The Poker Equation

As you may have noticed, I've added links to a few other well-known poker weblogs in the sidebar... and as I find more that are worth reading I'll be adding to the list. One of those weblogs, titled The Cards Speak, is not only well worth checking a few times a week (the quotes at the start of each entry are just plain awesome), but recently featured a great post titled "The Play's The Thing" which you should read.

It's a "big picture" post, in which the author questions the nature of bad beats and streaks, and ends up describing what's going on when you play poker day after day, and more importantly presents a case for how you should think about playing poker day after day. The author references a post made to rec.gambling.poker titled Sgt Rock's Poker Philosophy Part 1, which makes the following statements:

Result = Performance ± Luck

...Some of you who read this may scoff that everything said here is quite obvious... ...Even though *everyone* who is not blatantly stupid (this may even include a few of the players in your game) already knows these things, don't the vast majority of players behave in a manner quite oblivious to the logic or reason given above?

Sometimes to just a small degree, but more often to a large extent, MOST players I observe are more Results or Luck than Performance oriented.

...If you are "Performance Oriented," and focus your attention on your performance, then you've got the feline by the coccyx. Performance is the one thing that you CAN control. It's the one thing that CAN be rock steady, no flux, no variance, day after day. It's up too you. As you play on towards that dim, distant and barely visible light at the end of the tunnel (the long run) remember this: Performance can and should become Result, without regard for Luck.

...normal swings of good and bad Luck can destroy your bankroll if you react inappropriately to those fluctuations. Avoiding that- maintaining mental discipline and maybe exploiting luck but never being its victim- is part of Performance. If you perform well in this area, then the net effect of Luck IS zero. Then, the equation becomes simply:

Result = Performance

I'd like to think that as a poker player, I'm more performance oriented than I've ever been. But man, I have a lot to learn.