PokerPlasm.com

Sometimes when writing an article I get tired of constructing a scenario to illustrate a point. This has nothing to do with laziness or apathy but primarily because most of the “constructed” scenarios are from my personal history and I have to relive them every time I write about them. Inevitably, the hands are ones in which I was on the receiving end of a particularly bad beat, or at least one that felt so at the time. It was one where I came out steaming and one which affected my play going forward for a period of time.

I am far from merely a poker theorist, in that I play the game I write about. Many of my subjects are based on events and circumstances from my own play and from those whom I call friend. The stakes we play at are largely irrelevant to the circumstances since we are usually playing against people who value their money as much as we do. But it is not the valuing of money and its subsequent loss that will cause us the most pain in the end. It is the seeking of “revenge” against someone who had it coming!

In a recent discussion with a close friend he was relating to me a particularly painful beat he received while playing $3/6 Limit Hold’Em on a European based online poker site. I had repeatedly warned him that it was a very different game from a US based game and he was likely to get burned on more than one occasion by a fish without a clue chasing down a draw against the odds. Now my friend is somewhat volatile and prone to, shall we say, episodes of irrationality such that any bad beat could have the potential to send him into a state slightly beyond tilt. The beat in question was far from one of the worst I have seen but it was a combination of the nature of the betting, the cards that beat him and the devastating river that made it all the more painful. You will be glad to know this is the precise version. He held AsAd and raised pre flop. He got two callers and the flop came Ah Js 6h. He bet the flop, got reraised, reraised himself and the other player capped. What would you put the other player on at this point? The turn came 2s and my friend bet again, got reraised, reraised again and subsequently capped. The river was another heart, my friend checked and called the final $6 to lose to 7 3 hearts by means of a flush. Bad beat? Not really. Betting strange? Obviously the opposing player wanted to build value into his draw. Pre flop raise call? Well, they were sort of suited connectors!

In trying to justify why my friend’s opponent might have made the play I didn’t spend any time trying to figure out if my friend had played it right, but in hindsight I think he played it perfectly and lost $70 to a fish. What wasn’t so perfect, however, and something of a disappointment to me was what happened next. My friend got the notion of revenge in his mind and began trying to “catch” his fish by unconventional means ie., fishing himself to try and get back the ill-gotten gains more quickly. What followed were several fruitless chases that resulted in my friend losing yet another $60 to add to the damage. I did not see this occur, but in the aftermath it is ironic to me that he said, “I know what you would have said to me and I MAY have listened.” I know he probably would not have listened because he had revenge on his mind and my words of rationality would have been wasted on his intensely emotional disposition.

The paradox of poker revenge is that revenge of the righteous is very rarely the result of the chase. Chasing the fish to teach him or her a lesson inevitably results in the chaser getting schooled. This leads the angry chaser to ask, “Where is the justice?” If you thought revenge was a double-edged sword then “justice” must surely be Pandora’s Box. In other contexts the mere mention of justice can lead to the most vehement of protestations that none exists, and this is not just on the felt but in far more global applications linked to the very humanity of humankind. So then, stirring up such monumental emotions over something so trivial as a game of poker would seem to be flawed in logic. But then this is what makes our game so great; that something so seemingly trivial as the fall of cards could somehow create a conduit to the very core of our identity and bring into full cry the omnipotence of our Limbic brain.

Okay, so perhaps I am overstating things a little, but humour my poetic license for just a moment or two. If anger and indignation is your response to foolishness and ill-advised and illogical chases by your opponent, how on Earth can you wallow in self-pity and proceed to make the exact same moves you were only moments before decrying as inane? So then poker is no longer just about anger, frustration, revenge and justice, but now it’s about hypocrisy, the idea of which is sure to stir up only the very strongest of all emotions and lead us to the question of mortality itself.

Isn’t this all getting a little absurd? Are we in danger of taking ourselves far too seriously in the context of a game, though important, certainly not important enough for us to question our very being. The notion that poker is linked to our identity then is not far removed from the truth for some players. The more competitive and egocentric we are the greater the danger that we will commit the cardinal sin of the poker genius and give the fish his revenge over and over again. This in spite of our knowledge that the only true winner in a game of egos is the black hole into which ours disappears when we are handed our own behind.

What is my suggestion going forward then? That we let the fish swim all over us continually until we stress ourselves into abandoning the game we love? That we abandon our pride in favour of a passive response to everything that once fired us to the core? No, not at all. I want us to ask ourselves the fundamental questions of our stock and trade. Did we get our money in at the right odds? Did we play each hand on its merits mindful of the relative action around us? Did we keep our focus and continue to pay attention to all players so that we could gain access to information that would enrich us both mentally and financially? Did we give the fish only the attention he or she deserved in the context of the game in which we were currently involved? Did we keep our emotions in check long enough to know when to hold, fold and walk away, or did we sit one hand too long chasing Moby Dick, and in the words of the famous book state, “If my chest were a cannon I would fire my very heart upon the beast!” Save yourselves the melodrama, my friends and maybe once in a while you may also save your money along with your ego. And the next time you find a fish who needs to be taught the error of his ways ask yourself only one question, “Is it really worth that much to teach this fish a lesson, Captain Ahab?”

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.