Consistency In Poker, Why You Shouldn’t Expect Too Much Of It

Most of the hundreds of millions of people who play poker at their homes, in card-rooms, and online only partake in the game occasionally, or as a past-time. These players aren’t counting on their winnings to pay the bills; they have jobs where they earn a consistent hourly wage, work consistent hours, and deal with the same group of people on a daily basis. Basically, when it comes to making a living, most people are used to consistency!

Well, consistency is exactly the opposite of what you should expect from poker; in fact poker is likely the most unpredictable profession you could possibly take part in. Even in my line of work as a freelance writer, where I’m sometimes extremely busy and sometimes have a lull, I have never had less money than I started the day with! Most of us are simply use to paychecks and work hours being consistent.

One of the hardest aspects for players trying to earn a living at the poker tables to learn is how to handle the ups and downs of the game. Further complicating the matter is that the letting yourself get upset/frustrated/angry at the outcome the worse you’ll play; which leads to even more inconsistent results.

There is one aspect of poker that is consistent and that’s you! You are the only factor in a poker game that you can exhibit any control over; in fact the more consistently, the more consistent your results will be. Your results will be still be all over the place, but keeping a level-head will make your bigger losing sessions more manageable, where a player who ends up on tilt will lose more money with the same cards.

The key to consistency is to control variance as much as possible, and in order to do this you must be at the top of your game at all times. Every single misstep that could have been avoided adds to your variance. You also need to take advantage of every single edge you can find, regardless of how insignificant it appears. All of those small edges that many players overlook, or choose to ignore, not only add up in your profits, but also will decrease your variance (which often leads to even more profits).

This really is one of the hardest lessons for poker players to learn -some never do-especially poker players who previously worked a consistent job. It’s just hard for people to look at things in the long-term, as an average of all their results, instead of looking at their results daily/weekly/monthly as they are accustomed to.