Have a guess what I’ve been doing for the past week in amongst my NFL analysis and market trading? I’ve been playing Madden NFL on my Play Station. No, I haven’t invested in an Xbox 360 because my kids would drive me crazy playing it and I would have to ban them and myself for a month at the insistence of the wife. My superstar quarterback is an absolute joke and can throw a pick into single coverage and clean miss an open target by 20 yards with a good set. I am getting to the point of deciding whether to dump two seasons of trying to build him up and retire him early as a dud. Yesterday I remembered I have a weight bench or two, a car with petrol in it and a spare computer I am supposed to be fixing to use as a spare when my eldest kid wants to google the latest Stick Man Sam game.
Last week I went to a computer shop and bought a new wireless keyboard and mouse. I took my daughter to lunch at the local shopping centre and even found time to hurl a baseball with my middle kid. Last weekend I went to see my folks and we went out to lunch at a local restaurant and bar. It was my birthday so my mother managed to convince me to bet on a horse race because she said my luck would be good. She insisted I tell her what I was backing so she could back it too. Needless to say, it’s still running and the tree that died to print me my losing ticket is lamenting its lot.
I have seen two movies in the past week, one of which I liked and one I thought was thoroughly weird and unwatchable. I have even forgotten its name. No wait I haven’t; I was just trying to forget but couldn’t. It was called Elephant and an elephant never forgets, does it? In between times I have been developing a new NFL ratings system that is showing signs of being my best yet, but it is still early and I need more data to draw any worthwhile conclusions.
Looking around my cluttered office I see the edge of a blue packet about the size of a deck of cards up and to the right of me but I cannot recognise it. I reach up and grab it between my thumb and forefinger and slide it to the edge of the bench so I can pick it up. It turns out to be a pack of playing cards, something I haven’t seen in quite some time. I had been meaning to play the local live Sunday league for the past two months but with one thing and another I haven’t found the time to get there. In amongst all of my priorities somehow poker just didn’t seem to fit for the past couple of weeks, and coupled with the recent US Gambling bill release that has stifled the traffic at many of the online sites I frequent, I simply decided that now would be an excellent time for a break. Until the moment I looked up and grabbed that pack of cards I hadn’t even thought about poker, save for my desire to write this article about, well, not poker.
Sometimes the more we try to forget something the more we tend to become absorbed within it. But somehow this week was different. The Plasm Olympics starts today and I half wanted to play but I will be trading the NFL futures and will be too busy to concentrate on poker. Sometimes the universe conspires to provide us with self-imposed roadblocks to help us to achieve what our deep-seated unconscious knows we need more than anything. I had been noticing a mild tension across the bridge of my nose and a tightening of the sinuses such that my eyes began to water for no good reason. In the process of wiping my eyes I had to pause momentarily from what I was doing and by luck or good design was able to pick up immediately from where I left off as if I had never stopped.
I read the article of an esteemed colleague recently who began his article with the recounting of an experiment involving some scientists and some dogs. The lines became blurred at one point and nobody could really determine who was who. Nevertheless, the scientists (at least we assume it was them) decided to conduct an “experiment” in which they placed some of the dogs into an electrified harness and every time an alarm sounded they were given an electric shock. In the process, the dog “learned” that not only did the sound of the alarm mean it was about to be electrocuted, but there was nothing it could do to avoid this consequence.
Once these dogs had been conditioned to expect this electric shock they were placed on an electrified floor with a barrier separating them from a non-electrified landing. The barrier was made so they could easily jump over it and away from the electrified section. At this point the control group was brought in and soon learned to jump the barrier to safety at the sound of the alarm, thus avoiding the inevitable shock of remaining where they were. However, the group that had been conditioned to expect the inevitable did not escape and remained steadfastly and stoically on the electrified side of the barrier, resigned to being given shock after shock for as long as the scientists deemed necessary to prove their point. What was their point? That we can learn helplessness just as easily as we can learn to walk, and if our efforts to escape bare no fruit we will eventually give in and accept the “inevitable.”
I am willing to bet some of us have learned some pretty unsupportive habits and beliefs pertaining to things we consider important. This is my attempt to remind us that we are not helpless and that we can escape the drudgery of a misguided and malformed effort. We can actually change the habit that leads to the unsatisfactory performance, but sometimes thinking about how to solve that dilemma is not the answer. Sometimes we need to jump the barrier in spite of our belief that the effort is pointless, and from the other side we can see the well-intentioned but unproductive decisions of our former selves and construct the incantations for growth and potential unconsciously in the act of doing something totally unrelated.
From the relative comfort of my high-backed office chair I can hear the shrieks and giggles of my youngest two who are playing a game in which they are trying to lob an avocado seed into a large plastic toy box from across the room. They have been conditioned (or perhaps it was me) so that every time I hear the seed hit the bottom of the box the child that has made the successful lob gets a hug from yours truly. This has become a game in itself and now the child is intent upon getting good and accurate because the warmth of the hug and the anticipation preceding it is more than a little fun. Of course it has made the time required to complete this article somewhat longer than I had expected, but that is ok because it’s not like I had anything important to do, like play poker…
From the serenity of my non-electrified landing I can see the dealer waiting to fling the lacquer coated queen of diamonds and her twin sister, the queen of hearts across the felt to the rather anxious looking gentleman in the cut off. I see the micro muscles in his cheeks and upper lip find gravity as his pre flop raise is called by both blinds and the UTG and the flop comes Ace, King, 8, all spades. I smirk and think to myself, “I am pretty glad I am not him right now.” But I also know that by this time next week I will want to be him again more than anything else and will welcome the challenge, the highs and the lows with all the zeal and fervour of a poker addict. But for now I think I will watch the rest of this hand and retire to the relative comfort of my errant quarterback’s controller.
May luck not be the reason you win or lose. Let it only be a companion along for the ride.
Crazy Snake is a professional sports handicapper and amateur poker player. He has made a profit year after year through his knowledge of Aussie Rules Football, NFL, tennis, and golf. He is a senior writer for PokerPlasm.com.
Comments 3
Good article. But keep in mind the opposite is also true. While you see those rosy red queens come your way, you may also remember the last time in which you won with the ladies. So you recall that the last time you were on the button, you had slowplayed it and a third queen came up on the flop. How powerful positive reinforcement is. So you slowplay again, in the same position, again with 3 limpers PF. Again you hit a Q, and you smirk as you rake in another huge pot vs AA. A 3rd time comes again, but this time, like in when the Boy Who Cried Wolf seems to yell at you in your mind “Don’t slowplay this time,” you dismiss it and slowplay once again. But this time the Queen doesn’t show up. Not only that but an early position limper raises big…hoping that he looks like an overbet on the pot trying to take it down with top pair of Jacks. You don’t take much notice that everyone is folding behind him, you don’t notice that the last few times hes played he has done similar actions with big pockets. You go all in trying to rope him and put you on an Ace high flush draw. He calls, gleefully, taking your winnings….showing AA. You lose, in more ways then one: leaving with a bruised ego, and a feeling of shame…
Posted 04 Feb 2007 at 11:54 pm ¶Positive reinforcement, is much harder to change than punishment.
Posted 04 Feb 2007 at 11:56 pm ¶Actually, Mark, this was not an article about poker, but more general. Not really sure I understand what you are trying to say. In the absence of that surety I will guess and hope I hit the Mark (couldn’t resist that one).
Personally, I try to avoid all kinds of reinforcement, both positive and negative and live in the moment when it comes to poker. The reason is simple enough. With positive (and negative) somatic responses comes non-verbal cues that can be read by your opponent. This is why many players choose online play, because they can hide behind an IP address.
So to my mind positive (and negative) reinforcement is actually an unsupportive pattern to develop in one’s self when playing poker. It only weakens your longer term position.
Cheers
Posted 11 Feb 2007 at 7:17 am ¶CS
Post a Comment