How To Rid Yourself Of This Insidious Disease by Brad
Randle
Tragically, my neighbor Quincy has been
struck with a potentially fatal poker disease – Sudden
Expertism. The good news is this: SE is not only
preventable, but curable if detected in its early stages. The
bad news: If not dealt with head-on, the afflicted can be robbed
of his poker playing life at an early age.
Sudden Expertism is the uncontrolled abnormal growth of one’s
poker ego (malignant growth) starting with lucky, unlikely, and
unskilled winning sessions (the primary site), and spreading to
the brain and/or distant sites (metastasis). The afflicted will
suddenly confuse fiction as fact and act delusional, dispensing
unsolicited advice based on little or no knowledge or
experience. If not treated, SE will cause bankroll elimination
and ultimately, poker death.
Symptoms include:
The mishandling of early success;
Wild and transparent poker-story exaggerations;
Giving horrible advice to anyone who will listen.
Still very much a beginner, Q had a weekend that many players of
his experience level dream of – and also dread. Feeling good
from his solid play in sit-and-go tournaments, Q decided he was
going to get in an old-fashioned cash game. He figured that a
$2/4 game would suit him just fine and, after roughly 200 hands,
Q found himself sitting on a tidy little profit of $100 – more
than anything he had ever won before. Q was all smiles --- and
also quite full of himself. So full of himself that I overheard
him telling some neighborhood friends of ours, “I just killed a
bunch of fish for $500 (notice the exaggeration)! All I had to
do is hammer those guys with aggression and they cave like a
house of cards before the river! (Here comes the advice) Next
time you sit down, just keep raising and you’ll make a killing”.
Ouch. I realized Q had contracted SE, I figuratively assumed the
fetal position and cried uncontrollably. I couldn’t be consoled
and felt the imminent loss of a poker player near and dear to
me. Okay, so I wasn't quite that dramatic, but SE is much like
alcohol or drug addiction in that the afflicted usually has to
hit rock bottom before getting better. All I could do is stand
back, watch and wince.
Q moved to the $10/20 tables. Yep, forget about $2/4 or
$3/6……heck, let’s just skip $5/10 and move straight to a 6-man
$10/20 cash game. I located his table on-line and watched
as a small group of players began to eat him alive. After about
40 minutes, Q had lost $800.
Quincy didn’t call me that evening, and I certainly understood.
Tomorrow would be a time for a little compassion and
understanding, which I willingly provided. To my dismay, though,
Q provided me with a host of bad beat stories and even went so
far as to say the site was rigged. Follow-up treatments
were definitely in order. For weeks, Q went through the
highest of highs and the lowest of lows - a vicious cycle that
was damaging his poker family.Fortunately, Q is a smart guy.
He began to identify his errors and realized that there are no
shortcuts. He also discovered that when it comes to
advice, sometimes it is better to receive than to give.
Avoiding SE is simple. First, just be honest with yourself. Keep
good records on your wins and losses and understand when you are
doing some things right and when you are not.
Poker
Tracker is an excellent tool for tracking your play (and
that of many of your opponents). Next, be humble since
cockiness tends to blind one to the actual skill level of his
opponents. Lastly, possess an appetite to learn and face
up to the fact that there are other players better than you and
you should attempt to learn everything you can from them whether
it is reading their books or
articles or simply watching them
play. Taking all of these steps should help ensure that
sudden expertism never threatens your poker fortune.
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