I just did something really dumb

[Al Schoonmaker]

Warren,

I definitely did not mean that YOU make those basic mistakes, but most of the mistakes we make are NOT caused by lack of knowledge. We know better, but don't play as well as we know how to play.

The reasons for bad play vary from person to person. My weakness is poor concentration. If I am card dead (or have just played too long), my mind wanders, causing me to make some very silly mistakes.

Your desire to test yourself against tough competition is very negative EV, at least for the short term. You don't seem to have a more common problem: overestimating your own skills. You very directly admitted that these opponents were smarter than you are.

Yet you played, and I believe you did so because the kick of competing against tougher players outweighed -- at least temporarily -- your desire to make money.

However, if you never test yourself, you never learn how good you are, nor can you develop your game. I therefore would not worry too much about it. If you occasionally take a significant loss, but learn from it, the harm is within tolerable limits.

However, if you can't handle that loss and feel obliged to continue to play after losing too much, then you really have a problem.

You might regard the money you lose playing in tough games as "tuition" or "R&D." It's an investment that may well pay off in the future.

I know from our conversations and correspondence that you take extremely detailed records. You might want to add something to those records. For each session you might want to evaluate the relative skills of the opponents and yourself. Then compute your win-rate for various combinations to learn exactly how well you do against various levels of competition.

Regards,

Al