There is actually a famous poker book by this very same title but that is not what I want to discuss here. I have both played and studied poker now for a very long time and in fact that time is more than 15 years. It is very difficult to study something for that length of time without arriving at a totally different situation to the one that you were in a few years ago.
This is an inevitable process for any complex field that is constantly evolving. I think that the real education of a poker player comes when they realise that in order to be a successful poker player over a long period of time then you have to learn to adjust.
It isn’t just a case of learning to play poker hands well because that can be easily achieved with just a moderate amount of study. In fact I think that this is the biggest mistake that millions of poker players the world over make because they take their poker education to a certain level and then stop in the belief that they know the game.
In a sense then they really do know the game but they do not know the game enough to be able to survive when the environment becomes tough. This is when the better players begin to play poker far differently to what they had previously played it. Only when you can compete and survive in an environment that has totally evolved can you really say that you have completed your education as a poker player, fortunately for the select few…….most never reach this goal.
