Despite how much time I’ve spent shoveling snow in the last two days, December is my favorite month. It’s a period to think back on everything you’ve done in the past 12 months, wonder what different decisions would have meant, and get excited about what the next year will bring. Most of all, I like the family and spiritual aspects of the season. It doesn’t matter what you actually believe; you have the opportunity to reflect on who you are and what you want to be.To close out the year, let’s take a holiday reflection on poker. What can I do…what can we ALL do…to make the game better?
Peace On Earth… or, at least, on PocketFives.
Poker is a cutthroat, brutal, individualistic game. We may have a support system of friends and players whose opinions we trust, to help us review hand histories and deal with tilt and frustration. We meet people and make friends at gatherings like the P5s WSOP party. But at the table, it’s just us, against a vast ocean of others who want exactly what we want – all the chips on the table. The game is dog-eat-dog, hand after hand, never ending (until you turn the computer off). It’s enough to drive one to drink, or smoke weed, or seek some other outlet to relieve the stress.
Too often, the outlet involves unloading on someone else on a message board, from the relative anonymity of our computers, safe in our comfortable homes. Snide remarks, rudeness, and/or outright hatred can sneak into some threads on the boards. I have been as guilty as anyone of being an overly confrontational ass, hidden behind the pretense of “honesty”. Such behavior has to stop, from all of us.
The word “entropy” is used in physics to talk about a system’s tendency toward chaos and disorder. An online message board is a prime example of entropy. Over time, the level of hostility required to make the same splash goes up, as we develop a tolerance for ugliness. So things degenerate.
Long-time PocketFivers talk wistfully about how much better the board used to be…friendlier, less confrontational, easier to fit in. Less entropic. The only way to bring a system back to order is to apply an outside force. We have to work at making PocketFives a more fun place to be. Before you post a response, consider if you’d like or understand someone talking to you in the same way. If the answer is “no,” do us all a favor and don’t post.
Good Will Toward Men… or, at least, the donkey in Seat 4.
A couple days ago, I didn’t have much time to play, but railed a friend as he started a tournament. With the blinds at 20/40, my friend raised UTG to 120, and got three callers, including the big blind. The flop was 10-9-3, rainbow, and the big blind shoved 1700 chips into a pot of 500. My friend called with his QQ, and was facing the open-ended straight draw of the big blind’s Q-J. A King on the turn shipped the pot, and most of my friend’s chips, in the wrong direction.
I watched my friend lose his mind, a horrified observer powerless to stop the meltdown. He started with venom against the BB defense with Q-J (fairly deep, getting more than 5:1, there’s nothing wrong with the call), and ended up spending several minutes wondering why God and Full Tilt apparently have so much love and tenderness toward inbred Down’s Syndrome-suffering child molesters.
When we spoke later about how he could have played the hand better, I replied, “Turn your chat off.”
Anger is a powerful energy, and can be a motivational tool. More often than not, especially in online poker, our anger is impossible to channel in a positive direction. We need another way. Turning off your chat, rather than giving yourself an outlet to carry on long past the point of rationality, is a good plan for avoidance. If the only way you can rant and rave is out loud, at your monitor…the absurdity is an anecdote to the initial venom.
Diffusing your anger is even better than avoidance…finding a way to feel something beyond fury. I’ve experimented with several approaches, and found two to be fairly successful. First, try to justify your opponent’s play. If you can see yourself doing what they did, then it’s not a tilt-worthy “bad beat” – just a beat. Sometimes, you need to stretch your imagination to find your place in their shoes. But when you feel the bile rising in your throat, it’s worth a try.
The other diffuser is as old as the game itself, recommended by many before me...you want people to play bad and make poor decisions against you. Repeat the mantra. Chant it over and over again. You want people to play bad and make poor decisions against you. When things don’t go your way, it’s out of your control once the chips go in. What you wanted to happen, happened. Rather than losing your mind and berating your opponent, you should thank him.
The holiday season should be one of joy and happiness. Carry this thought to all things poker as the year concludes, and our 2010 will be brighter indeed. I wish you and your families all the best.
grapsfan
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