P
pisant
Rising Star
Bronze Level
It's pretty solidly established that, after about 200,000 hands of cash poker, you have a pretty good idea of whether you're profitable or not. But the visible poker in our world is tournaments, and the best I can figure out from the mathheads is that you need to play about 200,000 TOURNAMENTS in order to get the same idea about your tournament profitability. If you play 100 live tournaments a year the way the TV pros do, over 30 years you've played only 3,000, which is a fraction of one percent of the tournaments you need to play in order to iron out variance. It follows that, while a cash pro really can consider himself a pro, the TV tournament pros are people who are essentially on one lifelong hot or cold streak. They owe their entire success at tournaments to VERY short-term variance.
This is probably why the real poker pros lead quiet, under-the-radar lives playing the $200/$400 NL cash tables in Vegas, and why it is rumoured that large numbers of them have refused to become TV tournament pros. Another reason is that becoming publicly visible on TV would scare off all the fish at their cash games, but, to a true poker player, what would be of value is real success rather than a glitzy Miley Cyrus twerking public image.
Which brings me to me. I want to know whether I really am a good poker player, and, if I am not, whether I can become good. For that reason, I have decided never to play a tournament again. I enjoy tournaments more than cash, but I don't want to be riding either a hot or cold streak for the rest of my born days.
Do people think I'm crazy here?
This is probably why the real poker pros lead quiet, under-the-radar lives playing the $200/$400 NL cash tables in Vegas, and why it is rumoured that large numbers of them have refused to become TV tournament pros. Another reason is that becoming publicly visible on TV would scare off all the fish at their cash games, but, to a true poker player, what would be of value is real success rather than a glitzy Miley Cyrus twerking public image.
Which brings me to me. I want to know whether I really am a good poker player, and, if I am not, whether I can become good. For that reason, I have decided never to play a tournament again. I enjoy tournaments more than cash, but I don't want to be riding either a hot or cold streak for the rest of my born days.
Do people think I'm crazy here?