How I Must Look to Phil Ivey

I played a home NLHE game last night for the first time in 4 months. During this time, I've been playing strictly online in NLHE SNGs.

I introduced NLHE to this group of guys 2-3 years ago, and we've been playing it exclusively ever since. We used to play 1-2 times a month until family responsiblities made this impossible.

I used to be the strongest player of the group, and was interested in seeing how much this gap had widened after playing online and spending time reading the two plus two forum.

I'm simply amazed at how much my understanding of the game has grown in these past few months. The guys I play against in my home game didn't even have a chance. I utterly destroyed them. It was so effortless that I almost felt bad about taking their money.

Rather than making me feel like a world beater, this experience clarified further just how much I don't understand about NLHE. If I can beat these guys so easily, how must I look to a world class player or even a professional grinder?

I don't know that this post has a point. I just thought it was an experience I should share. It was such a light bulb moment for me to experience the chasm that exists between serious players and guys who just like to watch WSOP and play some hands every now and then.

I'd always known this, of course, but to actually see it in action - to see the mistakes happening each and every hand and know exactly how to take advantage of them, well that's something altogether different than just understanding that poker pros "know stuff."

Has anyone else had that moment you realize suddenly that you've made a huge leap forward in your game? What was it and how did it make you feel?

I used to crush this tiny buy-in home before I ever played Holdem online.

Can't imagine what would happen now. Would probably get accused of cheating or something.

[HopeydaFish]

I had much the same experience at a home game about a year ago. I hadn't played against my friends for awhile, and hand't played them since I started playing online. I don't talk to them about how much I play online, or how much I win. Anyway, I crushed them, but they attributed my success to "being lucky".

We started having regular games after that, and I always walked out with most of the money at the end of the evening. They started giving me a little bit of credit for being good, but I don't think that still fully understand how *much* better I am than they are, and how they basically have no chance.

One guy even noticed that I had SSHE sitting open in the washroom, and made a derogatory remark about it when he got back to the table.

I feel a little bad about taking my friends' money (we play for small stakes, though, I never walk out with more than a couple hundred bucks)...so I usually supply the beer and snacks. Every so often someone will insist that they contribute for the food and beer, because it's "not fair" that I should have to pay for it all. They don't realize that I'm paying for the beer and snacks with *their* money, and it doesn't cost me a dime to do so. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I'm still very much a beginner and play at only the lowest stakes but I've had a few such moments of realization.

I've learned to play poker by reading, and reading, and reading as many poker books as I can get. I mean I've read 'em all. The first couple of times I played for money I played at a 1/2 table in a local card room in California. Needless to say, 1/2 players in CA card rooms don't play by the book and being a super tight player in a super loose game just erroded my stack and always led me to get furious over the crazy 'bad beats'. I then played a lot of online poker and live poker elswhere ( 2/4 and 3/6 in AZ) where play is much different. When I returned to the first game i played, I noticed my play was completely different. I finally learned to make all the adjustments I read about and surprise/surprise they worked! Moreover, I saw other players in the game playing the way I used to and having the same lack of success. I realized then I had definitely improved because I not only considered the cards and board, but game conditions, opponents etc. Its funny, you can hear people say "Poker is a game of people played with cards" a million times but when you finally figure it out its a near spiritual moment.

Ahhh, the state of realization, teh epiphany that clicks... what bliss!!

The moment I had this I lost over £30, which is about £60 to some guy who played 104o and caught an inconspicious boat on the river. I was playing A10s in late position and so the trips had me a little confident... the realization came when he lost his entire stack with the 104o to me later, having flopped a pair of 4's, and complained 'cos I was lucky with a good kicker... by the way I had a set... of Aces. I knew right then that these players will lose large ammounts of money in the long run, whearas I'm making a profite in the long run. It's just a good feeling when you start to win pi$$ lucky punters

[Larimani]

The people I play with regularly announce "position raise" when they raise the whole table from the Big Blind... I still managed to lose £60 to them last night... [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[BluffTHIS!]

I think humility is always in order. If we win a game we usually say 'man I played good' and if we lose it we say 'man I have rotten luck'...but we all know this is poker we're talking about. You can win and play bad and you can lose and play well.

I think any opponent should be respected in the sense that you can't just assume you will win because you are a better player, you always have to strive to make the better plays. Hubris and overconfidence can lead players into making poor decisions I think.

[boogiemang]

theres a finite limit to how good you can be at poker without getting outside information like books and using the forum. i know how you felt...its a good feeling

I always feel good when I re-read something in an old poker book, or come across some post or something on the internet about a facet of poker, and when I read this, I remember when I learned it, and realize that I hadn't even thought about it in weeks or months or whatever. I then realize that I am much more knowledgeable than I was not so long ago. And this makes me happy [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]