Status Check Please

One thing about playing poker full time is that I never know what the appropriate level of success is. I suppose if I wasn’t a petty man, I would just accept any reasonable stream of income as long as I can live comfortably. But I am a petty man. I need to have a gauge on my level of play. It is not enough for me to just be a winning player; I need to win more than anyone else. And without a standard to compare myself with I’m in the dark.

Ok so lets get some facts on the table. I started playing “professionally” on November 12th, 2005. It is now 37 days later, and my total income to date is $3977.18, which if my calculator is correct, boils down to a measly $107.49 a day – a far cry from my original starting goal of $200 a day. But not to fret, since I sort of just pulled that $200/day goal out of my own ass.

I started off really well – at the end of November I was up to $191.12/day. I figured I was well on my way to my goal and had nothing to worry about – that I had what the New Kids would refer to as “the right stuff”. Then a string of extreme losses hit me, and I was faced with a real decision – did I ever have the right stuff or was it all luck? I have since recovered from the early months catastrophic losses, and am hoping that it was simply a blip on the radar, nothing to worry about.

But how can one be sure? I mean the sample size here is so small with 37 days, that it is very hard to make any kind of reasonable conclusion as to the meaningfulness of my results. I mean, I think it is safe to say that I am a winning player. I’m not worried about that. But when it is my livelihood on the line, I need to know how much of a winner I am. This is why I need a standard to compare myself to. If there were a database of poker data available where I could simply enter my info into that would be pretty much ideal - I would be able to compare my win rates to others to see where I stand - even though I still wouldn’t be confident about the “long term”.

I suppose I should just be happy. I mean, I’m not losing money, isn’t that all that matters? Who cares if others could be making more than me right?

Well I for one do.

As a poker player, I always want to be improving my game. I consider myself to be above average, and am constantly trying to improve. I want to be making as much money as possible. I want to know that if I am not playing optimally, what I need to change to do so. If I had a means to compare myself to others, I could tell where I am at. I could determine by the difference between my winnings and others that I need a lot or a little improvement. If someone is making twice my hourly rate at the same levels that I play at, I need to know why.

But mostly I’m just glad I’ve calmed the storm of losses and retained my status of “winning player”. Lets just hope it wasn’t a random blip.