Poker Perambulation

As a minority drop of Testosterone in the blogs on this site, I am compelled to defend my half of the specie maintenance program.

Glenda is on a tear in our Chasing Blog. You have to respect the number of solid finishes she produced. Yes, those are freerolls but those are also huge fields. Her success might rival Daniel’s good year as heaters go.

But, that’s not today’s blog. We got the old poker defense about women players. JB is far more vocal in the articles about it and has a stronger opinion than I do. I think you might find an article about it if you look at his collection.

When we start these gender benders, everyone rushes to their favorite generalization and the inevitable ‘discussion’ with even the thought of obtaining agreement impossible. So, with that optimism at hand, I continue.

I could approach the nurture vs nature argument. But, we’re all drawing dead on that one. Bright scientists have used MRI results to show that our brains are wired differently. The traditional complaints from one or the other side really don’t care. What they address are perceived inequities and we’re back to ugly generalities.

In the world of poker, there is certainly gender bias. The Internet tends to expand that as it also attacks all our traditions. Online also translates to disruption. The anonymity of the net produces extremes. The net as a whole and online poker tend to reward aggression with the breaking of rules avoiding censure beyond real life comparisons. But, it can also conceal gender.

So, with all that in mind, lets tread where Angels fear to tread. Women are different. Duhh! It is unavoidable. Evolution rewards success. As the most successful specie on the planet, we’ve evidently done it most successfully with better tools than our competition.

Poker has evolved to a more competitive structure on the net. It is a different game than Doyle defined in Super Systems I. It has been a disruptive evolution. That’s taken place across society and this could go from blog to treatise in addressing that. Some of a particular gender respond better than others. And, the poker tables provide results that are immediate.

Setting aside generalities for a moment, Annette_15 is a current success. If you look at the hand histories, she’ll enter whizzing contests with any guy. If she doesn’t get the ‘card fairy’ on her side, she is far more likely to manufacture a game that is successful. Our Glenda has a different approach and that is noticeably successful too. She has a bricks and mortar background that contributes as much as gender. It is the same game that gave “Action Dan” Harrington a bracelet.

The part that goes missing in all this is that tournament poker is asexual. The blind structure rewards both intellect and hormones. In poker, as in life, we develop an image and we use that image to our advantage. We are a deceptive specie. We are an adoptive specie. That has been the strength that brought us to prominence. That too is asexual.

What it is all about is we play the cards we are dealt as best we can. If you have a Miss America body you play the hand differently than those less endowed. If you’re Pauly, you go looking for the SOB that insulted your girl. And, if you are a smart Pauly, you don’t back a Linda into a corner with her boys behind her where she’ll gut you as quick as a sow Grizzly with cubs. Gender or intellect? I’m going with the latter. Darwin stacked the deck.

ADDENDUM:

Stolen from http://www.darwinawards.com/:
(27 July 2007, Guadalajara, Mexico) 24-year-old Jessica was working out in the Provincia Hotel’s gym when she realised she needed something from the floor below. Instead of picking up the phone, using the intercom, or just walking downstairs, she decided that the open shaft of the industrial lift was the communications device for her.

So Jessica stuck her head into the empty shaft to shout to the people downstairs. And somehow, she missed noticing that the elevator was coming up towards her. If the elevator had been going down, one could say that she was in no position to observe the approaching lift. But, leaving aside the stupidity of sticking your head into an elevator shaft, if she was looking down, how could she miss the mass of metal inexorably headed her way?

Since an elevator cage and a skull are both solid objects, one had to give. Let’s just say, the elevator won. Jessica will be missed by her family, but not by the gene pool.

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2003, California) John, a Los Angeles real estate attorney, was skimming leaves from his pool when he noticed a palm frond caught in the power lines. His education had equipped him with sufficient acumen to become a successful litigator. Yet he was not shrewd enough to avoid becoming a toasty critter, when he reached up with the long metal pole and poked at the palm frond.

John was, for once, the path of least resistance.

Perhaps as an homage to his litigation skills, his family sued both the utility company and the pool supply store, for failure to disclose the danger of poking a metal rod into the power lines.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 26th, 2007 at 8:51 am and is filed under Journal, Misc.. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.