Near Perfect and Improving

I wish.

The post title is something I've been saying for a while now, after someone asks me how I'm doing.
Sometimes it's true, sometimes its far from the truth.

In relation to this, I've been watching a lot of poker lately, and really, really wanting to be good at it.  Over the last few years, I've seen and read about many poker players, have seen some of their lifestyles, and have dared to dream...maybe I could snatch a little of that.
Of course, I've also read about guys who lived in cars for a while, had apartments with 5 or 6 other wanna-be's and have lost a boat load of money.  I don't want to be any of those.

So I sit here and I think of playing poker.  I even told someone the other day that I kind of regret not discovering my love of poker until my late 30's...that had I found it in my teens or early 20's, I may have given going pro a shot.  I think that I may have been pretty good.  I think that I still may be pretty good.
But there's a problem.  A mental problem.  You see, when I watch poker (or read about it or listen to pros talk about it) I think that I'm not ever going to be smart enough to play!  At least not smart enough to play on that level.  I listen to guys (and some gals...I'm looking at you Selbst!)  talk about the finer arts of EV on the river, merging your bluffing range with your value range, ICM and the like and, while I understand it, I don't play it like that.

When I finish playing a session, I look back on my play and I often see some pretty sophisticated plays that they give fancy names to, but I don't think like that at the tables.  Oh sure, I think about the range of the other players, and betting for value and such, and sometimes I calculate my odds of hitting versus pot odds in particular situations, but I don't do the fancy analysis all the time.
And because I don't think fancy schmancy all the time, I think that I can't beat the more "advanced" player.
Recently, I realized how wrong I am.

Let me digress (even further).  There's some psychology at work here that I need to work out.
Some people think that, societally speaking, things are worse than ever. People see what they see and think the worst.  Like, if I told you that violent crime is down, including crimes involving guns, you'd think I'm wrong.   I'm not wrong.  Violent crime is VERY low historically speaking, but because of TV and the news, people think it's worse than ever.  Even the most optimistic among us fall into the trap.  People think that everything was better when they were young...to poorly quote a song "prices were low and politicians didn't philander" The problem is, problems were pretty much the same, relatively speaking and politicians always sucked.  In short, we tend to have a skewed view of things.

I realized it was the same with poker.

I watch guys who sound so smart when they are analyzing hands (in retrospect or when they aren't involved at all) make terribly stupid plays, chase when they have no business chasing, and do things that they say you should NEVER do.
I see this with pros on YouTube/Pokerstars.TV/WSOP.com etc and with smart money at my local card house and realize they may talk big, sound smart and have all the strategery in the world, but they still make mistakes.  They don't always make the right play.  I can still out think and out play them.  Maybe not all the time, but enough.
If I keep working at it, study and practice, I can be as good as a lot of these guys and better than most. I may not be near perfect, but I can keep improving.  That should be good enough.