When Do I Know I'm Awesome?

[AKQJ10]

Great Ed Miller essay every beginner should read.

[ QUOTE ]
Furthermore, it’s very hard to get decent feedback. “Am I doing it right?” Can’t look to your results… there’s too much variance to figure much out. Can’t ask your friends… chances are your friends are idiots. You can post hands on the internet, but even then you often don’t get a satisfying outcome.


So you’ve played for weeks or months or even years. You win sometimes and you lose sometimes. No one you know cares much either way. And you can’t even figure out if you’re on the right track.


“Is anyone out there?” (Echos.) “Am I doing this right?” (Echos.) “Can anybody hear me?” (Echos.) The loneliness is enough to drive poker players totally batty. And its enough to drive their games squarely into the crapper too....


If you’re new to poker, no doubt you’ve already seen plenty of poker “hotshots” with huge egos who throw trash talk and hubris around aplenty. These players are suckers. Every one of them. It doesn’t matter how high they are flying today, eventually poker will beat them. They don’t understand poker, and eventually their lack of understanding will leave them on the outside looking in.


The best players, the one who stick around for life, are humble. They are skilled, but every day they just want more skill, more knowledge. It doesn’t matter whether they win today or they lose, as they will play again tomorrow, and the next day, and every day after that. If they do not win this week, then they will win next week. If they do not win this month, then they will win next month. If they do not win this year, this decade, then they will win next year, next decade. They will learn and acquire skill every day until they are unbeatable. And then they’ll get beaten.

[/ QUOTE ]

[trontron]

the link is wrong. that's the correct one: http://www.notedpokerauthority.com/a...m-awesome.html

[Dastone]

I'm glad I decided to click on this forum today. Thanks for this OP AKQJ10. It's something I needed at this time.

[AKQJ10]

Sorry, your link is right. I think I've read that Q&A #49 so often that my browser defaults there when I copy paste. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Poker Plan]

Awesome link. All serious students of the game need to read the entire article.

[and12006]

Thanks for the post always reminds me to keep coming back here to learn more and not start to think I'm too good cause I'm winning at this point in time. Nice post.

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
Awesome link. All serious students of the game need to read the entire article.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's an awesome article. It's also much easier to read than to actually put it into practice. Takes getting over alot of hurdles to get to that point.

He's also dead on about it being, for the most part, a lonely endeavor.

b

[Mal_Pais]

Fantastic.