Understanding

A friend posed a question yesterday regarding how well you think you understand other people, which really got me thinking. In the end, the one thing that appears relevant to me, is that someone who truly understands themself, is generally good at beginning to understand others.

Now you can probably see where this is heading... yet another angle on the "poker as life" metaphor. If you put the effort into understanding (or at least attempting to understand) your own thought processes, reactions, bet sizes, ego, posture, movements, etc... generally speaking, you're going to be on your way to understanding your opponents.

Sure poker players are just like any group of humans: diverse and in many ways unique. But the flip side of that coin is that really, though we may have different priorities and personalities, we're probably a lot more similar than we are different.

The key here is this understanding of one's self... I'm sure you know people who appear to float (or more often, struggle) through life without the slightest evidence of introspection. They wear their ego... their insecurities... right out on their sleeve. They never seem to learn. In poker, it is much the same... we all know the guys who do certain negative expectation plays over and over, like never backing down when they encounter resistance, or always chasing bad draws for bad odds, or slowplaying tenuous hands... it's a long list.

The tricky thing about poker (and life) is that it takes an astute and honest mind to accurately assess cause and effect and truly "understand", because poor behaviours or poor plays, can often be rewarding. In life, a certain ineffectual coping mechanism, can often appear to be quite effective in the short term, thus reinforcing it as "correct". In poker, well... we all know how on occasion you can get your money in bad, over and over, and come out on top.


Unrelated, mostly uninteresting, and quite admittedly whiny tournament story:

Hero: 77
Villian: AK

Flop A74

Hero check raises all in, villian calls.

Turn: K
River: A

In all fairness (and somewhat of a salve), the "villian" really did nothing questionable here at any point in the hand... but I really struggle with not whining about this long-odds crap. I mean, 98% (according to card player's calculator), seriously. A guy said, "that happens to everyone, though", and my legitimate response in my head is "no, it really doesn't this often, does it? I don't see you leaving tournament after tournament on the winning side of 80/20's or worse".

Furthermore, I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that I truly can't even remember the last time I put something like an 80/20 beat on someone let alone 98/2 (that's worse than a one-outer). 60/40, sure... whatever... I'm not crying about losing or winning coinflips or marginal leads... I take my AJ's against KK's and win now and again, too. Hell I remember losing back to back big hands with QQ both times, which fell to KJ and AK, to end a tournament for me... sure that stings a lot, but in reality, one was a coin flip, and the other was a 70/30... these things can/do/and should happen sometimes.

I guess I'm just venting frustration, and like any bad beat story, looking for consolation that I really don't need. I know the odds. I know that way more often than not I'm the one taking, rather than giving the truly bad beats. I know I tend to play winning poker and the bankroll supports that.

Chau Giang said it best, on taking a memorable beat at the 2004 WSOP: "Poker is nice...I love play poker".

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