Poker Articles

“The point of the journey is not to arrive” – Rush, ‘Prime Mover’, 1987

Most people have a dream destination: the Wynn in Vegas, a safari in Africa, or a drawn-out dinner in a café on the Champs Elysees.  Others want to go everywhere, see it all.  I fall into the latter category.  I long for new experiences in a new place, or the chance to see what’s new or changed in a familiar locale.  There are two kinds of travel – you either go with the express purpose of an activity at your destination, or go with no ulterior motive than to reach the destination itself.  Both can be equally enriching, but it is very important to understand which kind of journey you’re on, and why.

I recently finished reading Neil Peart’s book “Ghost Rider”, in which he details his two solo motorcycle treks across the North American continent, riding over 50,000 miles in 14 months.  Peart is one of my personal inspirations, a brilliant lyricist for the band Rush and the greatest drummer in rock music history (apologies to John Bonham and Lars Ulrich fans out there, but it’s not even close).  He was on the “healing road”, as he called it, looking for any activity he could find to distract him from the deaths of his daughter and common-law wife in less than a year.  He woke up each morning, looked at a map, and determined where he was going to go that day.  With rare exceptions to meet friends or family, he had no other goals than to keep moving, to see new things, and to try to move past the tragedy engulfing him.

Many of us are on a similar poker journey (with hopefully less tragedy).  We play tournaments, satellites, sit-n-go’s, cash games.  Hold’em, Omaha, Stud, Triple Draw.  Full tables, short-handed, heads-up.  Maybe we follow solid bankroll management principles; often times we take shots over our heads to chase a big payday or challenge ourselves against tougher competition.  There are many roads to go down, as many paths through the poker universe as there are players.

So why is it so many poker players seem to be lost, with no clue how they arrived at where they are or how to get to somewhere new?  Every day brings new posts to PocketFives and other message boards, people asking the same kinds of questions over and over:

• “If I were going to deposit $100, what should I play?”
• “I just won a tournament and tripled my bankroll…what should I do with it?”
• “Should I focus on cash games or tournaments?”
• “Should I focus on Hold’em or learn all the games?”

My answer to these questions is always the same: “I don’t know.”  Paired with that answer, I usually respond with another question: “What games are you good at?”  But over time, I determined the more important question is: “What do you want from your poker journey?”  There are many answers to this question.  You may have an end goal within your poker bankroll – playing in a live WSOP or WPT event or sitting in Bobby’s Room at Bellagio or with Ivey & Townsend on Full Tilt.  You may have an end goal outside of poker – support yourself as a professional, earn a steady side income, withdraw a big chunk for a nice trip, or in the case of some PocketFives contributors, really good liquor (always a noble cause in my book).  You may want to win a short-term or long-term leaderboard on PocketFives or on one of the sites.  Or you may want to just improve your poker skills and thought processes in general to be the best player you can.

None of these answers to my question are wrong.  The reasons to play poker are as numerous as the reasons to exit your front door and take a trip somewhere.  But for your poker journey to be fulfilling, you need to select a destination.  Know why you are taking this journey; understand which of the above answers is best for you.  The reason poker so often feels like a grind is we play it without a sense of meaning.  We play out of habit, boredom or obligation rather than with purpose of direction or the sheer enjoyment of the game.  We wander around aimlessly without an understanding as to why we do so.  As Mr. Peart’s accountant politely informs him in the middle of his second tour of the western U.S., such a trip can be very expensive.

Success in poker requires short-term and long-term planning.  We usually know what to think about the short-term of each hand: check, bet, raise or fold.  Before you’re distracted by the next cards in the air, take a minute and consider the direction and purpose of your long-term poker journey.  It’s OK if you don’t know for sure; you can change course at any time and try a new path to poker excellence.  In each chorus of “Prime Mover”, Geddy Lee sings “anything can happen.”  Understand which “anything” you’re striving for and you’re far more likely to get there.