On Luck, Tilt, and Our Reasons for Playing

It's been an interesting last several years. I no longer have serious aspirations of playing poker professionally, but life is great. I still consider myself a student of the game, but I don't have the desire to invest the kind of time and effort required to become (and remain) an elite player. I simply have too many other far more fulfilling pursuits that I can't see myself ever setting aside.

That said, I do still play on a regular basis, and I've decided to resume closer analysis of my game because I firmly believe that anything worth doing is worth doing well. I've created multiple blogs on various platforms over the years and contemplated creating yet another one for this particular exercise, but I decided to just return to this ratty old one instead because it feels like the best place to be authentic. To simply write for me.

My poker play these days is basically limited to a regular Friday night small stakes mixed cash game. The rotation is No Limit Hold'em (NLHE), Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo 8 or Better (PLO8), and, when the table is shorthanded, Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or Better (7S8).

The primary impetus for returning to this blog has been a very drawn out string of extremely poor luck. A seemingly endless stream of beats and coolers over the course of almost 3 years now. My approach as of late has been to just keep taking things one hand at a time, allowing for brief outbursts of profanity in order to quickly return to level-headed game play. But it's gotten to a point now where I'm seriously wondering if I should just quit the game altogether. And it seems to me that an honest and thorough analysis of my reasons for playing is a good place to start searching for that answer.

So why do I still play poker these days? Entertainment value is probably tops on that list. I've known the regulars in my Friday cash game for nearly a decade in some cases; they're great people and I don't think I laugh that hard anywhere else. Certainly not as often, at the very least. This reason alone is very nearly enough to throw the idea of quitting right out the window.

But I do also still play to win money. And as I'm typing this, it's further crystallizing the idea that I need to stop playing on autopilot and start employing a more thoughtful and intentional game (not unlike the approach I used to have when I first started this blog all those years ago).  I know I've made many (MANY) good decisions at the table over the last few years which haven't panned out. But at the same time, I haven't done nearly enough to ensure that my not-so-good decisions are acknowledged and rectified.

I think that's the answer right there. If I truly believe that I'm doomed by bad luck, then the only answer is to quit. But I still firmly believe, just as I always have, that luck evens out over the long run, so I simply need to push on. However, if I'm going to proceed with that mindset, the wise approach will be to consciously maximize the quality of the decisions I make, regardless of how well or how poorly they pan out. That is definitely an area where I've fallen short over the last several years, and this is where I will leverage this blog to ensure that my Friday night cash game remains an enjoyable and profitable investment of my time.

The one positive of this extended string of poker misfortune is that I honestly feel at this point as if I've been beaten into submission. I can say with a great deal of sincerity that there are very few things at the table that surprise me anymore, and the experience has helped me quite a bit to avoid prolonged bouts of tilt. The only problem is that I've also allowed it to take me to a place of complacency, so this is where I will work to move back towards the middle, to a place where my complete focus and trust is on high quality decision-making.