Do you think you\'re the best?
 

I was watching William Hill II, the episode with Esfandiari, and he was saying that "All poker plays think they are the best in the world", implying this is neccesary to have the confidence to win.

Do you guys think you are the best in the world?

I've never thought I was...Maybe I think I'm the best player in the games I've played in, I'm pretty sure that is true...But I've never thought I was the best in the world. So, does that mean I don't have the confidence to be a good poker player? I don't think so...

Re: Do you think you\'re the best?
 

I don't think he meant it in a good way. Most players who think they are the "best in the world" are usually over-stating their ability and thus suffer from over-confidence and end up making bad plays at all the wrong times, like trying to push a player around with his AK when his opp. has 2nd pair and gonna call anyway.

Re: Do you think you\'re the best?
 

At one point I thought I was pretty good. Now I think I suck and can't believe I am profitable.

Re: Do you think you\'re the best?
 

I don't think I am the best . . . I know it!!

Nah, I think actually that I am a barely competent player.

Re: Do you think you\'re the best?
 

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At one point I thought I was pretty good. Now I think I suck and can't believe I am profitable.

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QFT

I'm usually (to the best of my ability to assess) the best player at any given table I'm on. If I wasn't one of the top 2, I wouldn't have bothered sitting down.

Re: Do you think you\'re the best?
 

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At one point I thought I was pretty good. Now I think I suck and can't believe I am profitable.

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QFT

I'm usually (to the best of my ability to assess) the best player at any given table I'm on. If I wasn't one of the top 2, I wouldn't have bothered sitting down.

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Well i can see my self in both these situations.
When i was much worse than now, i thought i was really good and poker was easy for me, but after i have got a lot better, i have started to analyse my game so closely and tried to educate myself through books etc.

This has brought a lot os stuff up like, all the situations im in and i make a choise i found difficult good result or bad, i then try find any mistakes i might have made.
This kind of behaviour brings up constant doubts about your gae even though it might be really good.
Funny part is that these doubts i hardly had when i began poker.
Self critic is crusial to become a solid winner imo.

I don`t sit in games either, if i dont feel confident im among the best.

Re: Do you think you\'re the best?
 

Confidence is a huge part of poker, if you don't think you can beat a game you're sitting at, then you probably can't

Re: Do you think you\'re the best?
 

You`re certainly putting yourself in a psychological hole if you don`t think you`re at least as good as everyone else at
the table

Re: Do you think you\'re the best?
 

I used to think I was a "great player". I used to play very small stakes online MTTs and sng's and was quite profitable. Then when I really got going (turned $20 into $1,400 in 1 year) I thought I was god's gift. When I started to play bigger games and started reading this forum I realised that I really wasn't anything special. People talking about how they make 30k+ per year online. Im no where near that level. It's humbling in a way, I believe ever since I realised I'm a long long way off being the best, my game has improved a lot. The key is you can be confident without being arrogant. When I sit at a table I can clearly tell which players are good and which are not. I can also tell when there is a player at my table who is perhaps better than me. The key is you have to respect them but by no means fear them. No matter how good a player is i'm always confident ill find a hand and stack them. Also realising im not the best has helped a lot with tilt control. In my arrogant days a bad beat did not go down well with me. The whole "Im the best and the only way I can ever lose is by getting sucked out on" (a la Phil Hellmuth) but when you realise you're not the best you can recognise when a "bad beat" perhaps also had something to do with you playing the hand badly and you can learn from it. Seeing players that are much better than myself having worse luck than me definitely makes me realise that it isnt just a conspiracy against me lol. I much prefer getting knocked out of a tourney thinking "I played that hand like an idiot" as opposed to "another suckout". You cant really learn much from suckouts but you can learn from a bad play. So in conclusion I am very confident and believe on my day I can achieve a lot, but I have no plans to turn pro any time soon lol.

Re: Do you think you\'re the best?
 

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You`re certainly putting yourself in a psychological hole if you don`t think you`re at least as good as everyone else at
the table

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Why?

It might be better to be realistic. You may be a profitable table with a player that can consistently outplay you. If so you are better off being honest with yourself and avoiding him/her.

I don't think I'm the best and it doesn't even bother me. My poker ambition is simply to make $ - I don't have my ego wrapped up in poker.

Lucky

Re: Do you think you\'re the best?
 

Does anyone ever avoid getting involved in hands with the good players here? Basically when I play in tournaments I tend to change my play depending on position and the players in the pot. Now say there are 2 good players, myself and 6 fish at my table. When the good players raise I tend to only play with them with a real hand or a decent hand provided I have position. Whereas against a fish id be happy to get into a raised pot with them on the button sometimes with the likes of 67 suited. To summarise I'd rather have 67 suited against a fish, than AQ against a strong player. To me this makes sense, whereas people who think theyre god's gift may want to send a message to the other sharks and try and play lots of pots with them which is just stupid.

Re: Do you think you\'re the best?
 

I've never come across a player that I've thought "I don't want to play a pot with him." I win a lot of pots in the games I play in, and everyone is always calling out my hand, and they almost NEVER get it right, except for my brother, who gets it right basically everytime (we play a lot of poker together)

Like a few others say, I think even if you don't think you are the best, you can still play great and outplay opponents who you might think are better than you.

Being confident and being over-confident - totally different. It's like, I see these televised "lol donkaments" and you get these ridiculous amateur players who think they are going to outplay the 8,000 people at the WSOP, and as the moronic "Crew" said, "take over the poker world". I find it extremly annoying.

Re: Do you think you\'re the best?
 

So your opponent in the pot is an irrelevant factor? Apart from if it's your brother?? OK then Jake. So say there is a player you know likes to raise pre flop but is very quick to slow down on a missed flop (Loose passive) and next to him is Gus Hansen who will raise with a wide range of hands and who is extremely skilled with his reads and post flop instinctive play (Loose aggressive). Now are you telling me that you dont mind which of these players you go to the flop with? That's rubbish. It's nothing to be ashamed of to favour playing pots with weaker players. If I know I can push a weak player off the flop when he's missed (and I have a rough idea when he's missed) then id want to play pots with him all day long. Against Gus more often than not he would outplay me on the flop and personally i'd rather make money than lose it. Now obviously if i have a big hand it doesnt matter who im in the pot with but you get my point. So like I said, I'd rather have 67 against a fish than AQ against a shark. Now this does not mean that I have no confidence in my play, it simply means that I am good enough to realise that playing more pots with weak players will prove more profitable in the long run and I'm not sure you can deny this. Now if I was in a hand with Gus id play the hand how i best see fit but in an ideal world id go head to head with the fish more often. Do you see what I mean?

Re: Do you think you\'re the best?
 

Its not about being the best, for me its about having an edge over my opponents. Im a b&m player, and you would be surprised at how horrible these players are. I know i am a very good player, but the best i am def not.

Re: Do you think you\'re the best?
 

You're the best in the world when everybody thinks or votes that you are, you have the results to back it up, luck tends to be on your side more often than not, you can beat every poker player in the world on a regular basis.


There are thousands of winning players in the world but for every one winning player there are 10 losers. So it's not actually the pro or the so called winning player that is playing top quality poker it's the losers keeping them in the game.

To be the best in the world at poker is like trying to run a 3 minuite mile. There are a handful of people who may crack 4 minuites but cannot best that.

There is not enough time in a persons life to truly define being the best of the best. But I know a bunch of poker players who were and are the best of their time.

Re: Do you think you\'re the best?
 

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So your opponent in the pot is an irrelevant factor? Apart from if it's your brother?? OK then Jake. So say there is a player you know likes to raise pre flop but is very quick to slow down on a missed flop (Loose passive) and next to him is Gus Hansen who will raise with a wide range of hands and who is extremely skilled with his reads and post flop instinctive play (Loose aggressive). Now are you telling me that you dont mind which of these players you go to the flop with? That's rubbish. It's nothing to be ashamed of to favour playing pots with weaker players. If I know I can push a weak player off the flop when he's missed (and I have a rough idea when he's missed) then id want to play pots with him all day long. Against Gus more often than not he would outplay me on the flop and personally i'd rather make money than lose it. Now obviously if i have a big hand it doesnt matter who im in the pot with but you get my point. So like I said, I'd rather have 67 against a fish than AQ against a shark. Now this does not mean that I have no confidence in my play, it simply means that I am good enough to realise that playing more pots with weak players will prove more profitable in the long run and I'm not sure you can deny this. Now if I was in a hand with Gus id play the hand how i best see fit but in an ideal world id go head to head with the fish more often. Do you see what I mean?

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When did I say who was in the hand is irrelavent? I don't believe I did, at all.

What I said was that there wasn'tanyone I've played with that I would say "I don't want to be in a pot with him". I didn't say any player in the world. I did NOT say "I'd prefer to play against a great player than someone who will donk off their money to me"

I agree with everything you said in your post. But ass for "every played in the world" I think there are some I'd be afraid to play with...But as you said, I'd play the way I thought best.

And another thing: I also said none of the players I play with can read me. I didn't say I'm unreadable. I think guys like Hansen and Esfandiari would put me on my cards after one bet.

Edit: My name isn't Jake by the way. Isn't "Jake the Snake" from some movie or something? I don't know, I just liked the sound of it...

Re: Do you think you\'re the best?
 

I definitly dont think Im the best but I believe I can be.

Re: Do you think you\'re the best?
 

I think I suck

Re: Do you think you\'re the best?
 

Once you realize that you have alot to learn, you're probably pretty good. It's the guys who think their already there that have a ways to go.

Re: Do you think you\'re the best?
 

I'm always confident that I am one of the top players when I sit at a table. A lot of times I am the best, sometimes I'm not. I don't need to be the best every time. You don't have to always be the best player at any table to make money. I like what Greenstein said some time ago about playing at tables with good players like himself. Something to the effect of that in his career, he didn't make his $ off of the better players at the table but taking advantage of the weaker ones. Why play against someone as good or better than you when you don't have to.

When I started playing live last year, 1st time, I sat at a 2/4 LHE table and was freaking out cause I thought I'd be the worst one there. I was one of the top ones at the table. Now when I play 3/6, same thing. 4/8, in the top 3 or better. Just made the jump and haven't yet played anything higher.

Re: Do you think you\'re the best?
 

I know I'm better than average, but I also know I'm not the best. Usually, when I'm at a table with players who are better than me I will either move to a different table or, barring that, employ game theory. Also, don't tap the aquarium is possibly one of the better sayings at a poker table, but a discussion in a forum like this, which is probably rarely visited by fish, can be great help to the serious player and amateur alike.