Friday, December 03, 2004

The Felt Wars

The more I play this game the more I learn and the more I learn the more I understand that Poker has nothing to do with cards. Yes my friends, it is true. The cards are a medium for a psychological warfare the likes of which the world has never seen. It takes a lot of mental toughness to play this game.

The game is about keeping control of yourself. So what if you squander a third of your bankroll? Should you let it change your game? No. Can you let it posses and obsess you? Not if you want to stay in the game. Should you keep checking your bankroll every ten minutes to see if it has grown? No way. Ask yourself why your depressed one day because your bankroll fell a few hundred bucks, and excited the next because it grew. It means nothing.

It is about keeping control of your insecurities. When you are winning it is easy to think of yourself as the worlds greatest player. The next Phil Helmouth! Watch out WSOP here I come! When you are losing do you think your game suck? Do you think you cannot win? If so you are probably wrong. Take some time and make sure your game has not changed for the worse. Then get back out there and do what you have been doing all along to win! Let these experiences make you dig deeper into your game but do not assume they are because of you.

The game is about keep your self under control at the tables. When you have been rivered for the tenth time that night does it set you off? Are you ready to slam your fist into the monitor or can you take a deep breath and really believe these are the kinds of guys you NEED to play with! If it was a table full of Doyle Brunson’s believe me you would not be winning any money.

I am guilty of all of the above. It takes tough stretched to really bring out the problems with your game. A lot of these problems are not going to have anything to do with the cards. I have had it fairly easy up until now. While this has been a disappointing setback I think I can grow from it. I am constantly trying to figure out why I did so poorly at the 5/10 tables. Some things are coming to the forefront that will improve my game. The mental aspects are always the most challenging and I continue to try and work on those. One of these days I might become a hardened and seasoned veteran of this game we all love. I look forward to that. Until then I will keep sharing my flaws with you all and keep playing my best at the tables.

8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nice post.

Sorry if I annoyed you with my comments yesterday. That wasn't my intent. I find that the best "medicine" for bad beats is to review the hand in minute detail and examine each player's odds at each decision point. Then you can tell exactly how bad the beat was -- and surprisingly, a lot of "bad beats" turn out not to be all that bad.

Well, that's the second-best medicine. The best medicine is to go on atomic-bomb-scale tilt, blow your entire bankroll and then some, take a six-month hiatus from poker, and finally come back to the tables. You'll have a lot more emotional equilibrium if you ever do that. Take it from me...

--Razorfold (no blog yet!)

8:41 AM

 
Blogger Muff said...

Your commentary would be very appropriate if placed above yesterday's crossword ansers in the Living section. You've really hitched on to this bandwagon full force. What, is no one paying attention to your bell-bottoms and hackeysack moves anymore?

I guess mindless followers like yourself need fads like Texas Hold 'em to survive. Otherwise you'd be forced to find a unique personality or be creative in some other manner, or kill yourself, whichever is easier.

What really makes this blog interesting, or excruciating, is the dull insight and attitude that makes Avril Lavine look cutting edge. It's too bad Mel Gibson didn't have you as a writer for Maverick. That movie really needed more bland, middle-aged, fat white guys to spice things up.

9:42 AM

 
Blogger SirFWALGMan said...

Razorfold: I was being a little sarcastic with the moronic comment. If you read the blog for a while you will understand I have a very sarcastic streak. Anyway, thanks for putting a name to the comments. I do think your reply was well thought out and presented even if I was not in the mood to listen and still think it was a lousy play. Hope you keep hanging out. BTW - Read the old Blog articles: Been there, done that too. Trying to avoid doing it again!

Sebastian: Are you sure you’re a liberal? You seem more like a right wing conservative: Quick to judge, living in the south, intolerant of other people. Just wondering.

So what kind of refund would you like from me? Shall I give you those few hours of your life it took you to read the Blog? No? Not worth much? How about something more exciting? Perhaps you could read your own Blog since it is so cutting edge and dynamic! I mean who would ever have thought of the complaint of the day! I bow before your amazing creativity. Perhaps NBC has a job for you in their sitcom division.

10:14 AM

 
Blogger SirFWALGMan said...

BTW - Zang! You know you have done something right when you start getting hecklers!

10:16 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

He's a Georgia liberal, which means he wants to merely abolish the IRS rather than blowing it up Oklahoma City-style. I notice his blog includes long cut-and-pastes from Cato Institute essays (without commentary). And he wants to accuse other people of mindless bandwagonism? Libertarianism is the ultimate bandwagon.

I lived in Atlanta for the worst two years of my life. No one is happy in that town. They take out their misery by spamming this kind of frat-boy troll-rant on every corner of the internet. (Oh, and ogling strippers -- I bet all the dancers at the Pink Pony know Sebas by name.) And we wonder why the rest of the world hates us.

Razorfold

10:27 AM

 
Blogger Todd said...

Ooooh, I want a heckler!

10:38 AM

 
Blogger SirFWALGMan said...

Ohh goodie, Sebas good (only?) friend Pete comes to his rescue! Don’t you have something better to do, like write some crap for Sebas’s site? Maybe you can tell me why it takes three morons to write his site? Oh yeah, one Moron to think up the next stupid ass racist, bigot, or moronic statement and the other two to nod there heads and agree. "Duh Seb, that was a good one!"

Sebas, the Internet terror. All who write Blogs should fear him! His Blog has been running for several months more than mine, yet I get more hits in a week than he has in all that time. I think he flames Blogs just to get hits. Not a bad plan!

Yeah, I probably am a little intolerant of his beliefs. Let’s review them shall we. All I ever see him talk about is how Blacks Suck, It is Funny to have hurricanes kill people, and some little kids tits. So at best he is a racist, pedophile with no regard for human life. What am I missing? If you think it is creative to hate people then you have not read your history books. Oh wait, can you read or do you have your sister read the blog for you?

12:56 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I did like that Sebas refers to his trips to the sperm bank on MARTA as "work". I would be curious to see what that train wreck looks like on a day-to-day basis.

That blog really is a cry for help. What's even sadder is he seems to know that already. Local drivetime radio internship? Living in the frat house at 24? Having his lil' buddies come help when a fight gets started? He's quite the cutting-edger, that Sebas.

1:13 PM

 

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