If you play poker in any high profile online poker game on the Internet against some of the most determined high-stakes players in the world then you need to remember one very important thing. Your game is being watched and analysed not just by your opponents but by literally millions upon millions of players. There are poker sites that are designed to track high-stakes poker action.

Independent software packages do the same thing and this is before we even mention the analysis that is made by large numbers of online poker players who rail these nosebleed games. So is it any surprise then that Tom Dwan has lost an estimated $5 million over the past few weeks.

In fact this brings up rather an interesting question because when do earnings actually become earnings? In the world of high-stakes online poker then you are always walking a very fine line. Someone like Dwan has been very successful but not just because he has a great poker game or because he is properly bankrolled or even because he is fearless. These qualities are easily replicated these days.

He more than likely wins because he finds ways to defeat his fellow high-stakes players based on in depth analysis of their play over long periods of time. I have never been an avid big game watcher but the amount of game preparation by some of the best players in the world must be thorough.

But let us say that you are Tom Dwan and you have made $10 million playing online poker. During the period in which you have been making that money, your game will have been scrutinised and analysed. You will have basically been put under the microscope in all that time and believe me when I say that all players have weaknesses.

Quite often the weaknesses only reveal themselves under certain conditions but it is one thing that world class online poker players are good at and that is spotting and then exploiting weakness. It is quite conceivable that Dwan may have become complacent during this process and took his success for granted.

Poker tends to follow an evolutionary process where the current best player or the current most successful player will only stay that way for a certain amount of time. But if you won say $10 million over 4 years then that equates to a theoretical $2.5 million a year. But it is only $2.5 million a year if you cash it in and spend it. At the end of the day you are only “ahead” by $10 million and at that super high level…..you are like a beacon in the night sky that is illuminated for everyone to see.

The problem that a very successful online poker player has when they start losing is to identify what is an actual trend shift from something that is just variance. It also may not be too easy to be able to identify just what (if any) weaknesses are being exploited and by who and when. Getting to be really successful online is one thing but staying there is something completely different.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Play poker tournaments for big money on bwin

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.