Ok, just a little background to preface this blog....When I first moved to Vegas (2.5 years ago) I went to the license branch like a good boy to get my Nevada Driver's License. I was told that since I had too many speeding tickets in Indiana I would not only have to to take the written test, but also take the skills driving test. I passed the written test and then they told me I could make an appointment a month and a half from now or wait in line for approximately 4 hours to take the skills test and even then they couldn't promise me I would get to take the test today. I chose to make an appointment and of course forgot about it when it came time to go. Fast forward about 1 year....I decided I would finally go back to try again. Since it had been so long since I had taken the written test I had to take it again. I rushed through the test and somehow failed the written test and I felt like the biggest failure at life ever after I looked around and saw a room full of white trash people that could barely speak English passing the same test I just failed. Fast forward another year....I lost my Indiana Driver's License (still valid) while I was home last so I decided I had better go try again for my license. This time I aced the written test and I had to make another appointment for the skills test a month and a half in advance. It was still a long shot that I would actually remember my appointment at that point, but I set a couple different reminders on my phone and I managed to make it to my appointment about 15 minutes early.
I gave them my paperwork and checked in for my appointment and they told me to have a seat until they called my name. I already imagined them taking forever to get to me despite me having a scheduled appointment. Surprisingly, they called my name at 11:00 am sharp. I went up to the lady that called my name and she asked me if I was Patrick, I responded "Yes, ma'am". She asked me if I had ever had a license before, I responded "Yes, ma'am". She said "thank God, I will just take you on the short route then". So far, so good.
We got outside and she checked my turn signals, brake lights, and horn. Then she got in the car and sat there for a moment. I thought about asking her where we were headed, but realized my only option was to pull forward out of my parking space so I put it in gear and she stopped me. She said "Aren't you going to wait for me to get my seat belt on?" I said "I apologize" and I waited for her to put her seat belt on before I pulled forward. She said "No, put it back in park and wait for me to get my seat belt on". I obliged and she put her belt on and then said "Did you know that can result in an automatic failure?" I said "No, I did not realize that not waiting for my passenger to put their seat belt on before I put it in gear could result in an automatic failure, I apologize." She then tells me to turn my radio off (it was barely even audible I had it turned on so low). Ridiculous, but whatever...I turned my radio off.
She tells me where to go and I follow directions all while driving with my hands in the "Ten and Two" position. We get to the first stop light, which was less than two blocks away, and I come to a complete stop before taking one hand off of the wheel and rest it on my lap. While we are waiting at the stop light I say to her "Just out of curiosity, is it a penalty if I don't drive with my hands at the "Ten and Two" positions?" She says that it is so I make it a point to always drive with my hands in the correct position. I did take one hand off the wheel on 4-5 occasions throughout the rest of the test....probably 3 times to rest it on my lap again while we were stopped at lights and maybe 2 times to itch my face. I know she is going to be a stickler so I make sure to pay attention to the speed limit and stay comfortably under it so she won't have anything to complain about. I signaled everywhere I should and always checked my blind spot. During the parallel parking portion of the test I pulled forward even with the first barrel, backed in and just as I got close to the curb I pulled forward approximately 2 feet and then backed in the rest of the way. I then pulled forward to get the car straight (or parallel) in the parking spot. At this point I was probably 3 feet from the front barrels and 15 feet from the back barrels so I backed up a few feet so I would be in the center of the parking spot. Flawless performance, in my opinion.
At one point during the test I asked her what her success rate was for people passing the skills test and she told me it depends on the person. I correctly told her that it didn't really depend on the person, she still has to have an overall success rate for all of her drivers combined. She told me then that is was "pretty good".
Now is when I felt like the candid camera session began. I parked my car and we went inside to "discuss my test". She had another co-worker come in and observe out discussion. She asked me how long I had lived in Vegas and I told her "about two years." She said, "So you should be familiar with the roads around here then, correct?" I said "Yes, ma'am". Then she listed some errors that I had made during my driving test.
1. At several times during the drive I was driving 35 MPH when the speed limit was 45 MPH and during some other times I was driving 30 MPH when the speed limit was 40 MPH
2. Often times, I turned my turn signal on too early when making turns.
3. I have a tendency to driving with one hand on the wheel.
4. I didn't allow her to get her seat belt on before I began to drive.
5. There were too many maneuvers in my parallel parking.
She then stated that these were all very vital things. Each time she read off another of my "violations" I could not help myself from smirking at first and full blown smiling by the end of our "discussion". She then told me that I had failed my test and I would need to reschedule an appointment.
I obviously know I will never get anywhere by arguing with her so I was polite and just said OK, and got my paper work back from her and went on my way to reschedule another appointment. Guess what? The next available appointment is on December 10th.
I have no idea why she had it out for me, but she clearly did not want me to pass. I honestly thought it was a joke until the very end when I got up to leave the discussion room....it wasn't a joke.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Short one...
I lost yesterday about what I won the day before and today I played for almost 6 hours and won $47 or something silly. Playing only 6 tables has actually been kinda fun. I am able to pay more attention to obscure player specific stats and I think it is making me a better player.
I talked to Jeff today and he is planning on leaving Tuesday morning to play in this weeks PGA tourney. He thought he was done for the year, but he only missed one tournament. He said he hit about 30 balls today and was hitting his 8 iron 130 yards (he was hitting it about 175 in Vegas). He obviously won't be 100% for the tournament, but he said he didn't want to look back a month from now and wonder if he could have played. I am actually really excited to see how he manages to play. I think it could actually help him in a sense....it will most certainly have to improve his putting and will force him to think his way around the golf course if he wants to score well without just bombing it on every hole (not that he is reckless when playing).
I am going to be ordering some new fish and corals for my tank tomorrow. I'll post some pictures in here when I get some more stuff added.
I talked to Jeff today and he is planning on leaving Tuesday morning to play in this weeks PGA tourney. He thought he was done for the year, but he only missed one tournament. He said he hit about 30 balls today and was hitting his 8 iron 130 yards (he was hitting it about 175 in Vegas). He obviously won't be 100% for the tournament, but he said he didn't want to look back a month from now and wonder if he could have played. I am actually really excited to see how he manages to play. I think it could actually help him in a sense....it will most certainly have to improve his putting and will force him to think his way around the golf course if he wants to score well without just bombing it on every hole (not that he is reckless when playing).
I am going to be ordering some new fish and corals for my tank tomorrow. I'll post some pictures in here when I get some more stuff added.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Super busy.....
I have been insanely busy as of late and I haven't had time to do any blogging. Not only have I not had time to blog I haven't had hardly anytime to play poker for about the last 17 days or so. Today was the first time I played any serious poker since then. I played live a few times with friends, but it was either really small limits or I was tired and played short sessions. I played for about 3.5 hours today and I ran well enough to win $1132 which was a nice way to return.
Even though I haven't played much poker lately I have learned some stuff about poker during that time. Mainly, you can't force a rush and monetary goals can do as much harm as they can good. I recently set a lofty goal of winning $20K in 2 weeks and I started out on fire and was on pace to do so. I ended up not even getting close to my goal and I am not even really sure how much I lost back from my peak of being up around $12,500, but I know it wasn't good. I tried to play higher and got really reckless with the amount of tables I was playing considering the stakes that I was playing. I believe I play well enough to beat 5/10 and 10/20 NL online, but I am either not comfortable enough or don't play well enough to beat those limits when I am playing anymore than 6 tables at a time. It is probably pushing it to be playing 6 tables of those limits, especially when I was trying to mix in some 25/50 as well. When you are winning you feel invincible and don't even notice the deterioration of your play by playing two tables. It takes some discipline to realize this type of stuff and isn't fun to admit.
I feel really fresh right now since I have had so much time off from poker, but I am going to take it slow and limit myself to playing no more than 6 tables at a time and I am going to start out playing mostly 2/4 and 3/6 NL until I win 15-20 buy-ins at those levels. Only then will I start to mix in some 5/10 games, but I am going to try to keep it at a maximum of 6 tables for the time being. I think I can focus more on playing differently against specific players and pick up on some spots that offer value that I miss when playing 8+ tables. Taking away two tables will really lower my hands played per hour, but I think it can be made up for with a higher win rate.
So, during my time away from poker I:
Edit: I know alot of people that read my blog follow Jeff's progress too. Fyi, he had an appendectomy on Monday and is most likely out for the season. There is an outside chance he could play in the last tourney of the year. It sucks because he was 123rd on the money list and will surely be passed during the last 3 tourneys of the year while he sits out. He will still retain sis top 150 status, but it is a pretty big deal to be in the top 125 compared to the top 150. I am pretty bummed about it, but nowhere near as bummed as Jeff is.
Even though I haven't played much poker lately I have learned some stuff about poker during that time. Mainly, you can't force a rush and monetary goals can do as much harm as they can good. I recently set a lofty goal of winning $20K in 2 weeks and I started out on fire and was on pace to do so. I ended up not even getting close to my goal and I am not even really sure how much I lost back from my peak of being up around $12,500, but I know it wasn't good. I tried to play higher and got really reckless with the amount of tables I was playing considering the stakes that I was playing. I believe I play well enough to beat 5/10 and 10/20 NL online, but I am either not comfortable enough or don't play well enough to beat those limits when I am playing anymore than 6 tables at a time. It is probably pushing it to be playing 6 tables of those limits, especially when I was trying to mix in some 25/50 as well. When you are winning you feel invincible and don't even notice the deterioration of your play by playing two tables. It takes some discipline to realize this type of stuff and isn't fun to admit.
I feel really fresh right now since I have had so much time off from poker, but I am going to take it slow and limit myself to playing no more than 6 tables at a time and I am going to start out playing mostly 2/4 and 3/6 NL until I win 15-20 buy-ins at those levels. Only then will I start to mix in some 5/10 games, but I am going to try to keep it at a maximum of 6 tables for the time being. I think I can focus more on playing differently against specific players and pick up on some spots that offer value that I miss when playing 8+ tables. Taking away two tables will really lower my hands played per hour, but I think it can be made up for with a higher win rate.
So, during my time away from poker I:
- Went home for a buddy's wedding.
- Ate like a pig at the fall festival
- Flew back to Vegas to caddy for Jeff
- Picked up Matt to have him stay with me
- Picked up Brian and Jason to have them stay with me
- Dropped off Matt
- Dropped of Brian and Jason
- Didn't have one minute of time to relax
- Ate out every single meal
- Bought two new fish for my tank.
- Played pit games about 10X more than I did poker
- Went out to clubs about 4 times (4 more than I told myself I would ever go again in my life).
- Stayed out late about 90% of the nights (past 2am) as the only sober person.
Edit: I know alot of people that read my blog follow Jeff's progress too. Fyi, he had an appendectomy on Monday and is most likely out for the season. There is an outside chance he could play in the last tourney of the year. It sucks because he was 123rd on the money list and will surely be passed during the last 3 tourneys of the year while he sits out. He will still retain sis top 150 status, but it is a pretty big deal to be in the top 125 compared to the top 150. I am pretty bummed about it, but nowhere near as bummed as Jeff is.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Sigh....
If I believed in jinxes I would say I jinxed myself by talking about not having had any big losses lately. I lost $3,000 playing 10/20 NL at the Bellagio :( I know I have a limited sample size in the 10/20, but I have been amazingly card dead during the times I have played it. They play super duper loose in that game, and there is a lot of money to be made if I could ever get a hand to play. I played for about 5 hours and had KK twice, AK once, AQ once, 99 once.
So, after my stupid set back from playing live these are my new results:
Online: +$12,558
Live: -$3,010
Total: +$9,548
Amount needed to reach goal: $10,452
I definitely have my work cut out for me now if I am going to reach my goal....gonna be putting in some serious hands tomorrow hopefully.
- I folded 99 preflop to a tight short stack that raised it to $100 and I was out of position to the rest of the table (I would have flopped a set).
- The first time I had KK I limped under the gun and it was one of about 10 pots the whole night that didn't get raised preflop. Qd Jd 5h flop, I checked and there was a bet and a raise by two tight players before it got to me so I just folded....one guy flopped Queens and Jacks.
- The second time I had KK I had to chop when it folded to me in the small blind and the big blind was the biggest maniac you have ever seen.
- When I had AK it was a straddled pot and I was in the big blind, about 5 limpers and I raised it to $320, the maniac that straddled just so happened to have AA that hand. He raised to $700 and I called and check folded on the ten high flop. I am not sure how to play this hand...I suppose it could be a fold preflop, because I know he isn't messing around since he knows how tight I am and I probably won't get much action if I flop a pair anyway (unless he has me beat with a hand like AA, which he had).
- When I had AQ there was a few limpers and I raised it to $120 and 4 people called. The flop was AQJ. We got it all-in on the turn and he flopped a straight with KTos. I could have possible gotten away from this hand if I was deeper, but I only had $1600 in front of me to start the hand.
So, after my stupid set back from playing live these are my new results:
Online: +$12,558
Live: -$3,010
Total: +$9,548
Amount needed to reach goal: $10,452
I definitely have my work cut out for me now if I am going to reach my goal....gonna be putting in some serious hands tomorrow hopefully.
The shots are getting more comfortable to me....
I decided that I figured out the secret to feeling comfortable playing higher limits....play even higher! Seriously, then the limits you were wanting to be comfortable at don't seem so big and scary. I took some real shots today and it went ok I suppose. I noticed there was a full ring 25/50 NL game running on Stars today and I thought about maybe buying in short and seeing if I could double up or something. Then I decided that if I wasn't going to play it just like I had been playing the rest of my games I shouldn't be playing it. Therefore, I bought it for the full $5,000 and told myself if I noticed that I was playing scared at all I would make myself quit the game. There is no sense in taking shots if you are totally going to change up your style that has worked to get you to where you are now. I played fine, but didn't get in any good situations and I ended up losing $1600 or so....the good news is that it made me totally comfortable playing in the 5/10 games I was playing in. I also had two 10/20 games that I felt really good in as well. The 25/50 game got short handed and I quit, but I was running very hot and playing well on the rest of my tables. Then all of the sudden I got in a bunch of bad spots all at once and I could feel myself start to tilt a bit so I decided to stop playing. I was up as much as $4200 and I ended up winning $1427 in only about 2.5 hours. The $4200 would have put me on a really good pace to get to my goal, but $1400 helps out too.
I am gonna head to the Bellagio and put in a few hours there since I was feeling tilty online.
New Totals:
Online: +$12,558
Live: -$10
Total: +$12,548
Amount needed to reach goal: $7,452
I am gonna head to the Bellagio and put in a few hours there since I was feeling tilty online.
New Totals:
Online: +$12,558
Live: -$10
Total: +$12,548
Amount needed to reach goal: $7,452
Friday, October 3, 2008
Quick recap...
I played online for the last two days for a total of about 9 hours and I won $2,392. I played live last night for a couple of hours with Clint and Charlie and lost $351....even though I lost playing live I did pwn a guys face by smooth calling with KK preflop and folding on the flop when he check raised me on a QT6 board. He showed a set of queens and I lost the minimum for sure....sometimes I play too good for them :)
Thanks to my dad for pointing out that not only am I a luckbox in poker, but I am also a math retard (see comment for me previous blog).
My new correct progress report loks like this:
Online: +$11,131
Live: -$575
Total: +$10,556
Amount needed to reach goal: $9,444
I only have about a week left to get to my $20K, and it is going to be very tough...I am going to give it my best shot.
I am going to meet Clint, Charlie, and their ladies for dinner at the Bellagio somewhere and then go with them to their national softball tournament game.
**EDIT**
I played the 10/20 NL at the Bellagio for 4 or 5 hours tonight and won $565. I didn't realize I was down $575 playing live up until this point or I would have tried to squeak out another $10 somewhere. Anyway, this is an updated progress report:
Online: +$11,131
Live: -$10
Total: +$11,121
Amount needed to reach goal: $8,879
I have 5 days of playing left and it seems like my goal is within reach, but it is still going to be very tough. I have managed to make it this far without any serious losing days and if I can avoid them the rest of the way I think I have a good shot.
I think most of my readers probably already know, but just in case they don't Jeff Overton is leading the PGA tournament this week after 2 rounds of play. I'll be keeping an eye on him tomorrow while I plug away at my goal.
Thanks to my dad for pointing out that not only am I a luckbox in poker, but I am also a math retard (see comment for me previous blog).
My new correct progress report loks like this:
Online: +$11,131
Live: -$575
Total: +$10,556
Amount needed to reach goal: $9,444
I only have about a week left to get to my $20K, and it is going to be very tough...I am going to give it my best shot.
I am going to meet Clint, Charlie, and their ladies for dinner at the Bellagio somewhere and then go with them to their national softball tournament game.
**EDIT**
I played the 10/20 NL at the Bellagio for 4 or 5 hours tonight and won $565. I didn't realize I was down $575 playing live up until this point or I would have tried to squeak out another $10 somewhere. Anyway, this is an updated progress report:
Online: +$11,131
Live: -$10
Total: +$11,121
Amount needed to reach goal: $8,879
I have 5 days of playing left and it seems like my goal is within reach, but it is still going to be very tough. I have managed to make it this far without any serious losing days and if I can avoid them the rest of the way I think I have a good shot.
I think most of my readers probably already know, but just in case they don't Jeff Overton is leading the PGA tournament this week after 2 rounds of play. I'll be keeping an eye on him tomorrow while I plug away at my goal.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Well, maybe there is hope.
The administrator at the hold'em manager forums says that they are having issues with the calculations of the all-in equity stat. I am not so sure I believe him, but it does get a little confusing sometimes so we'll have to wait and see.
I played last night and not very well....probably because I have finally realized I am just a huge luckbox.
New update on my challenge:
Online: +$8739
Live: -$224
Total: +$8515
Amount needed to reach goal: $10585
I played last night and not very well....probably because I have finally realized I am just a huge luckbox.
New update on my challenge:
Online: +$8739
Live: -$224
Total: +$8515
Amount needed to reach goal: $10585
Well, I got the worst news I have gotten in a long time today....
Warning: This will most likely turn into a long boring blog unless you either find humor in my misery or you are into poker stats.
I recently purchased and downloaded the newest poker database software, Hold'em Manager. They have a very cool new feature in this software that calculates your all-in equity. For those of you that don't know what all-in equity is (Don't worry mom and dad, I am sure there are several of my poker friends that need this explanation too) or how to figure it out I will do my best to explain what it means.
Your equity in a hand is equal to the amount of the pot that you are supposed to win considering the chance of your hand winning the pot. For example if you and your opponent both put $1,000 into an otherwise empty pot it would contain $2,000 to go to the winning hand. If you were holding pocket Aces and they were holding pocket Kings you would have about an 80% chance of winning the pot and your opponent would have a 20% chance. Therefore, your equity in the hand is $1600 and that is how much you you would get back if you got what you deserved. However, it doesn't work like that in poker you either get the entire pot or none of the pot. So, if your pocket Aces held up and you won the entire $2,000 your winnings would be $1,000 for the hand, but you would have profited $400 more than you deserved to. Basically your all-in equity stat disregards the actual results of the hand and keeps track of how much you should win by calculating your equity in all the hands were you got all your money in with more cards to come.
So, analyzing your all-in equity stat is one way you can somewhat measure how lucky you have been in the past. You compare the actual amount of money that you have won to the amount that your all-in equity says you have won. If you have won more actual money than it says you should have one then you are getting lucky more than your fair share of the time. For example: Maybe your pocket aces have held up when you were up against pocket kings 90% of the time instead of the 80% they are supposed to during the last year of your poker playing. This would result in you winning more money than you deserved to and your actual winnings would be higher than your all-in equity says you should be.
So onto the bad news....I had to let Hold'em Manager run all night long so that it could import the almost 350,000 hands I have saved on my computer. This all-in equity stat was the main reason that I switched to this software. I swear I had dreams about what my graph was going to look like when I finally got to see it. So, when I got up this morning it was done importing and I fired up my graph and MUCH to my dismay my database showed me that I had actually won around $77,000 and my all-in equity said that I should have won around $55,000. You may be thinking to yourself....Congratulations, you were lucky to have won more than your share! While it is true that I did get lucky over the last year of playing online that is devastating to my confidence. I was already a little bummed out over my win rate being as low as it was, but now come to find out I have just been getting lucky all along just to keep my win rate where it was! I mean what if I would have gotten as unlucky as I got lucky? I would have actually won about $33,000 over the last year. That is some scary stuff. People always discuss how many hands it takes to get a true win rate. Well, I am here to tell you that the number is somewhere way above 350,000. I am always the first person to discount anything someone says when they are complaining about running bad, because everyone has been through tough stretches of poker. This new discovery has me reeling though....maybe I haven't really ever run bad compared to other poker players?
I feel like I could never do a good enough job of explaining how discouraging finding something like this out is. I feel like I have been duped into thinking I am a great poker player (I don't even think I am great) by just having a lucky run of cards over the last 350,000 hands when in actuality my stats show that I should be considerably less successful than I have been. I have put in a lot of work on my poker game in invested a lot of time and feel like I deserve all of the results I have gotten, but apprently that just isn't the case.
I think this would be the equivilant of someone training for a marathon for one years time with a specific time based goal in mind. This time goal of theirs would be one that would be very well respected by their running peers and impressive if accomplished. Imagine that they trained on the same marathon course by theirself for the entire year and they had mile markers set up along they way so they could keep track of their time splits and their progress throughout the year. Finally, near the end of their year of training they were getting very close to reaching the time goal and they were ready to run in the big race the following weekend. Then just to be sure that everything was on the up and up and to be safe they measured the course and mile markers they had been training on all year and as they measured them they realized that every mile marker was only .9 miles away from the next one and their entire course was only 23.5 miles instead of the normal 26.2 miles!
How do you think their ability to perform in the marathon would be affected? I don't think they would even be able to run the first 23.5 miles as well as they had been running it during training. They would have no confidence in theirself and they would be worried about being outed by their peers as being a fraud.
This is getting retardedly long so I am going to stop writing and maybe write more about this tomorrow or another time. It is safe to say that my confidence is slightly rattled and I am not too happy that my results didn't deserve to be as good as they ended up being (and to think that I was disappointed with my FALSE win rate!).
Sigh...bed time
I recently purchased and downloaded the newest poker database software, Hold'em Manager. They have a very cool new feature in this software that calculates your all-in equity. For those of you that don't know what all-in equity is (Don't worry mom and dad, I am sure there are several of my poker friends that need this explanation too) or how to figure it out I will do my best to explain what it means.
Your equity in a hand is equal to the amount of the pot that you are supposed to win considering the chance of your hand winning the pot. For example if you and your opponent both put $1,000 into an otherwise empty pot it would contain $2,000 to go to the winning hand. If you were holding pocket Aces and they were holding pocket Kings you would have about an 80% chance of winning the pot and your opponent would have a 20% chance. Therefore, your equity in the hand is $1600 and that is how much you you would get back if you got what you deserved. However, it doesn't work like that in poker you either get the entire pot or none of the pot. So, if your pocket Aces held up and you won the entire $2,000 your winnings would be $1,000 for the hand, but you would have profited $400 more than you deserved to. Basically your all-in equity stat disregards the actual results of the hand and keeps track of how much you should win by calculating your equity in all the hands were you got all your money in with more cards to come.
So, analyzing your all-in equity stat is one way you can somewhat measure how lucky you have been in the past. You compare the actual amount of money that you have won to the amount that your all-in equity says you have won. If you have won more actual money than it says you should have one then you are getting lucky more than your fair share of the time. For example: Maybe your pocket aces have held up when you were up against pocket kings 90% of the time instead of the 80% they are supposed to during the last year of your poker playing. This would result in you winning more money than you deserved to and your actual winnings would be higher than your all-in equity says you should be.
So onto the bad news....I had to let Hold'em Manager run all night long so that it could import the almost 350,000 hands I have saved on my computer. This all-in equity stat was the main reason that I switched to this software. I swear I had dreams about what my graph was going to look like when I finally got to see it. So, when I got up this morning it was done importing and I fired up my graph and MUCH to my dismay my database showed me that I had actually won around $77,000 and my all-in equity said that I should have won around $55,000. You may be thinking to yourself....Congratulations, you were lucky to have won more than your share! While it is true that I did get lucky over the last year of playing online that is devastating to my confidence. I was already a little bummed out over my win rate being as low as it was, but now come to find out I have just been getting lucky all along just to keep my win rate where it was! I mean what if I would have gotten as unlucky as I got lucky? I would have actually won about $33,000 over the last year. That is some scary stuff. People always discuss how many hands it takes to get a true win rate. Well, I am here to tell you that the number is somewhere way above 350,000. I am always the first person to discount anything someone says when they are complaining about running bad, because everyone has been through tough stretches of poker. This new discovery has me reeling though....maybe I haven't really ever run bad compared to other poker players?
I feel like I could never do a good enough job of explaining how discouraging finding something like this out is. I feel like I have been duped into thinking I am a great poker player (I don't even think I am great) by just having a lucky run of cards over the last 350,000 hands when in actuality my stats show that I should be considerably less successful than I have been. I have put in a lot of work on my poker game in invested a lot of time and feel like I deserve all of the results I have gotten, but apprently that just isn't the case.
I think this would be the equivilant of someone training for a marathon for one years time with a specific time based goal in mind. This time goal of theirs would be one that would be very well respected by their running peers and impressive if accomplished. Imagine that they trained on the same marathon course by theirself for the entire year and they had mile markers set up along they way so they could keep track of their time splits and their progress throughout the year. Finally, near the end of their year of training they were getting very close to reaching the time goal and they were ready to run in the big race the following weekend. Then just to be sure that everything was on the up and up and to be safe they measured the course and mile markers they had been training on all year and as they measured them they realized that every mile marker was only .9 miles away from the next one and their entire course was only 23.5 miles instead of the normal 26.2 miles!
How do you think their ability to perform in the marathon would be affected? I don't think they would even be able to run the first 23.5 miles as well as they had been running it during training. They would have no confidence in theirself and they would be worried about being outed by their peers as being a fraud.
This is getting retardedly long so I am going to stop writing and maybe write more about this tomorrow or another time. It is safe to say that my confidence is slightly rattled and I am not too happy that my results didn't deserve to be as good as they ended up being (and to think that I was disappointed with my FALSE win rate!).
Sigh...bed time
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)