Last night I was playing in a tournament - I refuse to share the details because they were too embarassing. The upshot is that I got knocked out early by a complete rook because I was overconfident. I believe that my superior knowledge would carry me through the game - and that overconfidence led to cockiness that resulted in me making a truly awful play. I thought I could intimidate him, but he was literally too poor a player to be intimidated.

I believe that this is part of what makes poker such a glorious game. No matter how good you are, you must always retain a certain degree of humility - you must always keep in the back of your mind that on any given day, anyone can beat you - that you can play a hand perfectly and still get your ass kicked.

For me, this was probably the 3rd such hand. The first occurred on my 2nd trip to a live game at Commerce Casino in LA. I had been playing for about 3 hours, barely treading water - really having no idea what I was doing - but I was managing to do ok.

Many of the details of the hand are lost to me now - I know I started with AKs and raised pre-flop - several people called. On the flop, I hit an ace and 2 spades - so I bet - got raised and I re-raised. I then hit my nut flush on the turn -I bet - most people folded, but one call - I was ecstatic - in my mind, I was already raking in the chips. Then came the river and I bet - and was raised - then I re-raised - and he re-raised - and since we were heads-up, there was no cap, so we went all the way till all my chips were in the pot. I flipped over my nut flush, assuming I had the win.

The problem was that I hadn't noticed that the river card paired the board - and had given my opponent a full house. I looked at the hand, smiled weakly, stood up and walked out of the casino. I was so completely embarassed. I was sure that they were laughing at me - saying all the stuff that I now say whenever someone makes a truly horrid play like that - which is rare.


So what are your stories of humility? How did you learn these lessons as you were learning the game?

Does any specific game or experience or hand stand out for you as one that really changed your fundamental understanding of the game?