Bugger me!
How many stalkers do you need to be officially classed as famous?
A variety of strategies on display to try and make me feel bad. I've gotta say my personal favourite is "Attack of the Hateful Newbies"...lol. Some of you guys need to just relax a bit. Please realise that time spent on Mantis flaming is time wasted...nobody can make me feel bad.
So let's kick off with a quote from Phil Helmuth after he made a -EV play....
"Your criticism of me represents the way the world thinks. I represent the way I think."Really love that.
There is a lot of irony in 10 people sitting around a poker table and the 9 like-minded players all agreeing that they have the edge over the 1 person that thinks differently. Not as much irony though as hearing LuckyLloyd chastise players on the forum for being results orientated only for him to demand to see results....that has to be a lol moment for sure.
Even if I was the worst player in the world I could still justify my confidence on the subject of poker by asking how many major golf championships David Leadbetter has won??...........So why is his opinion valued and respected??
When I talk about poker I only offer comment on tournaments. Cash games don't interest me for lots of reasons...I don't have any experience to offer a useful opinion...so I don't offer one. Tournaments are a different matter though...I have played thousands of them over the last four years so my opinions are based on a lot of experience. Forgive me for not wilting to the opinions of those with far less tournament experience than me...but I do take valid comment on board.
I notice that some of my best poker is played when it is instinctive. T.J. Cloutier said that your gut feeling is often correct and I tend to agree with this. I want to explore the instinctive aspects of poker theory and this is both difficult to quantify and often conflicts with the maths. When you are faced with a difficult decision you are often pulled between your instincts and your rational thought, heart or mind stuff, and I want to understand the instinctive side of the game.
Players who are left-brain orientated gravitate towards perfecting the science route...and usually have most success in the cash format where these skills are a fundamental requirement. This is a perfectly valid way to play the game. It doesn't much appeal to me though...I mean you can give a robot that acquired skill and it will be a fair cash game player. While maths is an aspect of poker, for me it is fundamentally a game about people, how they think, how they act and why they do the things they do. Developing a deep understanding of an individual person and appreciating the way they think is a skill a robot cannot learn...and once you develop this skill it is a very powerful weapon in tournament poker. Again, some of my best poker is played when I forget what cards I have. I am just focussed on the person and what they are thinking....I mean, one of the first things we learn is to play the person not the cards.
My skill-set is such that I prefer the live game where real people and all their individual habits are on display. So while it may be true that if you bet x% of the pot you will make y profit in the long run...I tune into what the right bet is for THAT individual on that particular day based on everything I have seen and how that person feels. Of course, if you play a lot of on-line cash you loose the whole human element of the game and so it is little wonder you place a lot of focus on the numbers. I play people and I play tournaments and I have won lots of tournaments...so I am justifiably comfortable with my ability in this format.
So I come to Blonde to see if I can bounce a few instinctive thoughts off passionate poker players and develop a deeper understanding of different types of players and the way they think. But often the responses I get will be about the amount of words I use or that my writing style is offensive. Who cares about that stuff and why?? This is poker hand analysis not a sewing circle for middle-aged women. Please don't allow me to offend you. I am here to talk poker not score Brownie points by saying the "right" thing.
One thing I notice a lot with poker players and people in general is this craving of status. How much does being the "best" in the eyes of somebody else win you?? So why care?? Let's all join hands and skip around the playground chanting Lloyd is best or Flushy is best....what fun.
These players say "How could you call with that?" and make it a
statement not a
question because they only know that the "fish" doesn't think like them and is therefore "wrong". That question is actually a very important one...and the answer even more so. People with closed minds do not develop an understanding of individuality and so find it difficult to cope with. Knowing what makes people tick is a very powerful weapon in poker. In this thread I specifically used the word "son" to see if I could trigger a reaction from LuckyLloyd....and in his very next post....bingo.
Don't refer to me as "son" thank you very much
Knowing how to push people's buttons and knowing what will get them to react is what poker is all about for me. I play people more than I play the cards. Meanwhile, Lloyd goes to a lot more effort to flame me and I really couldn't care less....so a far less effective strategy. You cannot develop an understanding of people if you have a closed mind. So the people who have said in this thread that checking with the A-Q is "wrong" are being so narrow-minded. There are lots of positives in doing this. I have experimented with this loads of times and got the tournament changing result I was looking for. Mixing up your play, changing things around and doing things a bit different are all essential for tournament success...but some just say it's "wrong". How on earth do you combat an opponent playing this way if you don't even entertain the notion of it?? Wake up guys...loads of people will check here...just like Tightend did. It may not be your preferred play but if you are not even prepared to discuss the different options you will never progress. But that's your business.
New members are prevented from commenting because of this childish behaviour and that is a real shame...because they may have something interesting to say. Even better, they may have something different to say, and if they do I want to hear it. Whether I agree or not is irrelevant...I want to understand it anyway. This understanding allows me to make the "magical" plays that will forever be just gibberish to some.
My thoughts do indeed spark debate and this is, errr, a debating board....so this is a good thing yes? And the best way to show others that a point in not valid is to debate it, not squeal that it's wrong.
So let's talk poker in the New Year because I share your passion for the game if nothing else.
Happy X-mas
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