Final Thoughts

Once you've caught the poker bug and start to believe that you have an edge over the competition, the game can become an addiction. After all, winning money at something you enjoy is pretty seductive, right? It's then up to the individual to take it how far he wishes. At the bottom end you have the casual/recreational players (ok, let's call them "fish") whose knowledge of the game is minimal and who dip in and out when they get the urge. At the other end of the scale you have those who are totally absorbed by the game almost to the point of obsession - and they turn into pros (not that this is true for all pros mind you).

Somewhere in between these you get the amateurs; players who generally take the game seriously, play quite regularly and who generally end up winning a modest amount in the long-term which may supplement the income but is nowhere near enough to sustain their lifestyle on its own. Throughout my blog, I have often referred to the pros and have often used their way of doing things as a kind of measure or comparison with how I, myself, approach the game.

For me (apart from not being anywhere near good enough), the volume of hands needed to be put into the game, the amount of studying required and the amount of profit needed in order to maintain and sustain that livelihood and lifestyle of a pro (not to say of the desperation when a bad run kicks in) is something that I'm pretty sure would just do me in.

The greatest and most important thing that I think I have learned, as I come to the end of this here blog, is that I really don't need to try to emulate or compare myself to the pros anymore. The pros do what they do - and are fucking good at what they do - because they immerse themselves in the game and live and breathe it on a daily basis without the stresses and strains of a normal job (that's why they're called "pros"). For someone who works full-time for a living, there is just no way to compete with them on those terms mentioned above. For the pros, it's their life and they have to live with it; for us amateurs it is and always should be just a game.

For the average amateur poker player with a regular full-time job, the actual profits and losses of his poker bankroll - if he's a half-decent player with a solid bankroll management strategy in place - is probably negligible in the wide scheme of things. The point this leads to and the point I am getting at is that my days of results-orientated thinking really ARE over. At the moment,  I really really don't give a shit what my pathetic little bankroll balance is going to amount to anymore. What I DO give a shit about is becoming a better player, studying the game (at my own pace) even more and always making sure that I make the right decisions by bringing my A-game to the table.

If there is nothing else meaningful in this blog that any amateur player out there has taken away then I hope that the above two paragraphs, at least, resonate and strike a chord - because that's pretty much all there is to it.