You are in the parking lot of the west of the mall, and you have just had an unbelievable poker session. Yes, they have a full casino with a poker room in the mall. You are up $595 after playing just a few hours of $3-$6 hold’em. And, this is only the third time you have ever played poker for real money.

What a good night. You must have really outplayed everyone tonight, you big poker stud. Maybe a little bit of luck was on your side too. After all, you seemed to be getting far more playable pre-flop hands than everyone else.

You pause for a moment and blink, your eyelashes briefly freezing together before letting go again. You get into your car, and continue thinking about this fantastic poker night. On the drive home, you mentally replay some of your monster hands, like the time you took down that gigantic pot when your T6s improved to two pair with that beautiful ten on the river. The guy you beat in that hand grumbled something softly to his neighbours, but you didn’t really catch it. Something about rockets, maybe? What’s that supposed to mean? Sounds like either he had either gone bananas, or he was some kind of tourist who worked at NASA. What a fish.

You think about things when you get home. You are on top of the poker world, a superstar. You figure you must be the best darn poker player north of Texas. You own poker. Fast forward about 5 years to the present day. Wow. What a fish you were indeed.

Except for the overly exaggerated ego and the Subaru, you have just read a fundamentally true account of what remains to this day, my largest limit hold’em single session win. And amazingly enough, it truly was the third session of real money poker I had ever played. But, is this really so amazing? No. And, here’s why.

One of the fundamental properties of the game of poker is that short term results are going to be determined primarily by variance. This is a fancy sounding way of saying something you’ve probably heard before. Something like, “Anyone can win,” or, “I’d rather be lucky than good.” It’s possible that, on any given day, in any given session, someone with almost no clue how to play poker can walk away from a $3-$6 game up $595.

But the reality will catch up with you fast, so make sure you always remain realistic about your poker skills.