Am I a "good" poker player?

I played poker with my brothers and friends as a kid - initially 5 card draw and eventually 7 card stud. When I got older I played occassionally with friends and eventually started playing in a monthly poker game where I was introduced to "dealers choice". In this game I started to understand the different versions of poker including hold'em, guts, no peeky, follow the lady and a bunch of others. Some ex-marines played in this game and they always seemed to have new variations of games they had played in the forces. Every month I would learn new games and often I would come out a winner. So yes, I am and always have been a good poker player.

Prior to 2007 I knew very little about position, pot odds, implied odds, semi-bluff, stealing or re-stealing and certainly would not have applied any of thise terms to poker. I would not have thought maths was a huge part of poker. The "skill" involved would be knowing to play high cards and getting lucky on the flop or going all-in with whatever and hoping the other player fold. This "skill" was moderately successful but obviously in the poker world I would be caleld a "fish" and easy takings for someone who has played for a while. So no, at least up until this year I was not a good poker player.

What makes you good at poker anyhow? I play occassionally with friends who have kids that re very lucky and often win the money in our little poker games. Does that mean they are good? Are they good by intent or just willing to gamble and get lucky. I figure the only way to know if I have become a good poker player is to play it for a living and see if I can make some money. A positive cashflow will indicate I have become good at the game. Anything else means I am still training to become a good poker player

Of course I might be training for a very long time!!

Poker Riches

Wow, poker has got popular. Not the everyday 'have a game of poker with your friends' version, but the cut-throat gambling version where for a small entry fee you can earn a huge prize.

But how easy it is to become a successful poker player. Can a person of average intelligence crack the game and make a living. Is it really a game of skill or a game of luck?

I'm going to find out. And I am going to document my progress as I go along. And my observations. Maybe at the end I will be addicted to gambling and have lost all my money...(I hope not).... or maybe I will be one of those lucky people you see on television raking in all the money at a big tournament.

The special skills I bring to the game are as follows:

- as a kid I was good at math and mental arithmetic - quickly calculating numbers in my head and I am still reasonably capable of doing this.
- as a teen I was a reasonably good chess player - a regional champion but certainly not county or national level. I've probably played 5 games in the last 10 years but still think I must be pretty smart to have been pretty good at chess.
- as an adult I have made a good living programming computers and databases. This suggests I am pretty with it when it comes to logical puzzles and if/then/else branches.

I like to learn new things and hold on to information pretty well. With computers I had a passion and read many many books just to get an idea how to do things. I copied ideas and modified algorithyms to make slightly different programs suited to what I was trying to achieve. And I was extremely focussed - all problems are solvable if you put in the hours and each failure just makes the eventual success taste sweeter. I could work for 36 hours straight nailing a computer program but I always cracked it eventually.

So can I apply the same passion and energy to poker and be successful? I have 3-4 months to try to get from the starting point to the pinaccle (whatever that turns out to be). Lets start the journey.

Ace (my new nickname)