"Poker reveals to the frank observer something else of import—it will teach him about his own nature. Many bad players do not improve because the cannot bear self-knowledge."
This David Mamet quote exemplifies everything this blog was created to achieve. For the time this blog began up until this “farewell” post, I have been writing in order to improve my game. Most of my writing has been in the first person narrative and is geared towards my level of play. I am growing as a poker player and this blog was made to grow with me.
Crafting a final blog post is like writing your own eulogy. What would you want to be said about you if you could write your own? I would probably want people to hear that I made a ton of money, some sick calls, and even crazier bluffs. I would want them to know that I lived on the edge and that I played every hand and every chip with rigor and valor.
I wouldn’t want them to know that was all a lie.
The truth is, I can’t end this blog where I am in my poker career. I am still growing and I am still fighting towards poker self-actualization. Like I have mentioned in my previous blogs, my poker life is on a hiatus; my blog will rest in the same fashion.
When I am read to pursue poker with the same intensity I once did, this blog will serve as a successful tool for navigating through the ranks and mapping my route. This blog, in essence, is a journal or a logbook of some great explorer. When the going gets tough, the explorer can flip back a few pages and read about his triumphs and see how far he has come. He can use these logs to motivate and educate. He can use these notes to create and re-enforce “self knowledge.”
In essence, that’s all poker truly is. Self-knowledge is knowing yourself well enough to anticipate your opponent’s thoughts about you. How do you portray yourself? How do you play certain hands, streets, and pots? How do you react to trash talk and bad beats? If you the answers that other players have already assigned to these questions, then you can alter and twist the true nature of them to torment your opponents. Poker is, in fact, a war.
"Poker may be a branch of psychological warfare, an art form or indeed a way of life – but it is also merely a game, in which money is simply the means of keeping score."
Thank you Anthony Holden, for this brilliant insight. Poker is a battle fought with the mind. Most players don’t have an outlets to release negativity and tension from their poker battles. This blog has served as that outlet for me. Instead of blogging, most players let bad beats and horribly played hands fester inside their minds. This thought bounce around and crash in to the new thoughts as they are developed, altering the decisions and logic a player has swore to uphold. I, instead, allow my troubles to become words. In turn, they become realized, thought upon, and resolved. I now can take the error in my ways and use it to learn from.
So in a way, this blog was a punching bag. In the first few portions of my blog, I talked about investing in a punching bag. I claimed to need this punching bag in order to help relieve the stress of bad beats and bad play. Well, I never got that punching bag. What I didn’t realize until now is that this blog has been the perfect proverbial punching bag. This blog lets me unleash a flurry of punches and jabs until I feel that I’ve changed as a player. The punches are there to release tension and cool my temper. This blog has helped me keep my temper at the tables.
The strong point in poker is never to lose your temper, either with those you are playing with or, more particularly, with the cards. There is no sympathy in poker. Always keep cool. If you lose your head you will lose all your chips.
William J. Florence has obviously been through the trails and tribulations of being a poker player. This quote keys in on one facet of poker that, when mastered, can be a valuable weapon. When you’ve got a cool head, you have a peripheral view of the poker table as a whole. You can see how your actions are influencing other players and adjust in order to increase profitability. Some players don’t release their temper UNTIL they get to the poker table. They might as well just put the money in my pocket.
“When we play, we must realize, before anything else, that we are out to make money.”
Cold, hard, cash. Isn't this truly why we all play the game of poker?
David Sklansky
Sure, the thrill of a bluff here and there is exciting for all of us. We all see the players on T.V. in their trendy glasses and sitting at an epic looking table. Who wouldn’t want to be there? All in all, those players are there because they have focused in on one task: making money. So maybe that’s what this blog was all about, just trying to help myself make a few bucks.
The fact of the matter is that I don’t know what this blog was truly meant to be. I don’t have that answer yet and I will never have it if I stop here. Instead, I plan to reincarnate this blog when poker is a more relevant source of recreation in my life. But for now, poker rests; a sleeping giant.
Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment