Variety is

the spice of life. OK, I tend toward weird headline lead ins. What can I say? Variety and poker and the pork product of your choice are enjoyable events. I’ll keep it PG and not get into further discussing The Other White Meat.

The reasoning for this blog comes from another blog. FullTilt provided the views of Paul Wasicka in my inbox today. It talks about playing to control pot size and it isn’t the standard view that most online players have. If you look at the hand as the normal online player you might grimace. His example shows QQ holdings and they are higher than the fairly weak flop. You might say, “If I don’t push hard, the donk has a chance to draw out on me.” We all had that happen. It becomes one of those gut wrenching moments at times.

The hand though is an example of many hands you’ll see the pros play. You watch a rerun on Travel Channel and there they are. You think they are slow playing against a dangerous or not so board. You wonder how the guy got to the final table. It is easy to ignore pot size – especially with the blind that usually clobber play on WPT events.

The above is a thing we should pay more attention too. But, there are a ton of things we should play more attention too. Experience has taught us all that our nice hands often run into nicer hands. We hate to give someone a draw but, at times, he ain’t on a draw. Then, we lick our wounds and hopefully play on.

The thing about poker is there isn’t anything that is really wrong. It is all in the approach. I can play QT suited every way from a fold to an allin and be right. Slow play can be as wrong as it can be right. How do you relate all that to a hand history or chatting about a hand? It is all in the thoughts. Sometimes they are good and others bad and neither have a bearing on the outcome.

I mentioned frustration level in a recent blog. It is easy to see why that happens. The card and competition are stack against us. But, they stack against all. Navigating that minefield takes us back to why Paul writes that blog. It is a good article. But, it still is so incomplete. Frozen moments in time are that way. No blind level discussion. Would he play it the same way with a different stack size, or opponent or or or…

What a great game. What a frustrating game. What an inexplicable one too.

ADDENDUM:

Our friend Iggy has made it through his mid-life crisis – at least as a blogger. He was oh so involved in the poker scene and, when he stepped back a bit, things didn’t seem the same. The ubber seemed to have gone under. Well, the gnome is back on track. It ain’t the same blog but it is readable as all getout. The last three have been an eclectic mix of enjoyment and some challenge. It ain’t all poker in his life and thats a valid option — even running a poker blog.

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Straight from NPR:

There are a lot of good reasons for people to lose weight and stop smoking ”” but saving money on lifetime health care costs isn’t one of them, according to a study out of the Netherlands.

The researchers found that healthy people cost governments more in the long run because they live years longer: an average of 4.5 years longer than people who are obese, and seven years longer than smokers.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 11:35 am and is filed under Journal, Poker Thoughts. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.