Poker Articles

We see these words a lot lately on the poker discussion board here at p5s. Gank is a popular target. Why not? He is young, rich, talented, and fairly larger than life. After all, nobody would be interested if you called out some young nobody, or even an old nit like me. Where is the sport in that?

Not one to shy away from the latest trend, I am jumping on the bandwagon and offering up my own open challenge. But rather than call out somebody and start a pissing contest, I am publicly calling out the only person that will really do me any good to call out – myself.

First of all, I dare myself to practice what I preach. It is easy to sit here in my ivory tower (seriously more like my living room but I love that expression) and cast down upon other’s attitudes. I hereby challenge myself to bring my own attitude up to my loftly standards.

By the same token, I need to take my own advice to heart. Lately I have found myself taking unnecessary risks when I get deep in tournaments. I have always said that there is a time for aggression and a time to sit back. For years I have counseled my students about the need for a balance. I feel I have lost mine and I challenge myself to get it back.

Second, I challenge myself to continue to evolve my game. A wise man once said that a full cup cannot hold anything else. I fear I have gotten too full of myself lately and that I have no room to hold new ideas. It is hard to let go of comfortable, sometimes even cherished ways and means, but I hope I am up to the task.

At least I am still introspective enough to objectively analyze my own play. More and more I find myself questioning my judgment and I like to think this is a good thing. More old wisdom says that the unexamined life is not worth living. I hope that I continue to question and examine myself with the goal of self-improvement.

I also call myself out as a man. I have always thought that a real man gives as good as he gets. I know I have been lax about giving lately. In the simplest sense I am sure I could afford to give more money to charity than I have done this past year. For the first time as I look over my year-end books I do not feel that my donations are worthy of my income and this does not make me feel good.

Giving, to me at least, has always also meant spending some of my quality time addressing the needs of those less fortunate than me. For many years this was relatively easy for me to do as I ran an after-school program at the urban school where I teach. Even though this program was non-profit and the teachers did not get paid, the district still found the cost of keeping the school open late prohibitive this year and the program was cancelled. I challenge myself not to take the lazy way out and find a worthy alternative to volunteer my time.

I fear I have also chosen to take the easy way out in my recent writing. More often than not, when deciding between two topics I have chosen the less controversial one. My thinking has become, “Why rock the boat? It’s easier just to entertain than to provide real ideas.” Hey – I read the Sunday comics too, but sometimes I also read the editorial. I will try to write some of each.

Finally I take myself to task for my home life. Ever since my young daughter sadly told me that I spend more time with my computer than I do with her I have tried to cut back a bit. My wife, happy with the spoils of my chosen avocation, is less vocal about her opposition, but I know I have let her down too often lately as well.

I don’t really expect myself to be able to do all of this overnight. Like anything worth doing well, this task will take some time. Will I have the guts to meet my challenge? I believe so. After all, I have already taken the first step.