Eric Rizen Lynch

Poker goals

Well, I hope I'm not blowing all my decent ideas in the first week of my blog, but someone asked me a question the other day that I found a bit perplexing. I was asked 'Eric (this person uses my real name), what are your poker goals for 2006?'. To be perfectly honest with you, I really don't have any. My goal for 2006 is the same as my goal for 2005: to make the best possible decisions at all times at the poker table. I think setting any goal beyond that is really a mistake since it can impact your play. It's kind of the same reason I typically don't do last longer bets in tournaments. If I made it a goal to make 6 FTs a month next year, and Jan 31 came around and I had made 5 FTs and I was on the bubble of the 6th, I would hate to think that I might play just to make the FT and reach my 'goal'.

In the same setting, I never want my poker decisions to be impacted by a 'last longer' bet either. LL bets can be fun, as long as the stakes are meaningless enough they won't impact your decisions at the table, otherwise I'm more interested in keeping my mind clear to just make good decisions, without worrying about picking up that extra $100 for outlasting my buddy.

Do I think having goals is a bad thing? No, I even have some very loose goals for myself. That being said, I keep my goals pretty generic. My goal for 2006 (other than making the best decisions possible at the poker table) is simply to play more big live events. I'm hopeful I can either qualify or make the trip out for the World Series this year, and I'm going to PCA in January. If I can qualify for another big event or two and get 4-5 live events under my belt this year I'd be pretty happy, even if I don't cash in any of them I think the experience will be invaluable and hopefully launch me into 2007 as an online AND live player.

My advice to you if you're trying to set goals for your poker game, is to keep them very open ended and don't limit yourself or tie yourself to specific numbers. I think goals such as 'play better than last year' or even 'make more money than last year' are fine. I think goals like 'make X # of final tables' or 'make X # of 5 figure cashes' are bad goals, and can actually hurt your growth as a player. Goals should be something that guide your playing and keep you on the right path to improving as a player, not something that constrict you to trying to attain a certain number. I've had one hell of a year in 2005, and while I certainly hope 2006 will be a better year for me results wise, the only thing I can assure you is that in December of 2006 I will be a better poker player than I am in December 2005. Only time will tell if that bears out in the form of superior results or not though.

-Rizen