BotG Ivey (aka Evan Hellmuth Jr.)

When I first started playing Texas hold ‘em I used to hold Poker Pro’s in the highest regard. I believed that Poker Pro’s could know what everyone’s cards were at the table, based on “reads.” I also thought that based on those “reads” they would be able to inevitably beat everyone who was not a pro. I watched the movie Rounder’s and believed the scene that showed Mike McDermott read the entire professor’s hands blind. So, after watching this year’s World Series of Poker, I realized something, I was wrong about all my beliefs about Poker. The clowns at the final table (minus Phil Ivey) had no idea what the other person had and just basically bet (sometimes) when they have a good hand. If you break down the play at this year’s final table, you see many times when players did the right thing, statically, and lost. Players were going “all in” on great hands versus bad hands and losing, like having hands such as Pocket Queens versus Pocket Threes. The guy, who won, Joe Cada, did so many “wrong” plays and still won. On the other hand, Phil Ivey always did the statically best move and went out in 6th. As a guy who’s played a lot of poker it’s frustrating to think that you no matter how much you play, you can’t really get much better past a certain point. This years World Series made me realize something true about the book Outliers. If you haven’t read it, the book is basically about, with anything, you need to be somewhat gifted, have lots of practice, but what separates the “best” in any field is chance, not being the most gifted. You just have to be good enough and fall into the right circumstance. So, at this point I realize I should either: a) Not play poker anymore, due to the fact that at my skill level it’s basically luck versus other guy’s who play as much as me. b) Play poker all the time, because no one is that much better than me. What to do, what to do…