We had a bunch of new friends over to our house this New Year’s Day. Usually, hanging out with a lot of new people means I spend most of my time repeating the same explanations of how I spend my free time. But since I had a slight sore throat, I was excused from talking and instead got to listen.To be honest, I glossed over a bit when the proud parents talked about how little Johnny was the captain of this or little Mary got an A in that. I only hope my poker face didn’t betray just how far away my thoughts were. But when the conversation shifted to New Year’s resolutions, it focused my attention. Why did everyone at my party have at least one resolution while I had none? <READMORE>
A few hours later, my new friends left us with a huge pile of dishes. As we cleaned, I couldn’t get the idea of making resolutions out of my head. Why was I resolutionless? To answer my own question, of course my one-track mind turned to poker.
I thought back to last Thursday night’s stars $3 rebuy nlhe tourney. We had just made the second tier of money, and I had an average stack of about 30K with the blinds at 1.5/3k. On the button I found cowboys, and I watched as utg with 40k made it 6k to go, and the dominoes fell to me. Something smelled funny there, as I know that utg was not a tricky type of player and would have raised a lot more with even a medium pair, so I was thinking he had a medium to weak ace at best and was testing the waters.
With almost 12k in the pot already, I should have just pushed him out right then, but I got greedy and wanted to double up so I would have some ammo to play around with. I made up my mind to fold to a flopped ace and bet small to most anything else. So I flat called, hoping to lure one of the blinds in with the promise of a big pot, but they both folded. Of course the flop came A79 rainbow. Utg checks and I actually convince myself that maybe he started with a lower pp and that I can take the pot, so I push! To his credit he did think for a little while before calling with his A5 and taking all my chips.
There I am with almost $20 profit for my three hours of play and $6 investment, giving my computer screen the one finger salute. I am human after all, and we like to blame our misfortune on anything but ourselves. But after a few dozen expletives, I realized what I had done. So I promised myself that I would learn from the experience and that I wouldn’t do that again. Almost like a resolution…
It occurs to me that I am likely not alone in this process. Poker players are (mostly) a thinking and self-analyzing bunch. I have read many posts and listened to too many stories that follow a similar track. I began to think that I, at least, make resolutions all the time.
I called my father, perhaps the most thoughtful and intellectual man I knew. To test my developing theory, I asked him if he could remember the last time he immediately regretted an action. After I assured him that I was not mad at him for forcing me and the kids to fly down to Florida for Rosh Hashannah, there was silence on the phone as he thought about it. “Maybe that time your mother and I got lost after taking the wrong exit off the Turnpike this summer,” he offered.
A few more phone calls and a few similar answers later, my theory gained some weight. Poker players make important decisions that show immediate results all the time. Surgeons and fighter pilots aside, most other groups of people do not. If you are a thinking person and you get immediate feedback on your decisions, you are bound to consider changing those decisions that lead to bad results. If you don’t see the results of your decisions for a while, then it takes some outside event, like New Year’s, to make you think about them.
Later that day while on the phone with a student, we busted out near the bubble of the $5 NLHE freezeout on stars. He was yelling about how rigged stars was, and how could that JQ offsuit have beaten his AK suited anyway. I explained to him that if he would have pushed all in on the AK7 flop instead of giving a free card by gambling that his opponent would bet, he probably would have taken down the pot. It took some convincing, but he gradually came around and is now a bit further on his way to becoming a thinking player.
Before we hung up, I asked him what his New Year’s resolutions were. He had a few, including becoming a better poker player, getting a better job, and spending more time with his family. He thanked me for helping him with the first one, vowed to think “in the moment,” and wished me a happy New Year.
I was feeling pretty good about myself until my wife came downstairs with a sharp pin to burst my ego bubble. She looked at me and shook her head. “How about you get off that chair and do some exercise so you lose some of that belly?” Maybe I do have at least one New Year’s resolution after all.
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