Straw Dogs

There's not been very much going on.Still off work,back still hurting and apart from the great news that my sisters baby scan went well today,there really isn't much to write about.I wrote the post below back at the end of September and as I've hee haw else to say today,here it is....


Ok,so as a result of thousands of hours of play and continued studying of the game I'm fortunate enough to have gained enough skill at the pokers to beat the low limit donkeys.I don't tilt very often and never, ever get angry and start berating the fish in the chatbox.

The first part re the hours and study are quite self explanatory but keeping calm emotionally at the table is something I want to look into further.Anthony Holden wrote that "Whether he likes it or not, a man's character is stripped bare at the poker table; if the other players read him better than he does, he has only himself to blame. Unless he is both able and prepared to see himself as others do, flaws and all, he will be a loser in cards, as in life." -- (from "Big Deal")

I recall as a teenager and a young man in my early twenties being really keen to find myself and gain a true sense of my own identity.Am I outgoing? Confident? Toe curlingly shy? Laid back? Quick tempered? Serious? Happy? Sad? We all come across as slightly different people depending on who we're dealing with at the time and it used to bother me that I could never seem to find the one true self within me.As I grew into my late twenties and thirties I came to realise that the answer is that human beings are complex and that it's ok to feel/be most of these conflicting emotions at the same time.We're all a bit of everything,it's all good and life is for living and not for paying attention to the detail all the time.

In "Straw Dogs" by John Gray ( one of my fav books) he wrote that "We labour under an error. We act in the belief that we are all of one piece, but we are able to cope with things only because we are a succession of fragments. We cannot shake off the sense that we are enduring selves, and yet we know we are not."

Yep,we're all just animals and as much as we like to think we're all unique and special the fact is that Pink Floyd had it right.We're all just bricks in the wall.



To take this nonsense post back to keeping calm at the table, a girl I went out with recently reckoned I was quite cold emotionally.I think maybe I just didn't fancy her that much, but it did get me thinking that maybe that is part of the reason I don't steam much at the tables.Perhaps I am a cold fish!

Cliffnotes: I'm an emotional robot who reckons human beings are nothing special and we're all just bricks in the wall...

Yet watching something like this clip from the amazing( especially as teenager on acid!) film "The Princess Bride" still brings a tear to my eye.



I wrote that I don't tilt often but I'm not immune.Perhaps it's just experience and because I try not to feel any great sense of entitlement when I sit down.Afterall I'm only entitled to play my best game.Having hands hold up and win is outwith my control.When it does get too much I find taking breaks and using techniques such as clenching my hands into a fist so hard my body shakes help to relieve the stress of repeated bad beats.

Thanks for reading.Back soon...