About Success (A Bit of Poetry - Part I)

In poker, there are lots of players who act like they are very successful and beat the games regularly, and for a goodly sum. In reality, only a select few are winners, and most of the players who seem to be beating the games only break even in the long run, or even lose. Lots of decent, though not great, players have a pattern of success that looks like this: They win three or four sessions in a row, are in total control, look confident, and are telling everybody who will listen about their expert plays and the amounts of money they have won. Then, in the fifth session, when probability catches up with them and Lady Luck favors someone else, they lose back all the money they made in the previous couple of days, while cursing their bad luck – and the good fortune of their opponents. Even though quite a few of the players described here may be viewed as winners (because they win so often, and seem so knowledgeable), the truth is that most of them need other sources of income to be able to pay the rent – or even stay in action.

For those players who have been around for a while, it should be fairly easy to spot a winning player. If you see someone who is always around, who is nice and friendly toward his fellow players and seems unaffected by wins or losses, no matter how unlucky he is, chances are that you are facing a winning player. If you see him folding hand after hand without complaining and raking in pot after pot claiming "he just got lucky," and the big pile of chips in front of him doesn't affect his personality or his modesty, the odds go up that he's a winner. And if you see him making the right decisions all the time (such as making seat changes to get better position on his opponents or moving to a potentially more profitable table, regardless of whether he is up or down at the moment), you can be sure you are facing a tough professional. People often wonder what I'm doing when, after having just raked in a huge pot, I move to another seat. They don't understand that quite frequently I quit a game with a loss – sometimes without even having won a single pot – because they would leave the table only as a winner. They don't understand that quite often I'm not even playing in the biggest game in the house – after all, I am that Card Player writer who is always telling others how to play, right? What they forget is that the winning professional player should always try to find the best* game, table, and seat regardless of results. It is this characteristic that separates the true winners from the wannabes: Winners try to make the best possible decisions regardless of results, and they don't let any upswing or downswing influence their actions. A friend of mine who, after all these years, still can't figure out why I'm so successful (because I seem to be doing nothing special, and I don't seem to know that much more than others) has a phrase he always uses in this respect: "You cannot argue with success." I love this quote, even though a better one might be, "You cannot argue with long-term success." In my experience, it is far from easy to become successful in poker, and then stay successful over an extended period of time. You will have to stay on top of your game, overcome long stretches of bad luck, beat opponents who adjust to your play and keep getting better all the time, and beat the ever-increasing rake, and when you have done all of that, you will have to win enough to not only be able to cover your expenses, but to have a decent life, as well.

* The "best" game, in my opinion, is not just the most profitable game; it is also the least dangerous game. It is this last aspect that is habitually underestimated by quite a few otherwise good players. As a result, these players experience a lot more big losses than I do, and are more prone to go on tilt, acquire some bad habits, or fall into a never-ending losing streak.

During my five years as a pro, I have seen lots of players come and go. Most of them seemed eager to make it, and without exception, they all thought they had the qualities and the abilities required for success. A few of these relatively new players even claimed to be as good as or better than some of the regular pros like me ("After all, what is it that makes you so special?"), and had firm, clear-cut views on the way poker should be played. And, of course, these players claimed to be able to make enormous amounts of money – a lot more than all of the grinders like me had made in the past. Quite often, some of my fellow players reacted to the presence of such a new guy with: "Wow, Rolf, this guy is really good. I have seen nothing like this before!" But then, when probabilities caught up with our new star, and the leaks in his game became awfully clear, he kept hanging around for just a little bit longer – and then simply disappeared. (For related stories, I would refer you to the essays "The Best Player I've Ever Seen" and "An Illusory Winner" in John Feeney's excellent book, Inside the Poker Mind.) For now, I would like to conclude with a little poem about success, written by Emily Dickinson. It may not have any educational value, but I love poetry, and this is one of my all-time favorites:

Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne'er succeed

To comprehend a nectar

Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple host

Who took the flag today

Could tell the definition

So clear of victory

As he defeated, dying,

On whose forbidden ear

The distant strains of triumph

Burst agonized and clear.