The Poker Player’s Manifesto - Self Help Part II

We all know that a ton goes into being a good poker player. We’re on Part 21 of this series and I feel like we’re just getting warmed up. Currently we’re discussing how I got good at poker and specifically what were the big lessons learned along the way. Reflecting on how I learned them is simply a tool to identify the important lesson, how you learn these lessons is unimportant. To be a good poker player though, it is absolutely essential to consider things objectively and to have a plan. Am I losing because of that bad beat, or am I losing because of my poor hand selection? Did I get stacked with aces because I was unlucky, or because I had no plan to ever fold them?

Objective analysis and having a plan are the two most important fundamentals to learn. Like muscles, the more you work at it, the easier it becomes. Eventually you won’t be fazed by bad beats, and you’ll know that you’re just getting lucky on winning streaks. We need to perceive this game like machines, turning everything into a math problem. Got a tell on that guy? Good, that’s a math problem too. Conditional probability yo, Part 17.

Along with being objectively self aware and being able to make a plan, some other character traits go a long way toward making a winning poker player. Patience is the first one that comes to my mind, because in most situations folding is the right play. If you can’t fold every hand for an hour straight, then you can’t win at poker. I’ve gone hours without winning a single chip countless times, and many of those streaks were simply because I was card dead. Patience gets tested when a player is stuck and losing, especially as the night wanes. A winning poker player will exhibit patience in all circumstances. When he cannot, he will stand up, go home, and patiently await his next session. There will always be a poker game tomorrow.

Attention span is another overlooked trait extremely valuable to poker players. Hand histories and information from opponents equals money, but my gosh live poker is soooo boring and these daily fantasy sports line-ups mean money too. I understand. That game on the television shouldn’t mean money though, nor should your Tinder account. Besides, if you are playing poker and using Tinder at the same time, you should be paying attention to the poker and swiping right to everybody on Tinder.

All this stuff got me through the first several years of poker. I started playing online in 1999, then started keeping records in 2000. Stats don’t lie, right? Obviously I didn’t know that poker stats do lie, but fortunately I was a winner every year. In 2003, I got a job as a prop player in Cripple Creek, Colorado. Ten hours a day, four days a week I was paid ten bucks an hour to play poker. If there was no game, my colleagues and I would play gin until a pair of players walked in. Them plus the pair of us makes a poker game, and then with the cards in the air, people sat down that walked in. Eventually the game would fill, we would offer our seats to customers, and play more gin. Then, as the game broke down, we would prop it back up, filling in the empty seats. Great job for an aspiring poker player, but I wonder if props exist anymore. I would ride the bus to work, an hour each way, and that spring I read every poker book at the public library. Then I used some winnings to get my guitar out of pawn and buy more poker books. I was winning, but I was still not good at poker.

In 2005, I moved to Minnesota and met a bunch of guys who were actually good at poker. I became fast friends with guys like Jay Melancon, Brian Clark, Mike Schneider, Dave Schnettler, and Mickey Pickett to name a few. Those guys are really good at poker. I thought I was good at skiing until I moved to Colorado, and I thought I was good at poker until I moved to Minnesota. I was wrong on both accounts. I was playing checkers while these guys were playing chess. We would talk all the time about poker. It was something new and unsolved and exciting back then, and we were playing with puzzles rather than bitching about bad beats. They pointed me in the direction of TwoPlusTwo, the guys who published most of those books I read in the past few years. At their website is a forum full of like-minded poker players. There were other clusters of poker players where guys got each other better at poker in a hurry outside of Minnesota, in places like Waterloo and Panorama Tower in Las Vegas. After years of living in Colorado and interacting with good poker players, now I am good at skiing and poker.

That period (The Poker Boom) was marked with immense growth in communal knowledge and understanding of the game, and where many good players gathered, those players got better. Then all those communities of good poker players got together on the forums, and by the time Black Friday rolled around, we had all gotten really good at poker. Many people blame an overeducation of the poker world as to why poker is such a tough game now, but people still play poker badly. Poker feels tough now because there is no more online poker. Online poker was a gateway to live poker because anybody could get some experience playing $.01/$.02.

So, you want to get good at poker? Making it through two parts of self help is a good place to start. Then you need to look at things objectively and approach problems with a plan. Throw in some patience and attention span, and you’ve got the ingredients to be a good poker player. The key ingredient though is poker players better than you, because seeing what better looks like is the best way to advance from your already advanced state. ♠

Bryan Devonshire has been a professional poker player for nearly a decade and has more than $2 million in tournament earnings. Follow him on Twitter @devopoker.