My Snow Day Rant

[AK87]

I am writing this because I remember one post by ZeeJustin about rational vs. non-rational players and this was probably my most interesting read ever in poker. I am mostly trying to get across to some of my friends in real life that do not have the success I have, and I am trying to put them in the right mindset, along with many others I feel are in the same boat as my friends. I was partially inspired by Strassa’s recent post about poker being a game of accidents, and even though this post did not strike me to be particularly amazing, it was still very thought provoking and inspired me to make this.

First off, a little background for those who don’t know me. I don’t post a lot on 2p2, but I lurk a lot and absorb a lot of the information given mainly at the High Stakes forum. I play under most sites as AK87, and on Full Tilt I am –AKwow-. I mainly play 10/20 NL, and I honestly believe I am one of the best players at that level. I feel I can win at most big games, but I like to be very well rolled.

Poker is not a game to me, it is basically my life, and it has impacted the way I look at life dramatically. Ever since I have started playing poker, I feel like I view the world in a completely different light. I am a very logical thinker and was always good at math and doing problems. That, I attribute to most of my success. These characteristics about me are the main reasons I constantly analyze my game and others. Referring to Justin’s post, I feel this is the best way to approach poker.

I see so many poker player’s these days who do not look past the surface of poker, and do not realize how much looking deep into the game will benefit you. One of my biggest hatreds in poker is bad beat stories, or in general, excuses for results. If you can not be honest with yourself and your play, you will never succeed in poker. I know everyone here knows what variance is and how it works. Some people like to make this their excuse for having a bad session or losing to a 2 outer. However, blaming results on variance and running bad are just not justifiable in my mind. I’m not saying that I never get heated over a bad beat or a cooler. I too get very heated, but that is the point of my post. To look past all these excuses.

I talk to many people on AIM about poker, and in my mind, I label most of them. There will be ones I constantly discuss strategy about and analyze hands etc. I like these people the best and consider them to be good friends. However, the ones I hate, and feel I should just block are the ones that only IM me for one reason. They took a horrible beat and want to rationalize losing. I almost never even read the HH and simply reply, “damn that sucks.” In my mind I am thinking, “Why would you send me that? I don’t give a [censored] and neither should you.” In reality, we are all, as humans, results-oriented. Not getting over this hump is probably the most –EV decision you could ever make. These same people who complain to me about bad beats are in fact, the ones who make the least playing poker, if in fact they are making anything. Making excuses for your results is no way to approach the game. In the end, all luck equals out, and yes, while bad streaks are inevitable due to variance, the most +EV decisions you can make should be your main thought at all times. That is why I feel bankroll management and tilt control are essential to success. Take players like Mike Matusow. There is no doubt that he can flat out play when he is in the right state of mind. I think I can remember about two times of watching him play that he has honestly said “I am playing great poker right now.” And guess what, he was, and he was winning. On the other hand, I couldn’t possibly count the number of times he has been blatantly on tilt and not playing near his A game. For people like Mike, bad beats and playing bad are just another excuse in the book. This is also not a stab at Mike, because I respect his game sometimes, but that is why he is always broke and getting loans. One day he will realize, he basically spewed his entire poker life away because he thought he was unlucky. At the end of the day, making excuses for your results is not the way to look at it. Analyzing the decisions you have made and whether or not they were profitable in the long run is what you should be analyzing. No one can argue against me that looking at results is the poorest way to approach poker. Some people know this, but continue to try to rationalize in their own mind how bad they run. The truth is, the most successful players don’t complain. They see the big picture. They know it all evens out in the long run. When approaching bankroll management, those who like to gamble it up and take shots are not making the right choices. I personally am over rolled for 10/20 NL. I use the term “over rolled” in a relative sense, in that compared to most. I remember Aba saying that he believes it should always hurt a little when you lose, implying that you don’t need to have 100 buy ins for a level. I personally disagree with him, and this will probably be the only time in my life I’ll ever disagree with him. He is in my opinion, the best NLHE player in the world. However, the way I view poker, everything is in the long run and not being properly rolled for a game is just stupid. It would be very ignorant for me to say that I will greatly impact everyone who reads this post, and they will all heed my advice and play within their bankrolls. In fact, the reality of it is, some people may think, “Wow this guys an ass. Where does he get the balls to make this post?” Some will think “He actually is making some sense, and I think I want to listen to him.” If you think this, please try to engrave that thought into your mind. I see so many poker players who lie to themselves, but they don’t even want to. Countless times I will talk to friends about poker and what they are doing wrong and how they should fix it. Countless times they say they know exactly where I am coming from and they will fix their problems. And guess what? I believe them, and I know they truly believe what I am trying to tell them at that point in time. However a week later, this same person will tell me of a massive tilt session that proceeded in them losing their entire rolls, and they were stupid to do this and they wish they had kept in mind what I told them a week prior. That is the main point of this post. I know there are so many of these types of people out there who I just described, and I ask you to take my advice to heart and try to change your way of thinking permanently.


And that is my snow day rant. I hope this helps some people. It was shoddily done, I know, but I just want to get this out there and hopefully have some good discussion. I plan on posting more on 2p2 because it’s a great community and there’s a lot of invaluable information out there.

Alex