I caught a very interesting article that was intended to be about business/career goals but I think it applies just as easily to how we advance as poker players. It fits in with what I said the other day about goals and being unable to achieve a goal unless you first set it.
I often find myself in progress ruts. I’ll make it to a certain caliber in my game and then I’m stuck. Sometimes for weeks or even months I’ll go without any real progress. I’ll just keep hammering away and nothing seems to change. I don’t feel I’m playing any better or worse, I’m just playing. Then something will happen. I’ll read a message board post, a blog post, a book, or some planetary alignment will occur that makes me think about the game just a little differently. Reading Ed Miller’s Small Stakes Hold ‘Em was one of those moments. Reading Harrington on Hold ‘Em was another. It’s one of those eureka moments where in a split second you see exactly how every hand you’ve ever played could have been played differently.
Pavila’s post recommends rating yourself on a 1- 10 scale on various self-determined criteria. In poker that might be your overall game, or you pre-flop game, your post-flop aggression, your ability to read the action to put someone on a hand, etc. If you’re a 3 or 4 it’s probably pretty easy to see how you need to progress. If you find yourself with a lot of 7’s, you could be in a lot of trouble.
There’s a tendency for people to accept mediocrity. If you can easily beat the $3/$6 at Commerce (or pick your favorite online or offline casino) it’s not too difficult to stay satisfied with your achievement. It’s far better than most people who play the game and getting to an 8 or 9 would require substantial effort. Perhaps you’ve even taken some stabs at $5/$10 and got crushed so being satisfied with your level 7 status seems to even be justified.
One of the biggest problems, however, may be that in order to get to level 8 or 9 might require going back to level 4. Some of the flaws in your game go undetected at $3/$6 but become painfully obvious at $5/$10 against better opponents. Admitting to yourself that you’ve only memorized starting hand charts without ever really understanding the relative value of hands in various situations may seem like a major, major setback in your progress but in reality it’s essential for you to move on to higher levels.
The other major problem is that you may not actually be a 7. You may be a 7 compared to your friends but how do you rank against Chip Reese or Johnny Chan? Are you really a 7 compared to those guys?
I see this type of mis-ranking a lot in work environments. On a consulting gig, I was helping a CTO and we were ranking staff members on a scale of 1 – 10 on various job skills. He ranked one software engineer as a 10 and I responded that he was a 4 or 5 at best. He was absolutely stunned. He said, “But he’s the best programmer we have,” which was true but I’ve worked with some 10’s and he was no 10. Did he help write the Java language? How many conferences is he asked to speak at as an expert on Java? How many research papers has he written on Java? How many libraries has he written? He sat back and said “If he’s a 4 or 5 then everyone else is only a 1,” seemingly trying to convince me that his entire staff couldn’t all be 1’s. My response was simply, “Thus, the productivity issues you’ve hired me to help you address.” It took a few days for the message to set in but he eventually saw that by realistically assessing the capabilities of his staff he could better align them for their tasks and bring in true experts to fill in the gaps.
Does that apply to you? Do you find yourself thinking that you’re a 7 despite the fact that you’re nowhere near being 70% of the player Chip Reese is? I know I fall into that trap sometimes. It can be depressing to think about how far away you are from truly mastering this game (especially if you’re a winning player) yet it’s absolutely essential to be brutally realistic if you ever hope to improve.
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Hi, my name is Bill Rini and this is my poker blog. I've been blogging about poker and the poker industry since around 2003-ish. Like most people I started out playing poker as entertainment in home games whenever we wanted to sit around and smoke cigars, drink beer, and eat pizza, and needed a good excuse. I started playing online shortly after the first online card rooms opened and it wasn't long before I was playing 20, 30, or even 40 hours a week or more. One day I received a phone call about a program manager position at Tiltware which was the company that consulted to Full Tilt Poker on software development and marketing. After Tiltware I spent about 2.5 years working at Party Poker where I was the poker room manager.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
I love this post. It’s about visual things for me, too. I use to post stuff on my wall growing up (as did Tiger Woods) and I use to just get it done. I don’t know, something to think about.
Any player rated near a “10″ must be dominant at all the games, not just Hold ‘Em. As good as Harrington has been, how is he at Stud, Triple Draw, etc.?
All of Harrington’s big cashes are in Hold’em.
All good stuff.
But…
How often are you playing against Chip Reese???
;)
I love that shit stuff
Just call me Bo Derek.
Good stuff….now if somebody could just give me a list of things I can rate myself on, I can get to work.
Humor – 8
Poker – 4
Work – 2 as long as the internet is on
Looks – (-17)
Wardrobe – (8 less than Joe Speaker)
Does the rating allow for negative numbers? I’m not as good as I think I am, and at the same time, I know I’m better than my play would indicate. I suspect lots of players are in the same spot.
Limit Hold Em’ – 3
No Limit Hold Em’ – 4
Pot Limit Omaha 8 or better – 8
Limit Omaha 8 or better – 7
Razz – 7
7 card Baseball (no peeking) – 11
How often are you playing against Chip Reese???
You don’t. But the point is that your rank is not as relative as you think. Being the best football player in your school doesn’t mean that you’re even in the top 50% in your state or the top 80% in the nation.
It’s easy to think we’re good but the question is; compared to what? If you want to be a level 10 player then just go play .50/$1 the rest of your life. Easy! You’re a 10 compared to them. If you want to be a level 7 player against all poker players then one would need to compare themselves to Chip Reese.
Just for perspective, in Barry G’s new book he states that $20/$40 and below is low limit poker. :-)
Great blog pal! I don’t have any idea how I will rate myself as a poker player. Maybe 3 in no limit holdem or maybe 2. I’m still a beginner though. Catch my site and see some great poker player views.
Great info !!!
if your good at poker you don’t wanna be playing low stacks as you get wannable poker players who ar’nt that good and will play anything , ok your get them at higher stakes but overall your gett a better player around the table with 1 or 2 idiots which is better then a table full of them