Poker Blog and Poker Gossip

So, as promised (and challenged – thank you Fiona!)

This post I’m going to discuss what I personally am sure is the number one reason that people do not learn from their mistakes.  Everyone knows and has access to tools that can improve their games; there’s a litany of books out there, training websites, discussion websites, and numerous software programs.  But, none of these will help you if you don’t realize one simply thing, the source of your poker problems is you.   Think about this, nobody else is forcing any of your decisions when you play, every bet, raise, call, and fold is all you baby!  Let’s debunk something shall we?

Luck:  There’s no such thing as luck.  There’s variance, which is a mathematical phenomenon whereby the actual occurrences in any given sample deviates from the mathematical expectations, is what many people call “luck”.  But, as anyone who is involved in poker should know, in the “long run”, these things even out.  You may miss 10 straight flush draws in a session, but if you were to track them all, you’d see you are getting close to your expectation of about 1/3 times.  It’s not bad / good luck, it’s an insufficiently large sample size.

So, what does this mean?  If it means that you “only lose when they catch”, you’re a liar.  If you “always lose when you put money in ahead”, you’re lying again.  The worst part is, you’re not lying to me (and if you are, WTF do I care?) but rather to yourself!  And let’s face it, that’s the worst person to lie to, because you tend to take your own advice – no matter how stupid it is (see previous post)

Here’s where my friend Julian Rotter comes in.  Julian Rotter was a psychologist that spent the bulk of his career studying learning – how people learn, and how to improve it.  Rotter hypothesized that people, being the insecure suckers we are, will blame others for our failures, but take full credit for our successes.  Allow me to provide an example from this year’s Stanley Cup playoffs (I just typed in “interview sports winner” in youtube) listen in at about 1:30:

Example of a winner!

And now the other side of the coin:

Not my fault!

As you can see, Palin blames the previous administration, and they mention that the previous administration blames “historical tendencies”, while Scott Walker mentions how well everyone was playing, and how nicely the set up that goal.  I’ll admit that I didn’t follow the elections enough to have a fully informed opinion, but this suits my purpose.

Anyways, back to poker.

So, just as in these examples, I’ve heard countless times other players provide excuses or rationalizations for their losses.  Common phrases “My aces always get cracked”, “There’s no sense in raising pre-flop in limit, nobody folds anyways”, “I always get sucked out on”.  These are convenient excuses for why you got stacked, and easier for you to believe than the idea that you played badly.  Let’s not forget that we use the same rationale to give us our “favourite hands”, I cracked aces years ago when I first started with 78cc, so it’s clearly the best hand ever, because I play it so well that I make tonnes with it when I hit, but lose very little when I miss.  And yet, a quick peek at my pokertracker shows that I lose 2BB every time I play that hand… surely it must be wrong somehow?

Now, as warned, take this nugget of information, and tie it in to the previous post’s topic of the Wizard’s First Rule, are you going to continue to tell yourself that you lost once again because of x-y-z, or are you going to be able to objectively ask yourself why you really lost.  I myself have read numerous books, and have pokertracker, but I don’t re-read them all that often, and I don’t evaluate my stats nearly enough, but I still wonder why some of my other friends (who oddly enough do these things) are playing at much higher limits, and making much more than I am.  Again, if you can apply this not only to poker, but to your life in general, you’ll be amazed at how often you do stupid things!

Mark

My first “real” post…

They say it’s important to start strong, so I decided to change your life.  This is something that I teach my youth at my job, and quite frankly has influenced the way I look at the people around me.  The following quote is one that  I lifted it from a fantastic series of books written by Terry Goodkind called the “Sword of Truth” (which I highly recommend), and they’ve even made a television show based on it called “Legend of the Seeker” (which I don’t quite recommend). Anyways, it’s a fantasy novel, full of wizards, knights, kings, and what not, but there are a set of rules for wizards, and the first rule (cut & pasted from Wikipedia) is:

People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it’s true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People’s heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool.

Think of all the times you’ve said or heard something like “There’s just not enough time in the day to go to the gym” – well, that’s bullshit, watch one less hour of reality television.  How about something like those urban legends you hear about?  Or, being on the internet, the ever popular Nigerian prince scam.  People are stupid.  You are stupid – but that’s okay, as long as you know it!

Relating  this to poker, it’s easy to think about people that you’ve come across that have done stupid things, or are just stupid people. Remember that guy that called with 92o and caught two pair on your AA? How stupid was THAT? Well, the stupid person I’m interested in is you. Yes, put aside your ego and realize that you’re stupid – just like me!

Now that you`re thoroughly insulted, let’s apply this to poker.  I am an active member on a poker forum based out of Canada (www.pokerforum.ca), and I distinctly remember one thread asking a very simple question.  Why are all the members of forums who read, discuss, and consider all these strategy posts day in and day out not experiencing success on the bigger tournaments?  The answer was simple for me – because of all the people playing poker, 99.99% of the haven’t got the discipline, desire, or willpower that it would take to properly concentrate on the game.  They do not play as they should, they do not study the game as they should, and they do not properly evaluate their own game as they should.  However, one thing I didn’t mention, is that they don’t even realize this, and that my friends, is because they don’t know the Wizard’s first rule.  Look for this to become a fairly common theme throughout my entries – starting with the next one, entitled “Why Julian Rotter can fix your game”

Mark

Hello all,

My name’s Mark, or online “DrTyore” (it’s phonetic). Anyways, I’ve been asked to contribute what bits of information or my own point of view on the world of this (sometimes) wonderful game of poker.

A bit about me… I’m a 31 year old man, who works with “at-risk” youth in the tri-city area. I graduated from University with an honors BA in Psychology, and consider myself a better-than-average recreational poker player. I have been playing poker “seriously” for four years now. By “serious”, I mean I have been playing, learning, studying, and tracking my game.

I play both online and live, my live games usually consisting of low-limit local tourneys and cash games. I try to get out to casinos when I can, but being that I work in social services makes that hard. I play online at Pokerstars, and Full Tilt Poker, but have also played at a few others, that I will switch back and forth on (Party Poker, Titan, etc.).  Again, I mostly play low limits, but I do play a mix of single and multi table tourneys, as well as cash games.

The point of my contributions will be, well, whatever I feel like writing about, but I can see myself mostly discussing current events, maybe the occasional player or event profile, but mostly, I think I’ll be focusing on strategy, again, from my point of view.  Now, you may be asking yourself “who the hell does this guy think he is, and what can he tell me that I can’t pick up somewhere else”.  Well, the answer to that’s easy, I’m nobody special, and I won’t be breaking revolutionary ground here.  What I do hope however is to provide a different perspective, and maybe point you somewhere that may be helpful.

I hope that I`ll have more fun writing these than you will reading them, mostly because I’m selfish like that, but I hope they won’t completely suck for you guys either!

Until next time,

Mark

… because the site is full of retarded players.  Sky Poker must attract some of the biggest online poker donks out there.  Basically people sign-up and play here because they want to be on TV.  They obviously don’t care about the money or else you wouldn’t see this kind of stuff:

*** Special Offer *** Sky Poker has provided us with a special promotion for non-us players.  Instead of the standard bonus of just 500 player points, players that sign-up through BankrollBoost.com will receive a bonus up to £500 based on how many points they accumulate.  So potentially you could deposit just £10 and receive £500 for FREE!  For all details visit SkyPoker.com by clicking the banner below:

One of the things I think a lot of the poker shows are laking in is solid humour and players just having a great time.  So, why not throw a bunch of comedians and poker players at the same table, stick a few hot girls in the background?  Well, that is the concept behind the newest poker show called Sam’s Game.  Playboy TV will be lauching their new poker show in June with such celebrities as: Norm MacDonald, Artie Lange, Jennifer Tilly, Jennifer “Jennicide” Leigh, Dave Attell and several others.

This show looks like it will be a good mix of poker and comedy with that sexyness expected from Playboy.  I hope this show does well and look forward to catching some of the episodes when they air.

Here is a preview of Sam’s Game:

Summer is here and over the next few months poker players from around the world will be heading down to Las Vegas to take a shot at some of the best live poker tournaments in the world, including the 2009 WSOP.  When you aren’t spending your time at some of the coolest poker rooms in the world, you will definitely want to check out some of the other things that Vegas has to offer.

One of the biggest highlights to the Las Vegas hotels are their incredible swimming pools.  Thousands of hot women attract to them daily, and what better way to spend your time away from the poker table oggling attractive women in bikinis.

Here is a great video put together by RawVegas.tv about the best pools in Las Vegas: