Why?

That is a common question. At down times it goes, “Why me, God?” At the tables it is often unanswerable. It becomes, “Why did he go to the river with that hand?” or worse. Why we do things is often something we know less than the other guy knows about us.

In the poker world and blogs in particular, there is angst galore. We seem to run manic or depressive at regular intervals. Whether we attribute that to genius or being an idiot savant changes from session to session.

I must confess that I never know when I am playing well or poorly. Even when I think I figured it out after the fact, luck is that seldom fully definable factor. There’s the occasion of the heater when we know for certain. But, most of the time, it is illusive. In a way we are lucky every time we get a good hand and it holds up. There are days when it is easy to make good decisions and others where they only seemed that way.

I am a winning player. But, just what does that mean? At the levels I enjoy, it won’t ever be life changing or get an IRS audit.

So, when I read Maxie’s blog over in our Chris Ferguson blog, I was impressed:

We have all heard the old adage that it is not whether or not you win but how you play the game, right? Well, when I get into a free tourney, the only thing I’m stressing over is WINNING! Which in itself is not a bad thing. The point is, that while I am in a tourney, I don’t WORRY and STRESS over anything else!! What an easy answer to getting away from it all and I don’t even have to go anywhere. I just log-in, register for a free tourney, and party with the rest of the world online. I bring up U-Tube in a separate window, play all my favorite old rock songs, partake of a couple Mich Ultras and I am relaxed and ready! And, best of all, it’s FREE!

If you’ve followed her tale, you’ve seen she’s been sucked out more times than Winston Rothschild III – of Rothschild Septic Service fame on the old Red Green Show. You will shudder at the bad beats she’s suffered. They are almost as bad as your’s and mine. But, ol’ Winston on that show is one of those eternal optimists. His cup is always half full. His success may be limited but he’ll never be a downer at the party.

Linda has often detailed the humanity or lack thereof at the real felt. It tends toward haves and have not. Even there chips often aren’t the factor in her writing. So, why do we so often judge ourselves based on that criteria? I admit that of late I’ve been bragging or complaining about that very thing. Never said I had it all figure out and that is proof.

So, let me quote the comment I left Maxie:

There are a lot of ways to define winning players. Those who concentrate on their spreadsheet numbers or those quoting those funny terms created with Poker Tracker may have a valid situation in defining their success or failure.

I like your conclusion best. There is no way to lose!

Maybe I should be embarrassed here. I did move up a bit and do play for ‘real’ money. But, honest! I had a ball playing freerolls. And there actually used to be ones that paid really nice $1000 prize packages. After PokerRoom (former ownership) screwed me, I used their freerolls to screw them and managed to do that very nicely…thank you very much … and also a big thanks UIGEA for one more kick in the slats.

ADDENDUM:

Been playing with and setting up the new laptop. As a laptop it is a screamer. Compared to a normal home system, it’d hit middle of the road at best. Sunday I installed a graphics game. Not a shooter but a nice D&D style one. The new laptop ran it very well. It has a graphics chip that supports the latest shader requirements. It is only an 8400GS with 128 dedicated memory. You can buy that processor for a desktop for under $40. So, it is close to what you’re likely to get in one of those sale home PC’s. But it is head and shoulders above the sale laptops.

If you have a laptop – and that seems a popular item with a lot of players – do you keep the battery in around the house? Yeah, when you do you can drag it into the can with you but you are really aging the battery. Usually, you can slip it in on an as need basis. Why would you want to do that? Well, here’s a chart from battery university:

You can see that just leaving that battery in the laptop has a pretty serious cost. It isn’t so much the dollars and cents cost. The cost is ending up on a vacation or trip with a battery that won’t make it through the DVD you brought along for the plane ride or to keep the kids quiet in the back seat. Laptops aren’t heavily cooled so the inside could easily hit 40C on the average longer sessions. Throw in the full charge and your battery is aging faster than a fruit fly.

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There are days you shoulda stood in bed. Today seems that for me. Playing the 1-2 table at PokerStars and had a set of Jacks four times — twice rolled up. It has lost four times. I got quad 8’s and made a whopping 5.10. If it hadn’t been for one of those wild hands that made it my turn — 54 bucks from my A-high straight — it would have been a buyin down. I’d struggle to a small profit and then get a decent hand and get rivered. I hate days like this.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 3:49 am and is filed under Poker Philosophy. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.