Poker: Introspection Incognito

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Modus United States. Feb 06 2009 06:23. Posts 36

I started to play poker with play money over the holidays when my internet couldn't sustain quake live. I came back home to be around my family for the holidays, and I didn't have anything else to do. The appeal is hard to explain, I think it's unique to anything I've ever done. My initial fascination with poker had less to do with the game of poker, and more to do with emotional/physical upkeep. In other words, I was intrigued by the way that my body just sort of "acted" when I got a strong or weak hand. I normally wouldn't consider myself very compulsive or neurotic, but poker made me like a puppet with invisible strings attached. The concept of these "strings" is what caused me to play more and more poker. They are neither corporeal nor temporal. They felt in between: a conditioned response to a dynamic stimulus. I could make the same action for a range of hands, whether a pair of deuces or aces -- the action remained the same. Every time I was dealt a hand I tried to pay attention to the what my body did without interrupting it. I noticed I had a certain twitch with my lips. I would also tilt my head when I would get a marginal hand in a marginal position. I found that to be very captivating, and I took it upon myself to just try and see if I could train myself to abandon whatever feelings generated the motorized response. After about 2 weeks of playing with play money on PS, I felt like I wanted to explore this personal learning process a bit more.

I also wondered how much I'd neglected the significance of these conditioned responses in previous endeavors. I began to wonder about how many Quake or Starcraft games I lost because of this similar sort of reactions. I wondered if the tightening of a muscle group somewhere on my body could basically win or lose me the game. All of the sudden I alter the "sensitivity" of my muscle memory with my inability to deal with stress. Perhaps I would get frustrated with my in-game configuration, or my mouse settings. I would change it to accommodate whatever I felt was lacking in my mouse movement, but perhaps it was a bodily mechanism that most deserved my attention.

Since I’ve played poker almost exclusively online, this hasn’t been a significant factor in my play. However, I think it’s very shortsighted to allow these “things” to occur. I am sure it would be a terrible seed to let grow, and if I neglect it then I will be fertilizing the development of my skills with an unintentional cultivation of bad habits. The implications of these bad habits have resonated so strongly for me that I can’t help but think in retrospect about all the things I’ve done in my life that may have been contaminated by poor bodily consciousness. Maybe I’ve attained lower scores, lost more games, and obtained fewer phone numbers because I thought the problems were “external”– to me that’s fascinating. It’s not that I haven’t previously considered there being a “problem” with me in certain situations, but it’s specifically the concept of there are specters that have gone unseen through all my years of pondering. Surely I knew that I was haunted by this “something” that I couldn’t name, but I sincerely feel that my recent fling with poker has opened my eyes to the possibility of assessing the consistency of my actions through various levels of stress. I believe I have greatly underestimated the power of stressful situations, and poker has opened up a new dimension of learning for me. Simultaneously, I think that this could make for fascinating theoretical Anthropology in graduate school. I’m starting to feel my perspective as something that is increasingly organic, and authentic to who I am and what I want to do. I don’t want to just burn out on this after graduating, I want to do something with my degree. Ironically, poker has helped me realize that.

I figured the ultimate way to test this personal “theory of lukewarm nerves” was to introduce the stress of playing with "real money" online. I noticed that PS deposited 5$ free into my account sometime after new years. I played on it for about a week before I went broke. I went back to play money and played in the play money tournaments, but I longed for the chance to play with real money again. I tried desperately to place in one of the weekly free roll tournaments. I qualified in the hubble NL tournament twice, and then I placed once for 2.20$. I think I lost that money playing NL2 in about 3 days. I became frustrated to the point that I didn't want to go back to play money. I broke down and discretely made a 50$ deposit on PS. Since that time, my bankroll has proven to be bipolar. My high is +30$ and my low is -25$. I am really not a very good player yet, but I feel like I am far more conscious than a great deal of the players I encounter. My big problem starting out was that I was scared money, and this caused me to make -EV decisions in spots where I simply didn't want to risk the appropriate amount for a strategic bet. Right after I made my deposit I read the LP beginners articles and took it as a bible, I believe I played my first week of my deposit without ever deviating from it's gospel. Now However, I must declare that I have sinned. I am playing far more aggressively, and I abuse position so much in my games that I keep expecting someone aware of this to just put me in my place. Yet alas, I think that this will probably not happen at my current playing stakes. Even if it does, I think I would just be ahead to find another table. My confidence has been snowballing, and so I have made 4 nl2 fullring cash games my Modus Operandi. I’ve dabbled in some .50-1.00 tournaments, but it’s a different game, and I don’t know enough about the tournament play style for it to be lucrative for me in the way that the cash games are. That being said, I still play about 2-3 tournaments a day, and I make sure to close all my cash game tables so that I can focus on the single tournament table. Regardless of which form of poker I engage, I still am using my own body as a tool for measuring my “improvement”. However, it would be sheer denial if I was to say that my bankroll isn't fast becoming an equally significant gauge.

That said, I just wanted to write this with the hopes that a few people would see it and leave a few comments. I am very much interested in what other players (of all experience levels) opinions are of the ideas expressed in this post. Do you agree/disagree, and why? Thanks to all those that took the time to read.

I apologize for any glaring grammatical/structure mistakes, this was cranked out in a moment of inspiration.

0 votes

Last edit: 06/02/2009 06:41

terrybunny19240 United States. Feb 06 2009 13:44. Posts 13829

I read it but I am not sure what I can really reply to.

But I read it!

Motiva United States. Feb 06 2009 16:48. Posts 104

heh. It was a good read

I don't really know in what way what you're talking about could really affect your play online. I suppose I just don't think the affects of subconcious twitches and ect really affect your decision making. I mean it seems like your trying to say that the issue isn't the "motorized responses" but rather the emotions taht cause them. This an interesting subject to me, and I've experienced similar things especially in games like Quake and Starcraft with my mouse cord having to be a certain way and it would stress me out when I couldn't have things exactly as I wanted. I am still very obsessive about my mouse space during those games.

Meh, I don't really know how to respond to a lot of what you said without going into a full fledged essay over something I don't think has very big role in actual performance aside from concentration and attitude -- which for some people can have very big roles in performance. A lot of what you say I find to be very personality based, but I'm not really sure and certainly don't have any concrete evidence.

I normally don't really pay attention to a lot of the triggers for my emotions -- although I should. However, one thing I did find very useful at one point in my life was genuine mediation. Have you looked into mediation?

Meh, I've rambled a bit, and don't feel like i've really touched on what you're talking about but I figured your post atleast dignified a response.