A successful and steadily profitable poker player should avoid emotional extremes, whether high or low. Making steady profits in poker, regardless of whether you are playing professionally, semi-professionally, or only casually, requires you to have discipline of mind, body, and soul, and in particular the ability to avoid becoming angry over bad bets or becoming overly exuberant in times of good luck. You will need to develop patience as well as measured temperament, because without these the volatility inherent in this game can bury you in the graveyard of emotion.
That in turn will bury you in the graveyard of the losers. This can happen to you no matter what your status in life, whether you are a blue-collar worker or a white-collar worker, whether you are of the middle class, or whether you are one of the super rich. Just because a person is rich doesn't mean that that person is equipped to be a successful poker player.
Likewise the lack of a high school or college education doesn't disqualify that person from becoming a highly successful poker player. Poker is the great equalizer. Poker does not know your race or politics, it does not know your economic situation, it does not know whether you are a friend or an enemy, it doesn't know whether you are a man or a woman, and it certainly doesn't have any emotion, and isn't out to get you. Poker is just a game, and a game played by people against other people. Poker is a people game first and foremost, and a gambling game only when looked upon as such by people who don't understand it.
What you see on television is not the real world of poker. What you see on television are edited highlights from poker tournaments that have taken place over several days at an average of 12 hours per day, eventually resulting in the six people that you see at the final table at the very end of this very long, very tedious, and very difficult process. This is not what you will encounter when you go to play poker for the first time in a card room or casino poker room. With the explosion of poker worldwide, casino poker rooms and card rooms everywhere are being flooded by new players, and in particular players who have gained their first experience and exposure to poker either by watching television, or playing on the Internet. These players do not play poker the way you have learned to play poker.
What you read in the poker books that have been published over the past 20 years is not what is happening in 21st-century poker as it is now being played in casinos and card rooms everywhere. Whether you are a novice player or an experienced player or somewhere in between, understanding your opponents and their motivations is even more important now than it used to be. And that is and should be the ultimate goal of anyone venturing into the world of poker.
Learning the game is important, but learning how the game has changed in just the past few years is even more crucial. It doesn't matter if you play a simple game of $4-$8- $8 Hold'Em in your local card room where you know all the regulars and your motivation is almost always entertainment.
Even there the texture of the players and the game is changing. But this is even more prominent in the major games, and particularly the tournaments. Everything is changing at an ever-increasing pace, and if you plan to be successful, your ability to change and adapt to these situations should become your primary focus in improving your game. Finally, to those who still maintain that poker is somehow akin to gambling, I wish to ask one question: If you require heart bypass surgery, would you rather go to a heart surgeon, or a plumber?
Both have skills in setting pipes and managing fluid flows. But which would you choose? Your heart surgeon is skilled in that specific situation and is therefore not gambling when performing your heart bypass. But the plumber trying to do this would be gambling, and gambling with your life.
It is the same in poker. Some players are skilled, and they apply that skill to that specific circumstance. Therefore, they aren't gambling.
What does this mean? It means that we all have skills in some things, and they aren't necessarily applicable to all situations equally. But it also means that poker is primarily a skill, and as such it cannot be equated with gambling. I may have more to say on this at another time. For now, I wish you the best of poker success, whatever game you may choose and whatever skill level you may bring to it.
Victor H. Royer is the author of 22 books on casino gaming. His newest series of 13 books - including the new release Powerful Profits from Poker - are now available in all major book stores, or from The Gambler's Book Shop at 1-800-522- 1777, or at Amazon.com. For more details, visit his web site at: http://hometown.aol.com/vicnvegas/myhomepage/newsletter.html
