Cosmic Connections – Is Brain to Brain Communication Really Possible?

[Junior Senior]

If your not interested in hard-luck stories then please don't read this but if you like to gaffaw at the unpleasent mis-fortunes of people better-looking than yourself then please read on :-)  ......

If you read my blog (i know at least 3 people do - and thats good enough for me) you will notice that I am not currently in the best of 'nick' luck-wise. On the table of good fortune, I am quite literally the short stack. This current run of form has been happening solidly for about 4 weeks now but I would say it has been happening for about 3 months on and off. I know there are ups and downs in the game but this is the longest ‘down’ I have ever experienced and it seems like a piss-taking ‘down’. A ‘down’, where the poker gods are really having a dig at me, testing my remaining resolve and my true faith in the skill factor. But, what has really got me thinking these last few weeks is if there really is a connection or a form of communication between state of mind, the poker gods and the cards, whether they be actual plastic coated Kem variety or the floating e-cards that dance around the screen in front of our eyes.

I pose this question as my run of bad luck just isn’t normal and I really am in a very negative frame of mind right now – I don’t expect a hand to hold up, even if I am an 85% favourite – and that’s scary! It is not just a case of running a big hand into AA or having my KK cracked by AQ (that is happening regularly), but it is far more bizarre than that. It seems like whatever needs to transpire and whatever the odds of it happening… it happens! People catching perfect-perfect to beat me, or someone moving all-in with nothing to spring my trap and they hit their miracle 2-outer. I am not blaming the internet as it has been consistently happening live too but as I play more hands on the internet it seems like the e-deal is to blame. It is getting to the stage now where when I am all-in and my opponent flips over his rags, I say to myself (as an example) - “right NO Jack” – a jack being the only card they can hit (whether it be the 3 remaining jacks or the 2 remaining jacks in the deck) – I stare so hard at the screen and want him to miss so badly but ...., and as if by some cosmic communication via my brain through the ether, down the internet connection and into the servers of whatever site I am playing on – it finds that jack EVERY F**KING TIME!!!

I was watching something on the TV the other night about the powers and electricity of the brain and have heard it said a few times before that if someone believes something so strongly then they really can truly make it happen – and if one person's mind can connect on exactly the same frequency level as another person’s brain then surely they can communicate without actually talking. Look at the connection some sets of twins have with each other – one of them breaks a leg and the other one feels the pain too - and they could be hundreds of miles apart and not actually know of the injury to their sibling. So why not for example, when I think so negatively at the screen and virtually pray for a card not to come does it arrive? I am going to research into this and report back – hopefully I will learn some mind reading skills along the way :-)

Cheerio

P.S. I still haven’t found that witch I’ve been looking for! – Or maybe it’s because I didn’t buy that lavender off of that Gypsy woman standing outside M&S in Newark! – Who knows? -

RED-DOG! - is it really true that i could be cursed? 

[AndrewT]

Junior, I have sent you a reply to your post via telepathy. Hope you find it helpful.

[matt674]

Junior - i am actually thinking my reply right now...........

Can you read it??

[Junior Senior]

hahaha fking ha - if i wanted the piss taking, i would have brought a urine sample with me.

[RED-DOG]

P.S. I still haven’t found that witch I’ve been looking for! – Or maybe it’s because I didn’t buy that lavender off of that Gypsy woman standing outside M&S in Newark! – Who knows? -

RED-DOG! - is it really true that i could be cursed? 

Yes, you could be (Especially if you don't stop taking the piss)

Seriously though, I think Mrs red has strange powers

I was driving her home on the night we met, and she turned me in to a lay by

[matt674]

p.s. i read the blog for the first time recently and have to admit that all i seemed to be reading about was your appauling online luck (bar a couple of big pot winnings).

There hardly seems any mention of live tourneys yet i thought this was the area of your game you were concentrating on while your bad run continued online?

[Junior Senior]

p.s. i read the blog for the first time recently and have to admit that all i seemed to be reading about was your appauling online luck (bar a couple of big pot winnings).

There hardly seems any mention of live tourneys yet i thought this was the area of your game you were concentrating on while your bad run continued online?

your right matt - and i don't want it to become a boring bad beat diary. - maybe anoher online break will do the trick - got some good live comps in the next 2 weeks so hopefully there will be something to report then.

[matt674]

your right matt - and i don't want it to become a boring bad beat diary. - maybe anoher online break will do the trick - got some good live comps in the next 2 weeks so hopefully there will be something to report then.

The only reason i mention it is that your blog only seems to be reporting the negative things that are happening in your online game at the moment and because of this it may well be that its affecting your game in a negative way without you even realizing (like your post says the brain does sometimes work in mysterious ways!). By concentrating a bit more on the positive aspects of your game then hopefully you may see a difference in your online results.

About this time last year i had let my online bankroll run extremely low - mainly due to going to the WPT bahamas event. I continued to play the games i normally played even though my bankroll wasnt really big enough to cope. For about 6 weeks i seemed to be suffering the worst outdraws i'd ever seen - not just your usual AA vs KK but i seemed to be getting people calling my all in pre-flop with hands like Q-3 o/s. It seemed to get steadily worse and worse til in the end i stopped playing and took time out. Looking back now i actually believe that without realizing it my subconsience was putting extra pressure on my brain by telling it "you need to get a result soon or you'll go broke" and because of this my brain was taking all the negative aspects of the game and blowing them out of normal proportions.

The number of outdraws was probably the same as normal but my mind was focusing more and more on them rather than the good points of my game and as a result my game suffered. I took a few weeks out then made a deposit into my pokerstars account for the first time since the beginning of 2004 even though i still had a bit of money in my account and started back but at slightly lower levels. This time trying to concentrate on only the positives. It seems to have done the trick as i havent had to make a deposit since and my bankroll is back to a more healthy level.

THE POWER OF POSITIVE THOUGHT WORKS WONDERS!!

[bookiebasher]

You have been sitting too close to chris down notts greg.

Don't tell me that ive got to suffer the both of you tonight.

Reckon best bet is to get down early and get pissed...it doesn't matter so much then when your aces get cracked
by Habib's 47.

See yer later

[RED-DOG]

You have to BE the spoon!

[Junior Senior]

You have been sitting too close to chris down notts greg.

Don't tell me that ive got to suffer the both of you tonight.

Reckon best bet is to get down early and get pissed...it doesn't matter so much then when your aces get cracked
by Habib's 47.

See yer later

I'll be there Jim, mines a bottle of bud... and another.... and another ;-)
see you at the bar.

RED-DOG? - you coming tonight? - and i'd rather be a knife than a spoon :-)

[ACE2M]

I feel for you junior, that really is too long to be getting mullered by the gods.

I get short intense bouts but nothing that excessive, i really understand your 'i know it's coming bit' i cannot remeber the last time i won with Ax v Kx and it's getting quite comical now.

Hope it turns for you, soon. Or you find that witch and give her a proper seeing to.

[thetank]

It is getting to the stage now where when I am all-in and my opponent flips over his rags, I say to myself (as an example) - “right NO Jack” – a jack being the only card they can hit (whether it be the 3 remaining jacks or the 2 remaining jacks in the deck) – I stare so hard at the screen and want him to miss so badly but ...., and as if by some cosmic communication via my brain through the ether, down the internet connection and into the servers of whatever site I am playing on – it finds that jack EVERY F**KING TIME!!!

Staring hard at the screen won't do anything for you unless your goal is to upset yourself on the occasions when you are outdrawn.

Try the following.....

Once all the chips go in the middle, look at what your opponent has by all means, but then open another window that blocks your view of the remaining board cards being dealt. ASSUME your victory and check back once the next hand is being dealt. Doing this helps my game. While I don't believe for a second it changes the frequency that I'm outdrawn, it helps me stay cool and unaffected whatever the result of the hand.

It stops you feeling sorry for yourself during a bad run. It also helps prevent the negative pattern of thinking building up in your mind. The brain likes to list all the beats it's had that day to itself over and over again. It's masochistic like that, don't indulge it by giving it what it wants.

How often have we heard something similar to...

"I've had Kings 3 times today and every time, my opponent is all-in he hits an ace on the river, it was the same yesterday and the day before that"

With the aforementioned way of doing things, you won't know when the Ace hit or if the Ace hit even. You don't really need to, as all that matters is the end result.

Eventually it turns a scream of "F#@*-ing RIVER AGAIN, F#@* F#@* F@*-ing F#@* sticks" into an ambivalent shrug of "Oh well, next game perhaps"

[thetank]

As an aside, brain to brain communication is possible and in Glasgow, does occur.

Only simple messages can be conveyed, but they are very effective and leave a lasting impression.

Some people call it a head butt, others a Glasgow-kiss but there's no doubting that Big Jim's brain communicated to Wee Eck's brain exactly what he thought of him.

[HarlemShuffle]

I was driving her home on the night we met, and she turned me in to a lay by

 

To be honest I don't believe in all this type of stuff because the left side of my brain cant even communicate with the right side!