Does Everyone Win at Online Poker?

Asking any professional poker player about bankroll management and they usually tell you to start small and only increase your limits when this is a small proportion of your overall money. Rarely do they go into details about whether you are likely to be a winning player. It is easy to assume when listening to them discuss when to move up that every reasonable player should make a lot of money playing online poker. Can anyone and everyone win? It sometimes seems so and my personal experience of poker is that profits are a little more difficult to come by.

One reason that every player you meet seems to be a winning poker player is that every player uses their own judgement and criteria to decide why they believe they are a winning poker player. Sometimes this interpretation of their poker profits is wildly inaccurate when compared to basic profit and loss. Some players have won a few poker tournaments for decent prizes and see that as validation of their apparent skill. Others just make up their successes and lie to everyone including themselves about their poker prowess. This is not malicious; you rarely meet a player who holds their hands up and admits to being a terrible player, their egos often force them to elaborate on their poker playing skills.

Some Texas Hold ‘em poker players are considered massive winners by friends and family alike yet only had one big score, usually in a poker tournament, and slowly but surely lose all of their money because unfortunately they are just not a good poker player. This is why you see cynical attitudes towards players like Jerry Yang and Jamie Gold because their long term results have not been proven, whilst a champion like Joe Hachem’s results are proven in the poker world over many years. In the world of professional Poker you are lucky until proven skilled; much like a criminal should be innocent until proven guilty.

Only Phil Ivey has won more poker tournament prize money than Jamie Gold, but you would not find Jamie high on the list of player’s top ten, twenty or even fifty of the world’s best poker tournament poker players. Jamie is rightly highly respected for his charity work and how he uses his poker celebrity to benefit others but falls some way short when his poker playing ability is compared to Phil Ivey. Jamie should not feel bad; nearly everyone in the poker world also falls short when compared to Phil.

Whilst you will always have your own opinions of your true ability or potential ability your actual results are the only gauge for your actual ability. Of course your game can be developed to have better future results but only by knowing your current ability level can you assess what work needs to be done and where. In order to chart your progress as a poker player you must keep your own accurate records.

Your friends may latch onto one win you have had and make you think you are the world’s best player by praising you and saying things to you that you really want to believe. It is important to check the numbers. Just as many people have been called bad poker players when on a bad run when they have been seriously profitable poker players for many years than bad players have been considered good players because of one good result. Your own numbers will always be an honest poker friend for you. Tracking results any other way is open to emotion, assumption and inaccuracy.

By Malcolm Clarke

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