Never Underestimate Your Ability to Overestimate Your Poker Ability

I’m not an absolute expert in human psychology, but I’m pretty observant of people. I have some formal training due to past employment in the legal field where I was certified in neurolinguistic programming and interview techniques.  I have had occasion to interview many people under various circumstances and judge their reactions. One thing I have learned is that we humans have a tendency to overestimate our ability.

We all have ego, admittedly some more than others. The type of person who sticks with poker for any amount of time probably has an abundance of ego. It’s the way we’re wired. Poker feeds our competitive spirit and our ego. This ego can easily lead to an erroneous belief that we’re better at the game than we really are.

Once we learn the basics, off we rush to conquer the poker world.  Some of us work a little to develop a few tricks but then we once again figure we’ve got it figured out. I would guess that even the pros (perhaps especially the pros) have to make sure they put their ego in check and that they don’t fall into the trap of overestimating their abilities. I have found this to be the single factor that was holding me back from making progress at several stages of my development as an aspiring poker player.

I have accepted the fact that I’ll never know everything there is to know about poker, but I want to know it all. So, I have dedicated myself to a course of constantly learning new strategies and gaining an increasing knowledge of the more technical concepts of poker. I am doing this by reading constantly, participating in poker discussion forums and even in friendly chatter with other players away from the table. I play poker virtually every day and try to learn something from each game I play.

I will not overestimate my poker ability.  Go ahead… write it down 100 times so you’ll never forget it.

When you think about it, that’s quite an empowering concept.

Good luck at the tables.

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I played poker late into yesterday evening and into this morning.  I took first place in everything I played. Seriously, first place in every game. I finally grew too tired to play. Why, oh why can’t it always be this way? More often it seems I’m a huge favorite when the underdog sucks out (usually on the river just for a little added pain). If the cards always ran this way I could quit my job and never look back. Unfortunately, I’m still struggling to learn to deal with the variance in poker earnings. My earlier posts contain some fairly good advice on this subject and I haven’t forgotten that advice. In fact, I live by it. For now, I’m building my bankroll – a process that takes longer than I would have imagined when you’re grinding it out in lower stakes rooms. Still, I can’t imagine a better way to learn your craft. I study while I play and constantly try to apply new concepts and tactics to my poker repertoire.

I hope everybody is doing well, that your luck is holding up and that you’re constantly improving your game.

>> Play Online Poker FREE with Play Money
>>>> Play Online to Win with Real Money
>>>>>> Download Full Tilt Software
>>>>>>>> * Double Your Initial Deposit!

* Double your money requires an initial deposit. Full Tilt Poker will give you an initial deposit bonus up to $600. When prompted, enter code “DOUBLEDEPOSIT”

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