A Great Experiment

Dave H. · #1 03-13-2005, 09:37 PM

I picked up a book mentioned often entitled Zen and the Art of Poker. I read it in one sitting and thought it was very inspirational. I really enjoyed the section on Humility. Actually, I saw that word in many parts of the book.

I'm still playing microlimits but, having moved up 4 levels from my starting point, I decided that I would, after a nice winning session at my current level, return to my beginning limits and play several hundred hands.

So yesterday I did just that. I had positive variance working for me and was hitting everything at my current limit and so, when I was done, and after a nice rest, I revisited my inital limits tables.

Unbelievable! I seemed to get great starting hands over and over. Even when I wasn't pairing, I often had 4 flushes and OESDs on the flop. AND I COULDN'T WIN BEANS! It's not like I forgot how to play at that level...it's only been about 3 months since then after all. And I can't complain about bad beats or too many people staying, etc. because that's not what happened. After those 200 or so hands, I was down 30 big bets, but what a great lesson I learned. When the cards go dead, I'm sure that those with great skill would have done better than I, but I have to believe that they, too, would have lost. I know 200 hands is an extremely small sample but if that had been at my current limits, most of my "great win day profits" would have been wiped out.

It was eerie...almost as if the author of the book was saying: SEE, now you can understand!

FrankieFish · #2 03-13-2005, 09:40 PM

Whatever floats your boat!

Dave H. · #3 03-13-2005, 09:45 PM

Hmmm...I used to know what a boat was...

TStoneMBD · #4 03-13-2005, 10:12 PM

what the hell are you talking about?

FishBurger · #5 03-13-2005, 10:32 PM

It's a humbling thing being humble.

Dave H. · #6 03-14-2005, 12:28 AM

Well, I lost my humility tonight. I tried the same thing and this time I was UP 50 big bets after 200 hands. Go figure!

It's still a wonderful book...Zen and the Art of Poker

Dave H. · #7 03-14-2005, 12:41 AM

Sorry...One of the items discussed at length in the book is humility. The premise is that, when we win, we tend to forget all about "being humble" and oftentimes we loosen up too much when that negative variance is right around the corner just waiting to eat us alive.

My experiment was, after a very healthy win streak, to move down and make hay in the "lower levels". Well, because the cards just wouldn't come, I was unable to make any headway at all and actually lost a lot in terms of big bets at that lower level. It gave me a great lesson in humility and just reinforced what the author was saying in his book.