Playing Your ABC....RDM....XYZ Game

The Las Vegas poker coach Tommy Angelo likes to say that playing anything less than your A-game is actually a form of tilt.  While I'm not sure if this is 100% accurate, it's certainly an intriguing thought and has at least some elements of truth in it.

The statement also begs the question of what, exactly, is a person's "A-game?"  There are many constituent parts to the question's answer. One of these is a player's ability to ignore the results of an individual hand, and instead focus on whether they played that hand correctly or not. It's called the Results Don't Matter (RDM) approach to poker. Whether you win or lose a hand is irrelevant; what matters is whether you played the hand correctly. If you get your money in with the best of it, the long-term results will take care of themselves. If you don't, they won't.

The Guru likes to say that there are times he played a session and won, but was unhappy about the session-- because he played poorly. He also adds that there are times when he has a losing session, but is happy about the game-- because he played well. Said another way, the Guru embraces the RDM approach to winning poker.

I thought about this topic this morning when I read an account of Phil Ivey's performance at the 2004 American Poker Championship event in upstate New York. Fully eighty of the 120 entrants were high-caliber professional poker players, making for what one commentator claimed was "the toughest poker starting field" he had ever seen.

Ivey, as is his wont, went on to take first place in the event for a cool $500K in profit. Afterward, when asked to pose for the winning picture in front of the stack of money, Ivey had to be encouraged to smile. He had a sour frown on his face, and seemed genuinely unhappy to have won.

Howard Lederer interviewed Ivey after the event and asked why he seemed so unhappy with the win. Ivey responded, "Because I couldn't stop thinking how poorly I played."

RDM. RDM. RDM....

 All-in for now...
-Bug