL game? If not, you need to evaluate your play and realize that you’re probably not as good as you had imagined.

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