The State of My Poker, 2015

Tonight is the annual State of the Union address.  In that spirit, it's time to take stock of where poker is for me, and where it's going.  This won't be a detailed anyalyis, instead, I'll just touch on several things.

I played very little, probably about three times a month live, and about the same online.  I haven't put all of the numbers together yet, but I definitely lost money playing live.  As the saying goes, poker is a volume game.  You can't make money when you're not playing.  More about poker finances, family finances and how it all works together in a future post.

I know that I'm playing better, and taking a lot of the right steps.  I'm learning so many new things that I get frustrated.  I can read 25 pages of a poker book and come across at least 5 new ideas or concepts that I want to try out  or implement. I'm a step-by-step learner, and I work on one new idea, or one area that needs work, every time I play a live tournament.

I can't look for chip-handling tells, put several players on a range of hands, and keep track of the exact pot size, all in one tournament.  I have to work on one thing every tournament.  That's the way that I learn the best.

I can only imagine how quickly I'll improve once I'm a full-time player.  I will be able to pick a concept and work on it during 5 tournaments in the same week!  I get really excited thinking about that.  I could play a bunch of $20 to $40 live weekday tournaments and do a lot of improving on the cheap.

My improvement feels agonizingly slow, but other players tell me all the time that I'm getting better.  A guy told me at my last live tournament that I was the most dangerous player at the table when we are down to two tables and almost everyone is short-stacked.  He also said that my new sunglasses were messing him up.    :)

I have definitely been subjected to negative statistical variance.  I've been knocked out of tournament after tournament with a big hand or a statistical advantage, I think I'm at zero cashes for my last fifteen $50 60-player MTTs.  Two weeks ago, I lost with a pair of queens all-in against jack-ten suited.  Whoever won would be at the final table, in the money, and playing for close to $1,000, and the loser would be knocked out or crippled and probably go home with nothing.  Queens that don't share any of villian's suits win that showdown 81.1% of the time.

Two days ago I played an online tournament, similar situation.  I went out in 14th place.  12 players got paid.  Over a statistically valid sample size (hundreds or thousands of tournaments) variance will even out, and I'll get my share of final tables, with chances to win the big money.  I'm sure that a lot of players quit when they hit a long losing streak, not knowing that long winning or losing streaks are completely normal.  It's all about the math, and having the stomach to ride out the variance.
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