Nothing to improve on

[Cosimo]

from blogspot (http://sirfwalgman.blogspot.com/2004/09/slow-weekend.html): "Poker is funny. At every stage your at you think you know everything and have nothing to improve on and then a light goes off and illuminates some part of your game that was REALLY bad."

One of the things I realized recently is that I will never know everything about poker--that there will always be more for me to know. Not "probably" but definitely. Whether it's NL, games other than HE, SH or HU play, tournaments, loose players, tight players, or variables that I don't even know about, there's a big world out there and knowing I don't even know what's out there is the first step out of ignorance (http://www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp7761121.html).

I think the quote above is one of the main reason why players go broke. They play for a bit, hit a hot streak, then think they have this simple game mastered. They jump up in limits where they are so out of their depth that they don't even know it. At every new stage, you won't even know what you'll have to learn to move up again. At each new stage, your first task will be to figure out exactly what it is that you don't know.

I think I used to think like this blogger, if only to a lesser degree. My previous jumps up out of 25c-50c to the stratospheric heights of 2-4 are examples of this. There's something new to learn at every limit. I might play well enough to still win at a higher limit, but I'm sure that if so it would be at a very slow rate (< 1 BB / 100h). I was hoping to move to 1-2 in a couple weeks, but now I'm not so sure.

For those that have moved up several times, what have been the major new things that you've learned?

[dogmeat]

This does not fit for many players - but for me, the old saying that says it all is: Slow and Steady Wins the Race.

I may not be that good, but I am certainly steady. I am in no hurry to prove to anybody that I can play the highest limits, I just want to provide a nice income for my family. This produces almost no stress.

Dogmeat /images/graemlins/spade.gif

[csuf_gambler]

i totally understand what this guy is saying. there has been like 5 stages in my poker game. and at every stage, i look back and im like damn i didnt know sh1t back then. but since i play strictly limit holdem, i believe i have learned everything and seen it all. i believe i have peaked as a limit holdem player.

[Inthacup]

You may have peaked as a limit player, but there's no way in hell you've learned everything.

[astroglide]

since your "advice" is consistently a joke, i'll have to disagree with you on that

[csuf_gambler]

exactly. i play strictly limit full ring games and nothing else. i dont play tournments, no limit, shorthanded, strictly low limit full ring games.

[SirFWALGMan]

Thanks for commenting on my post. I will take it as a complement that you read it. The point I was making is you "think" you know alot. Maybe not everything, but alot. Obviously you know your game needs improvement, you just have not figured out how it is going to go up a notch. You do not know what the next step in your growth will be. You cannot possibly know what you do not know.

Suddenly some piece of your game clicks and you make a leap. Something illuminates. Some hidden part of your game opens. I was not at all trying to say I actually know everything, and there is nothing for me to learn. It's all very metaphorical.

I continue grinding it out at 3/6 now, and hitting these leaps of learning in my game. I really cannot imagine how my game will look a year from now. Good luck to you, and keep reading the Blog.

[J.R.]

strictly low limit full ring games.