The other day, I was reading an article totally unrelated to poker. It had to do with business concepts and growth strategy. A quote from the article caught my attention and made me immediately think of poker. It also took me back to my roots of playing strategy-based games long before I ever played a hand of poker.

“The entire reason that strategy exists is that there are no guarantees.” The “no guarantees” part is what makes poker, business, and life in general so much fun and sometimes so frustrating. But, in poker especially, it makes the game work.

When you are devising, evaluating, changing, and attempting to improve your strategy, it is important to keep in mind that there are no guarantees. Just because you implement a new strategy that doesn’t work doesn’t always mean your strategy is bad. And maybe, more importantly, just because you have initial success with a new strategy doesn’t mean that it is actually a winning strategy or that it will continue to be as others evolve and change their games.

In the early 2000s, there were a lot of winning players who have been passed by. They stubbornly still continue to do what worked for them a decade ago thinking they are running bad and unlucky. They aren’t. They are losing players who are implementing strategies that have been outdated and ineffective in most games since around 2008. But, because their game plan used to work, they stubbornly refuse to give up on it and are not willing to put in the work and take a chance on trying something new and different.

Understanding that there are no guarantees and that you have to constantly evolve, change, and experiment is vital to continued success in poker and life. To win, you have to stay ahead of the curve; in poker, the curve has been moving quickly and aggressively in the last decade. The ability to play a tremendous number of hands online, large data sets that have become available, and a boom in quality literature on the game have all led to significant growth and change. As a result, the average level of play has risen tremendously.

If you play recreationally and are okay with paying for the entertainment value of poker, then constantly focusing on your strategy doesn’t have to be a top priority. If you play for profit and count on being a winning poker player as part of your long-term financial plan, then you’d better be prepared to accurately, efficiently, and regularly improve on and make changes to your strategy. Just because you are winning today doesn’t mean you will be tomorrow.

There are no guarantees on any given day with any strategy or style of play, but it is guaranteed that if you don’t evolve and improve, you will be doing the same old stuff, complaining about how badly you run and how lucky everyone else is. All the while, you are actually playing in a way that makes it inevitable that you will lose in the long-run.

Court Harrington has worked on the business side of the poker industry in roles including tournament reporting for PocketFives, radio hosting for PokerRoad Radio, coaching for the WSOP Academy and privately, and a variety of behind-the-scenes responsibilities for poker media businesses. He also plays in cash games and tournaments. Harrington is currently doing consulting work and exploring business opportunities outside of the poker industry. You can contact him at Court@CourtHarrington.com.

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