There has been a massive amount of discussion about the legitimacy of online poker, in particular with regards to the amount of rigging that is purported to have occurred. Now before you all start reaching for your phones to contact your lawyer friend with an axe to grind let me assure you that I am not about to debate whether or not I think there is rigging in online poker. In fact, it occurred to me to write this only after a discussion with one of the owners of an online site who is more than a little plugged in to this topic. You see, before he and his consortium decided to enter the realms of online poker site ownership, he was already a poker professional of some standing and made a significant amount on the “wrong” side of the random number generator.
There was a time when I fully believed that all online poker was rigged against me and for the house, but when I finally sat down and logically thought about it I realised that if it was rigged against little ol’ me then it equally had to be rigged against everyone else. I mean, what possible benefit could a site gain from rigging anything against me? Surely, I was too small time for their attention.
When I first started playing online poker I had a good deal of success. I won consistently and quickly developed a solid reputation amongst those that played with me regularly. As people who experience success often do, I moved up to a higher level expecting that my success would continue and I would improve my efficiency. I did not. In fact, it was like someone flicked a switch and suddenly I couldn’t win a hand. My first thought was that somehow I had been targeted because I had been winning and when they saw me move up they saw their chance to get my money and suck me in to chasing it, thus yielding them even more of my money, whoever “they” were.
I owe it to two of my regular playing partners that I was finally able to break out of my “slump.” In actuality, it was nothing they said to me directly that turned it for me. I happened to be eves dropping a conversation between them while waiting to sit and one said to the other, “I have gotten to the point where I have made that much from playing, I expect to win any time I sit down.” When I looked at myself I did not identify with that statement and hadn’t for a very long time. I had convinced myself that the kill switch had been flicked and I was playing for entertainment only. In that moment I thought, “I know this guy and his game and I really don’t think he’s that much better than I am.” The next little while became a period of severe self-examination until I was satisfied that I was doing everything in my power to give myself a fighting chance. I found a multitude of holes in my game and when I was able to iron them out I suddenly began to break even, and eventually make a little bit.
In the movie, Joe Versus the Volcano, Joe was convinced by his two benefactors that he had a “brain cloud” and was going to die. He had a mundane job that he hated and was desperate for his life to change. He was told that his life could mean something if he would commit himself to sacrifice to appease the gods overseeing a tribe who lived at the base of an active volcano. Literally seconds from hurling himself into the lava-filled crater, he decided that his love for a woman was worth living a little longer for, and reneged on his deal. It was only after this that the truth about his condition came out and he was told that he did not have a brain cloud. In fact, he was in perfect health and could live to a ripe old age. He never went back to his job and went on to marry the woman of his dreams…
Simply believing that you are going to win is not nearly enough. In fact, believing you’re bullet proof can often cause you more harm than any limiting belief that cautions you against action. Regardless of your belief you still have to play the right cards in the right position for the right amount and continue to make quality decisions from pre flop to river in every hand you play. There is simply no room for lapses. With the proliferation of information and the massive amount of available games there is a lot of sharks out there awaiting your next big mistake.
I am not trying to frighten anyone away from our great game. On the contrary, I am trying to encourage those out there that are already afraid that losing is more about that fear than anything set against them by the online site at which they play. As with anything, poker has ups and downs that oscillate either side of the chance to which they relate. In a million years across a trillion hands every combination of cards and circumstances and disasters and suck outs and rises and falls will have transpired. How will you have been represented across that vast roller coaster of success and failure? Will you be one of the ones that decries the game as one for fools who wish to experience the surgical extraction of their wallet through one of their eye sockets? Or will you be one of the many that play for the love of the game with a happy go lucky approach? Or will you be one of the few that doesn???t believe in gremlins in the works, flies in the ointment or clouds in the brain that cause you to lose even if you do “everything” right?
In the “Magic of Thinking Big” we were taught that conceiving a monumental plan and programming yourself to envisage success through that concept was part of the formula for success. In “Think and Grow Rich” we were taught that what the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve. Now I am not merely a person who advocates positive affirmations. In fact, I am one of the cynics that will tell you jamming your internal radar with mantras simply doesn’t work and that you need slightly more than just that. I do not believe telling yourself you are this or that in spite of yourself or your incongruent behaviours will ever get it done. But I also do not believe that telling yourself and others that it cannot be done exonerates you from the responsibility to wise up to your own shortcomings. If you are not winning consistently nobody has thrown the kill switch on your account. No amount of supporting evidence will confirm your claim to me that you have been marked for long term losses and there is nothing you can do to stop it.
In closing, let me share the final comment of the person who originally inspired me to write this. The professional poker player and part owner of an online site who said, “I would be delighted to hear from anyone who has any evidence of rigged sites, not least because I have done very well out of playing online and if sites are rigged then someone higher up is looking after me and I would love an opportunity to thank them.” What more can I say except…
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.
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