Confidence and results

I've been thinking a bit about confidence, both in terms of how it affects my game, as well as relating it to other things. My poker game is just not strong enough yet to have unwavering confidence in it, even though I believe that I usually have an advantage at the tables. I am OK at sizing up other players, and I'm improving there. I usually feel like I'm one of the two best players at the table, since I tend to leave unless I've got great position on someone...and then I usually feel like I can stay out of trouble from the guys behind me, if they are strong. I feel like I can recognize mistakes in my game and do a pretty good job analyzing others' hands...certainly I don't feel too lost in any poker conversation.

So, bottom line, in my head, I'm confident enough to succeed. But I think if I'm honest with myself that I don't believe it in my gut. I find myself questioning myself at game time too often for me to have confidence in my confidence, if that makes any sense. I cannot yet get past the hands I lose big, if it wasn't a clear cooler or clear bad beat (those bug me less and less).

I made a forum post the other day discussing what I think is a crucial step up in development, which is not worrying too much about getting outplayed. I cited Taylor's videos as an example...over and over (but not too often), he will make a play and say he's not sure it's correct. For example, someone will raise him, and he'll say something like, "I think I could have the best hand, but I'm going to give him credit this time," as he folds. To him, there's a distinct possibility that his opponent just outplayed him, but he makes the fold and goes on to the next hand. Now, I imagine Taylor is pretty secure in the knowledge that on the whole he is getting far the best of the outplaying battle, but that doesn't mean he won't get outplayed on an individual hand. That's the crucial step I was thinking about....not worrying about any particular hand someone outplays you. As long as you are realistically outplaying everyone else -- whether it be from well-timed bluffs, folds where other people call down second best, making thin value bets, or any other number of things -- who cares if they get the best of you on a single hand?

Well, if you have confidence in your game...feeling it in your gut...I don't think you do care too much. You let them have this hand, and just get on with business. I still have a hard time accepting getting outplayed, and I think it's mostly to do with the fact that I don't feel in my gut that I'm outplaying people on a regular basis. I probably am, but I'm not 100% behind that thought.

My NL career is still under 100k hands, and my win rate over that time is pretty anemic. The issue with poker is that even over 100k hands, you don't know exactly how good you are, and especially over the first huge chunk of hands, your game (and most everyone else's you play against at the micros) are changing anyway. But what sorts of objective measures do you have of how well you're doing? Even someone watching you and providing good feedback isn't objective for true confidence (although it helps) because they can only see you for such a small sample.

There are a lot of subjective measures, including the feedback you get, which are all extremely helpful, but the bottom line is that there is only one bottom line, and that is money won/lost. And that's a crappy measurement as far as feedback goes because it takes so long for win rates to normalize. By many subjective measures, my game is solid, but the two kind of objective measurements...experience and win rate are undecided.

So, when I have a week like this, where the last 5 sessions all resulted in small or moderate losses -- even though I can point to the reasons why some of it would have occurred, where I actually made good decisions, and where I successfully identified my mistakes, I still look to the small losing streak (and we're only talking about 6 BI over ~3k hands), and a part of me wonders. It wonders whether I'm looking at things as realistically as I think I am...not that I'm deceiving myself, but maybe I really don't know as much as I think...well that my gap is more than the normal gap between how much people think they know, and what they actually know.

Thinking about the tone of this post, it may seem negative, but it's really not...I'm comfortable with the belief that I basically know what I'm doing, and I know enough to know that there's a lot I don't know. I'm just dwelling on this post on the little nagging doubt that still exists, that keeps me from being 100% sure of myself -- and therefore uncaring of any negative results -- when I hit the inevitable bumps in the road.

It sucks for me because I am so results oriented in the sense that I want to win whatever I'm doing, and losing takes away from the enjoyment of the activity...and this is the same in poker as it is in other sports as it is at work as it is doing a crossword puzzle. My happiness depends on too large a part in whether I'm succeeding at all these things, and not as much on the activity itself, on the pursuit of learning, improvement, and just having fun.

There's a saying (I saw it on a bumper sticker first) that the worst day of golf -- or fishing, skiing, etc. -- is better than the best day at the office. But that's not really true for me. My favorite sport is now golf, but when I'm not playing well, I really can't wait for the round to be over...and this is after waking up at the crack of dawn to get there. Same thing was true when I played tennis a lot....even in a social match if I were not playing up to my standards, I couldn't wait for it to be over. Forget the exercise, the outdoors, the camaraderie, the chance to practice something that wasn't working, the fact that you are not at the office. Results matter.

At least in those other areas, you are much more responsible for your results, or at least luck does not enter much into it at all. In poker, you don't even get that luxury (and that's why I've never been a fan of BB/100 related goals). When the chips don't slide my way, I get too easily disgusted. When I'm not on my A game, that disgust snowballs into worse play and more bad results. When I am on my A game, I still don't enjoy it, and that's nuts...not to the point I should just find something else to do, but the true measure of enjoyment at the low stakes should be about how well I play, and that's about it. Of course the profits are nice, but they are not going to be life changing, nor will the losses. That may come one day, but it's not there yet. I understand it's different for pros who rely on that income...one of the many reasons it must be much harder to be a pro. But I'm not in that situation.

Actually, the situation that I'm in right now is that I need to go help the kids with something, so I'm going to finally wrap this up. To reiterate, my state of mind remains positive overall. I'll try to make the next post a little lighter, in length and in attitude.