[shant]

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You need to clear your head of results oriented thinking.

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Several folks have said this, and I'm not sure I really understand what it means. I mean, we're playing poker for results, right? The result being, hopefully, to make money (and have fun, win etc...). Isn't all poker results oriented? Or am I looking at something wrong?

thanks

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Poker is a long run game. If you continue to play, you will play KK thousands of times. Some people who play lots of hands will someday play it millions of times. What happened with KK the last 10 times you played it is meaningless. If you are remembering that you lost the last 3 pots with KK and are changing your play because of it, you are being results oriented.

Another part of being results oriented is using the outcome of a hand to reason that you played the hand correctly. Like if I raise preflop with AA and checked it down and lost to 73o that made a straight. I can reason that I played the hand correctly because my opponent would've got there anyway and made a better hand. That is obviously incorrect and I'm just using the results of the hand to justify my bad play. That's being results oriented.

The reason you are playing poker is to play as best you can in all conditions. Variance is a bitch, but you need to adapt to it or you won't be successful in poker.