Introduction

In this article

• The downswing excuse and why you should stay away from it
• Willpower and hard work are the key to success
• Constantly working on your game

A professional attitude is a must for any aspiring poker player. Talent alone is worth nothing if the individual lacks a desire to read, learn, and develop their game. Even on the middle limits, you lack experience, and development is crucial. Sadly most poker careers fall short at this point, and come to a premature end.

Chapter 1

The downswing excuse

If you want to start playing poker profitably, then you should be aware of the following statement:

"There is no downswing in poker - only poorly played hands"

Of course, all the self-proclaimed poker pro's of the world would be in hysterics over this assertion. Are all the Slanskys and Greensteins of this world really wrong?

Man has a remarkable tendency of creating excuses and will do anything to justify his behavior, bad luck, or mistakes in every day life.

"The love of my life left me... and she's found someone else!"

It's a lot more tempting to present yourself as a helpless victim, as opposed to holding your hands up and admitting your mistakes. In reality, you spent too much time playing pool with your friends, while your girlfriend was alone at home. You crave sympathy from your friends and peers.

To your disgust, a colleague receives a promotion at work. Even though you feel you're more deserving, in reality, your colleague has shown far more drive and dedication to the company. While you were lounging at home, phoning in ill with an ‘acute cold', he was toiling away at the office, working over-time.

Maybe it's that football match with the incompetent referee, who was biased to the other team. Every marginal decision went against you... but in reality you were second best on the day.

As you can see, man doesn't hesitate to dish out excuses for their wrongdoings and failure to perform.

This habit is nothing more than a defense mechanism. Just as our eyes close instinctively when something flies towards them, we protect our ego. The examples above are defense mechanisms that try and maintain our confidence and self-esteem... and yes we are all guilty.

All too often when someone criticizes us we instinctivly go into defensive mode and try to justify our behaviour or flatout accuse our counterpart of being 'wrong'. Would it be so hard to instead think about what was said, and perhaps accept that the criticism was justified? Instead of being humble and accepting our mistakes we instead lash out with irrelevant, immature jibes in an attempt to change the topic. If someone accuses us of being arrogant, instead of producing a constructive response, we'll label them as ‘sad' or ‘stupid'. Yet is this the solid foundation for an argument? Instead of considering the criticism we go into the offensive, since we feel cornered and attacked.

But what does all this have to do with poker?

The answer is quite simple. This kind of attitude will have a negative effect on our game, and deadly impact on our bankroll. The problem is that many books and articles present the poker player with the perfect excuse on a silver platter.

There are countless articles on downswings, and forums are littered with players lamenting horrendous bad beats. Rather than take in any constructive advice, we seek solace in others' misfortunes, and dismiss these beats and losses without analyzing our game.

For many, it's a lot easier to dismiss a hand as a bad beat, rather than analyze the hand on a forum and receive constructive criticism. This might take more effort, but it enhances our learning experience, and can only make us more successful.

Of course, there are situations where a downswing victim really does suffer horrendous luck; his nut flush gets busted by a 72o full house on the river, in the 100^th hand of the session. It's at these times you deserve sympathy and encouragement. The previous 99 hands, where you made dubious calls and unrealistic raises and relinquished your blinds too easily, are, however, conveniently overlooked.

Would it not be more constructive to analyze your hands after a losing session and be frank with yourself - it would have been a break-even session if I'd played to my potential.

Many beginners will state:

"...I know I have a few leaks here and there..."

Reading something like this, you assume that the person who wrote it believes that his game is 70-80% perfect. The phrase ‘here and there' implies a near perfect game. In "Ace on the River" Barry Greenstein writes that on every night he plays poker, he makes around 10% poor calls/raises/folds. In this case we can congratulate our beginner from above, since he's only 10 or 20% away from the level of Barry Greenstein - too bad he's not playing on the same limit.

There are players, however, who start directly with an upswing and feel they have an air of invincibility about them as they storm the limits at an unbelievable pace, and at 4-5 BB/100 hands, quickly reach the $1/2 or higher. At this point, there is no reason for these players to question their own abilities. (author's note: my poker career started this way, too). But suddenly the ruthless world of poker strikes back with a vengeance. The victim experiences their first big downswing (which is actually poor play that becomes more exposed at the higher limits). They lose 150 BB or more within 1000 hands and fritter away half their bankroll...

...an interesting thought process now begins in the minds of most players:

Thesis 1: My winrate over 20000 hands is 1.5 BB/100 H.

Thesis 2: "Winning players" have a winrate of 1 BB/100 H. BB/100 H.

Conclusion: I am a winning player.

From this follows:

Thesis 1: I know that even winning players can have downswings in the region of 200 BB or more.

Thesis 2: I am a winning player.

Conclusion: My loss of 150 BB must be a downswing, so I can keep playing the same way and my luck will soon turn around.

Sadly, many players would rather reach for the ‘downswing excuse' than confront their game.

Here is a fitting quote from Thomas Jefferson:

"I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it."

Let's return to our original statement: "There is no downswing in poker!"

A small example:

A family acquaintance works as a glassblower, manufacturing a particular kind of glass. Even though the blowing process is identical every time, there's still a danger the glass will pop or crack. The more experienced the glassblower however, the less likely this is to occur. Let's assume that in this business there is an apprentice, who's allowed to manufacture the glass. But he's unsuccessful at blowing the first time and the glass ends up broken and useless. What is the probability that this mistake is due to the incompetence of the apprentice, or due to nature of the profession, regardless of glassmaker's experience?

What I'm trying to establish is that at the start of your poker career, a significant loss is usually due to poor play rather than a general downswing.

There are two ways of measuring success in poker:

1. The quality of the posted hand: suppose player A starts playing poker and posts 20 hands at the end of a session. Over time, you'll receive more positive responses, and can judge how well your progressing. The degree of success is determined by how quickly the quality of the hands posted increases.

2. The money, i.e. Winrate: The more hands we play on one limit, the closer we come to our actual strength expressed by x BB/100 H.

At the beginning of a poker career, method 2 is completely worthless. No matter what your winrate over 3000, 4000, or 8000 hands is, it will rarely be an adequate measure.

Method 1, however, is the preferred method in the beginning.

How to go about improving your game will be addressed in parts 2 and 3 of this article. In conclusion, I would like to stress to all beginners, that downswings in the beginning of your poker career are usually the result of poor play as opposed to bad luck. When you're inexperienced, you should invest more time practicing.