Getting into that exclusive camp of poker players who can be considered long term winners is no easy feat and very tough depending on what level you aspire to play to. We all know how much hard work, dedication and downright stubbornness have helped to pull us through during those dark ages when we thought that we were never going to make it.But this brings me onto the topic of staying ahead of the game and keeping a winner. Staying in profit in online poker especially these days is not easy. With the advent of tracking software, head up displays, site and game selection software, technical note taking facilities, ICM calculators and all the rest of it, we are rapidly getting into the stage where the ordinary poker player is facing an ever increasing arsenal of weapons against him.
But this is just one part of the equation. I think that if you want to remain a winning poker player for as long as possible once you get there then you are going to have to ask yourself a few serious questions. But before we move onto to what those questions really are then it goes without saying that for any player who either aspires to become a winning poker player or for one who just wants to stay a winner then there is literally no substitute for hard work.
I am a big believer in that hard work and perseverance will be paid off eventually. I might also add to that how I think that it is imperative that any novice gets as much information as they can from as many different sources as they can so that you get a much more balanced education and not the warped or biased opinions of a couple of authors however well intended their material might be.
This is an ongoing process or at least it should be for successful players and if it isn’t then you had better make sure that you pull your finger out because if you think that this years success is an absolute cert to be continued next year then you not only don’t understand poker but you don’t understand the environment that we are dealing with here and the constant rapid altering of the poker landscape.
My process of education and adapting took another step recently when I started looking at instructional videos and coaching sites. I recommend to any winning player that they do this because there are a lot of great players out there with great ideas and different outlooks and it can be really refreshing to see new ideas.
I am constantly scanning for poker related data and stumbled upon a great site recently in Royal Flush Club (www.RoyalFlushClubMembers.com) and the quality of the instructional material on that site was first rate and it just goes to show that there is more out there than CardRunners when it comes to instructional material and speaking as an ex-CardRunners member then I am in the right position to judge. Now it’s onto those questions that I was talking about. Firstly you need to ask yourself what your objectives are in poker. Are you looking to try and make the game a serious revenue stream? If so then you then need to start asking questions as to how you intend to achieve this. But also you then need to be asking yourself how much money you can expect to extract from poker based on your abilities and other variables.
Neither myself or anyone else can really answer these questions for you simply because there are just too many variables that are interwoven in each individual unique situation. No one else but you knows how much knowledge you really have, how much time you can or are prepared to invest, what games and sites you play on, how much money you want out of the game, how high you want to go and all the rest of it.
But you really need to have a plan in place of some sort with clearly defined objectives and strategies if you want to make it. But this planning phase must be continuous even after you succeed in making money. Like I mentioned earlier, I have joined coaching sites and sought advice, ideas and new strategies even from players half my age.
In fact with the technological revolution that has impacted on poker over the past few years then these can be the best types of players to get fresh ideas from rather than someone who has been around since the year dot and this is with the greatest respect to the older generation. I have played professionally online for six years now but yet the process of keeping my game at the level where I am making money is a never ending one.
Let me give you an example, if I were to play middle limit hold’em online now in 2008 with the level of knowledge that I had when I first turned pro back in 2002 then I wouldn’t be able to make the game pay. This is a sign of not only how I have evolved as a player but also how the game has evolved online and just how much tougher it has become.
In fact I would also go as far as to say that my no limit game has also evolved substantially as well over the past year but it has only done so as a result of me continually working on my game. I sometimes think that working on your poker game is a bit like painting the Humber Bridge in that it is a never ending process.
But another subtle side effect with regards watching and analysing coaching sites and continuing to read books even after you have become a winning player is that it really helps you to see what material the other players out there are studying. Like with the Harrington series for instance, even if you don’t follow what Dan says in those books then I think that it is still very educational just to simply read them because they are very widely read books almost in the same way that Supersystem is. Well I sincerely hope that this article has helped to dispel some of the myths surrounding poker and that even when you do make it into the winners circle, you are still only part way to your goal.
Carl “The Dean” Sampson is sponsored by Cake Poker and can be seen at www.cakepoker.com/thedean