Plateaus

"There is no plateau of resting or stabilising. Once you are interested in how things evolve, you have a kind of never-ending perspective, because it means you are interested in articulating the evolution, and therefore the potential change, the potential redefinition."
Rem Koolhaas

There are many occasions during the growth of a poker player where he or she thinks "I've got it!", only to get nailed by a better player at higher limits when they try to step up. The thing is, I wonder if anyone ever really gets to the point where they think "I've got it!". Sure, you might have a really great day and hit every flop and avoid every suckout, and when you go to bed you dream of doing it instead of your day job. But then you wake up, the next day comes and it's another break even day.

At each stage of learning in this game you will hit a plateau, there will be weeks, even months where you feel like you arent improving and the better you become the longer the plateaus are likely to last. If you've ever learnt a musical instrument you'll understand what this feels like. 3 years ago I learnt to play the guitar. The first 6 hours I thought, I'll never be able to play this, I have the musical talent of a goldfish. 6 hours after that I thought wow I can play my favourite song, I'm going to be the next Eric Clapton. 12 hours after that I came to the realisation that i knew nothing of barre chords or picking and that what I could play didnt even get kind words from that great dead cert of encouragement, my own mother. Later I would be able to hear improvement in my playing over the course of just a few minutes, yet other times it would stay unimproved for days, only getting better when I lay the guitar down for day or two and then came back to it.

At the moment I'm on the back-end of one of these plateau's, it's lasted about a month. I've played ok and cashed in several tournaments, but when I've busted its been because I haven't trusted my instinct. I've raised or checked and gone through the motions of a level 'B' player, when my instincts are screaming I should be making a level 'A' lay down or call.

These last 4 or so weeks I've consistently made the ABC Poker play with 95% of my hands, and proven that when the ABC move has been the wrong thing to do, my gut feeling has been telling me the right thing to do. Believing in myself, and my gut feeling is the virtual step up in this current plateau, but another always awaits with new challenges for the evolution of this poker player.