Most of us judge how we are doing in poker on a daily basis, session by session or even hour by hour.  We all look at our chip stack constantly and have expectations of seeing it continuously grow.  Wouldn't it be nice if it always did?  

Can we play great poker and still lose money?  Ya, I think sometimes we will.  I think sometimes we can run bad for extended periods.  There is nothing we can do about it, it just happens.  No matter how good we are playing or how good our read was, we can always lose at the river if you don't have the nuts.  It is just that simple.

Outstanding Poker has been a great place for me to learn more and more about poker.  I do things now that I never would have done before.  I have a much better thought process now than I ever did and for that, I'm grateful.  The best part is that I'm still learning.

The point I think is to realize, that there are also some intangibles when we play.  Things that we will never be able to put your finger on.  Whether we are in a live game or playing on-line. 

I think Mike Caro refers to it as the "Law of loose wiring".  Now, the rest of this is not an exact quote but I think the jist of it is; Even though we can control some aspects of the game, like the tempo or how we want our opponents to react, we certainly cannot control all the things that go on around us.  It can be the craziest little things that can disrupt the outcome of a hand and some of them might not even be poker related.  The phone rings or a baby cries and the outcome can be changed.  Poker is mostly a thinking game.  Even the slightest interruption can alter an opponent's thought process and in that millisecond, a different outcome has just been born.

Therefore, for me, I don't worry about winning or losing in a monetary sense any more.  As Atta 22 says, all you can do is look back and see if you played a hand correctly based on the information, you had at the time.

My bankroll goes up and down and I just keep pluggin along doing my best to enjoy the finer aspects of the game.  Like figuring out ways to exploit an opponent's weaknesses :) and deep down if I am being honest with myself and evaluate my own play effectively my bankroll will keep growing.  Even if it's only a little at a time.