Poker: Introspection Inco

I'm sorry to have to do a "normal" blog for once. However, I am a bit numb. In anthropology, there is something that is called the Theory of Reciprocity. The concept is fairly simple: cultures have a near universal concept of giving and receiving: what varies is the cultural understanding of the proportion in which one gives to receive. The significance of this concept to a culture extends beyond distinctions of philanthropy and "investment". The natural dichotomy is to say the context of giving and receiving varies between scales of the moral and the ethical. Sometimes it's okay to accumulate, sometimes it's appropriate to share. However, in the west it is institution that has sanctioned reciprocity in it's most bureaucratic form: "Tax". This is what is most interesting to me. When is an income ethically sound? when is it morally aberrant? This of course is an ethnocentric microscope -- the emergence of industry and capitalism are western in creation.

Having spent 4 years of my life studying classical social theory, I can't help but feel like an anachronism. However, this should not be mistaken for "obsolete". The perspective I obtained remains relevant. However, the complexity of assimilating what I've learned with what I'm experiencing spawns an enigmatic perspective. Marx's "Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right" with Webers "The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism" leaves me lost in translation. These two works leave me with this paradox: Are we better off removed from the "myths" of religion (Marx) or has the Marxist perspective of religion failed to acknowledge the existential significance of "God" in our everyday lives? Would Weber say that our Protestant Ethic has evolved to transfer our formerly religious zeal into a secular weapon of mass consumption? What does that mean? does that mean that we are looking for God in our wallets? or does it mean that God is dead, and that we have killed him? If that is the case, then is it foretold that he will be resurrected in the wake of our moral bankruptcy?

Oh Yes, I have found God, and Tilt be his name.

Basically, I truly feel as though I've gathered a subconscious guilt for my accumulation. I have taken money from people. I truly enjoy the game of poker, and nothing makes people play competitively like money. However, it would be a lie to say I haven't felt "guilty" about my little victories. The Karma line on my PT3 graph inversely represents my winnings. My up times were -EV, my recent practice of the theory of reciprocity has been +EV.

over the last 20 some sessions I've been in the negative. From my original deposit of 50$ in late January I brought up to ~134$ (very slowly). In between these sessions I was playing MTT's and doing pretty well, I was able to consistently get money in some of the 1-2$ turbos for a net of about 30$. This artificially inflated my bankroll (I was having a lot of fun trying to win tournaments), and perhaps my time spent away from playing my normal nl5 cash games was far more detrimental to my game than I previously realized.

I really feel I've been consistent in my play style, but perhaps I could use some tweaks. I think I slowly started to play more hands, and it's cost me. However, I can't figure out what's been up. Over the last week I've lost ~60$. A week ago I felt like I was dealing to fish in a barrel. Since then I've seen ruin -- Thor shot me with a tilt lightning bolt whose tainting electricity continues to resonate in my game.



I realize the possibility of the *heater* factor, but if I was on a heater then... it was... a god damned bonfire... full blown... fucking.. immolation in a conflagration.

Regardless, the graph is the objective truth. it is the mountain that I walked up, and now down in my quest for poker righteousness. I am weathered, weary, unsure, but not deterred. There is a certain level of tranquility involved in the sudden loss of slowly accumulated progress, but the road to the realization of that serenity is unmistakably painful.

I find solace in the thought that I merely returned what wasn't mine in the first place, but it would be a lie to say poker isn't still a dragon that I wouldn't like to slay. I look forward to the purging the tilting effects of the experience, but at the same time I acknowledge some things that I've learned about myself.

I truly do love to win, but I felt a deep sort of release in the dramatic loss of profit. It says that says both that I must remain humble, and that running good is as far from equilibrium as tilt is. This is a very Buddhist notion, but one that I am not ready accept as a proverb. I do still want to win.... don't I?

Has anyone else ever "been here"? or am I better off quitting poker?

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According to Pokerstars. I do not exist.



Before I realized that the the Pokerstars server was down, I looked at this and said "Where did I go?". I looked at the time and saw that I had played a few minutes past my-- well not exactly my bed time-- we'll call it the designated time frame for late night siestas. As since I've started playing poker, I have not slept very much. However, I would like to justify this trend in saying that I stay up later for the weaker competition. Once America goes to bed, Modus takes commie money. Actually, that's not true. It would be far more honest to say that I donate to a variety different time zones.

One might say that I am writing this blog because I am bored, and because the server is down. While that could be (exactly) right, I am reluctant to settle upon that conclusion. You see, my existence is a dichotomy alter-egos. By day I am study-for-the-GRE boy, and also help-plan-wedding-Man. Then my latest spawn has been Midnight-Poker-Person. I am not going to say which ego is of preference, but let's say you have about the same odds guessing correctly as you do hitting a flush 4 cards deep to a draw on the flop. My Brain Is Infected.

While I may try to romanticize my life in a way that is both exaggerated (and more fun to read), the truth is that I am at a crux in my life that cannot be shaken. I am on the cusp of so much change that I don't even really know who I am anymore. You know how when you're in school you can say that you're a student whenever someone asks you what you do? Well now I'd have to Pokerface an answer. It is unlikely that I will be able to get into any of my "top" graduate schools, but I am still trying. It's kinda sad and embarrassing to admit-- but I kinda thought if I learned poker a little bit I could use any bit of the money I gained to help me with the cost of applications. Sh don't tell anyone. At the stakes I am currently learning at, that seems like the only feasible goal that could provide me the motivation to continue cultivating an interest in poker, while also keeping my priorities in check. However, don't ask me to define my priorities, I'm still figuring that one out.

Anyhow, The empty cashier image is symbolic of my alter-ego transitions. I'm sure Clark Kent feels the same way when he sees a Phone booth, or when the Hulk sees a Pea. It is a reminder that I am composed of many different identities, and adulthood bears down on you to assimilate all of them into an acceptable package. Frankly, I feel too weird to do that.


Whether you are Superman...

The Hulk... or a pea... a pluralistic definition of self is required to make sense of your place in the world.

Just as Clark Kent is Superman by the phone booth, and Hulk is... well.. the hulk... through... umm... anger. My identity is forged in sort of transitional mobility. I am never not myself, but I am never myself completely. My struggle in adulthood is to find equilibrium.

As a reward for getting this far in the blog, I give you an image. You will be pleased to know that I am not the only super hero in my relationship, as my wife-to-be is also known as ButterFly Woman. Don't ask me what her powers are (because it's sexual).



According to the Pokerstars cashier tab--I exist again. Therefore, I must return to help fight poverty in the countries that are currently awake. I'll be damned if they all don't have another euro in their pockets by the end of the night.

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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.

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