Ask not for whom the bell tolls

It tolls for thee.

There are times when the moment calls, times and places when we can only answer what is asked of us, or we can fail . We can refuse to answer, and dwell in silence, and watch, and wait, and become unredeemed.

When they happen, they are unique. They are places of definition. They are momenents we use to make ourselves. The decision is the forging place, the crucible, where we are made or where we are undone. Where we are condemned or justified.

And some silences are unredeemable.

I answered the call, and in that moment knew myself for who I was, and knew it to be good, and watched while others stood silent. There is only to answer, or to fail the test. In and that failing they condemned one of their number, named amongst their friends. There is nothing so dangerous as the weakness of men. The tragedy of cowardice is that its failure is to the cost of better men. The justice? Those characterised by its failure are condemned to be defined by it, for simple want of truth and courage.

The common currency of true friendship is the courage to bear its cost when the call comes. To ask not for whom the bell tolls, but to act, and to understand that in that moment, one must do what is right, one must be counted upon without excuse, that one must stand in the world as onself, and live with what that means.

Squat to do with poker. But hell.

Congrats to Pauly, Spaceman and Felicia. Not that it means a hell of a lot from a complete stranger like me, but hell, you didn't ask for whom the bell tolled.

Oh I'm just a regular Joe

I play the Asshole song to stop me going on tilt at tables.

And I say to myself.

"K6. He drives really slow in the ultrafast lane. A2? He walks around in the summertime saying 'how about this heat?' That scumsucking no kicker sonofabitch. That hardword floor loving, cheap cigar smoking, porno watching warloving sonofabitch is an asshole."

Looking back on what I've just written, the idea that it helps me keep calm may seem questionable. But hell, thats pretty much my standard internal monologue. Thats pretty much my standard calm.

But I got to thinking. Ive posted about ego, and gambling, in my novitiate and yet still pompous manner. But I'm kinda taking the idea to the mat at the moment.

I'm a fan of ego. I like it for the same reasons I think churches are the poison of pleasure, for the same reason that life is short, and art is long. Ego is Al Pacinos Satan in the Devils Advocate "I've nurtured every sensation man's been inspired to have....I'm a fan of man. I'm a humanist."

Ego is what man stamps his mark upon the world with. When there is no truth, no god, when it comes down to the picked clean bare bones of living, ego is that which burns our mark upon the world. Ego burns the fabric of our time more brightly.

Ego. The positive side. A healthy ego is a solid sense of ourselves. The Greeks knew what they were talking about - "Know thyself. From this, all else follows". Its self referential, it comes from self knowledge, and it relies on little else apart from an achieved sense of balance to maintain itself.

Ego is the also Devil on my shoulder. Or so I like to think. But sometimes that devil is nothing so metaphorical. Sometimes that Devil on my shoulder is nothing more than the moron in my head staring out back at the world. And its got nothing to do with a sense of myself. Its got to do with how I'm perceived.

In general, in life, I've developed a healthy attitude to how I'm perceived. I frankly, generally, don't give a fuck what most people think of me. And its not a hostile act. Its indifference. I'm excusing family and friends from this, as, with all people, they form a dynamic and meaningful relationship with our sense of ourselves as we pass through life. Theyve earned my respect, n have come to know me, and be known in turn.

But with regard to anyone else, my respect for their opinion in general has to be earned. And its a tremendous relief to realise that I don't have to pay attention to what the vast bulk of people think.

Results orientated poker. Its something that, even with my relative newbie ignorance of perfect play, I strive to achieve. It has several dividends. Or would, if I could achieve it. I'm still having problems with tilt. And tilt, in both furious and milder forms is, for me, a function of ego. As is results oriented poker. To put it bluntly, my insecure sense of my poker playing self causes me to wrap myself in ideas, practices, and emotions, that have nothing to do with whats actually happening at the table. Reasons that are not supposed to have anything to do with it, in my finely though out, self balanced, Greek philosophised, bad movie quoting answer to life.

And thats the nub of it. I develop personal grudges against complete strangers, as represented by impersonal avatars, on a cathode ray tube in my living room. Its just like what used to happen whenever I watched Seinfeld. An inexplicable and uncontrollable rage, that overides my judgement, my sense of self. My ability to fundamentally not give a fuck about the small stuff. The blips. The random nature of life, and human experience.

Except I found out where Seinfeld lived. And I've yet to track down that chowderhead who cracked my Aces this evening with J6 off.

Ego. A sense of oneself. The security to react with indifference to things that do not fundamentally matter.

In life, its the ability to face other people, and maintain a sense of oneslf in the face of however they might choose to see you. In poker, its the ability to maintain a sense of ones ability in the face of the random nature of probability. Variance is a bitch. But so what. Probability is still top dog.

As always, my thoughts need more development and editing. But hell. I'm behind schedule on this posting gig. So I'll leave it here for the moment, with more to say when I've thought it through.

Thanks for listening.

In which our hero moralises some more

'You are all healthy people,' Dostoevsky once said in a conversation, 'but you have no idea what joy that joy is which we epileptics experience the second before a seizure... I do not know whether this joy lasts for seconds or hours or months, but believe me, I would not exchange it for all the delights of this world”

Dostoevsky was also a compulsive, obsessive, degenerate and addicted gambler. Ultimately, I think we can say that he was hooked on catharsis, on the moments of the crucible, of the cusp, of the extremes of experience. On revelation.

Unfortunately for Dostoevsky, and for catharsis junkies everywhere, the crucible forges meaning from crisis. Put bluntly, choose carefully the context in which you choose to change your life. Because the context, unwisely chosen, will kick back.

A common thread in catharsis junkies is control. Shrinking the world down to a smaller set of circumstances which are easier to understand and control. Theres another impulse at work though, and that’s pushing these conditions to a critical mass and trying to work through what happens to the other end. Dostoevsky was a roulette fiend. The context he chose was chance. Impersonal, apolitical, non religious chance. “If god did not exist, everything would be permissible”. Sounds like a roulettes players mumbled prayer, as the ball rattles around the spinning wheel.

"please god don't exist, please god don't exist, please god don't exist...."

He describes gambling in similar tones to his epilepsy, like waiting on the brink of something, standing at a dizzying precipice. And it is this feeling, this singular point, this uncertainty, expectation, freedom, this suspension which hooks him. I wonder if it lasted seconds for him. Or months.

He wrote the gambler in 27 days to pay off his debts. Later, he notoriously made a wager with his publisher, betting the rights to all his previous works that he could finish and present a novel in one month. And he spent most of his life broke, debt ridden, and hounded by creditors.

Catharsis junkies. Action junkies. Losers in love with misery. They all share the same thing in common. It is not the result. It’s the process. Its not the winning. Its not the losing. Its that epileptic moment that hangs in the air, when anything is true, when god is dead, and the rules are suspended, and any possible outcome is possible. The world is reduced to a smaller set of rules, to a shadow theatre of itself, and in the crucible of the game, the player wages part of his identity in the throw of the dice. The game is not about the money, about winning or losing. Its not about action, or beating the house. War’ll give you all the action you can handle. So will holding up an off licence. And you’ve a better chance of beating the house. Its not about walking away with double your money. If it were, why choose a ganme where the odds are stacked against you. Why choose to lose from the outset when the odds are inescapably rigged. Junkies in gambling don’t play to win. And a win, when it comes, just buys more single, solitary, dizzying moments when everything is in the air and anything seems possible.

If the aim was to win, any addict could quit while they were ahead. And they wouldn’t begin anyway.

God, so to speak, isn’t dead in that moment. Its like the seconds before a car crash, when time seems to stretch out and become elastic, motion moves more slowly, and the world is waiting to kick back in. Physics kicks back in with a bang, no matter how infinite the space between seconds seems. Bones break, bonnets crumple and glass shatters just like physice said it would. Probability. Its just a matter of time. Anything else is just the lie any addict tells themselves to fill in the uncomfortable, nervous silences between fixes.

And even the catharsis, the crisis, they may claim to be in love with, is nothing like the real world deal. Gambling provides for many people, a smaller, easier to understand version of the real world they are living in. The rules are simple. Decisions are unclouded, unmurky, and rest entirely with the individual. The power, insofar as there is power, rests entirely with oneself. The ability to risk, and to carry through that decision, can give many people a responsibility missing from the rest of their lives. No boss. No legal restraint. Its entirely out of ones hands if it is a successful venture ir not. Theres no hard work required. The odds are the price willing punters are willing to pay to make their world more simple than it really is.

And I think this is the kernel of the ego and gambling. It’s the kernel of the ego and many things. I lost? Its not my fault. I was unlucky. Lady Luck didn’t smile. Bullshit. You lost because the second you put down your money, you chose to. You lost, because you’re asking the wrong question. You lost, because you’re looking for the wrong answer. You lost because you wanted to lose. Because its easier losing than working out why you’re in love with it. You lost, because you wanted probability to tell the world something about yourself that nothing else in the world you can control will say. You lost, because you’re unhappy, and in that cathartic moment, that moment of suspension, that time when none of the rules which you think keep you hemmed in seem to apply, you don’t feel unhappy.

You lost because you want your head fix. You lost, because, no matter what you tell yourself, the winning or the losing doesn’t matter. You lost because you’re a junkie, my friend. Most of the gambling addicts that I know are alcoholics. Some have problems with habitual violence in their lives. Most have at least one oter addiction, and they talk about it, lie about it, and live through it in exacly the same way as their gambling. With alcohol, though, the moment is more obvious. Caught, like a rat in a trap. That single moments of silene? Thats the sound of the hammer coming down, my friend.

Now lets sit down and play some poker.

Thanks for listening.

Murderously terrifying two days at the tables.

Murderously. Down about 80 dollars at 1/2 Limit.

And I'm largely playing well. Normally a dip of that magnitude - in my 400 dollar roll - is enough to send me screaming back to the books. I'l still hit the books, though the two large mistakes I made, I'm aware of - they both involved pocket pairs, QQ and KK - mine, against A anything or a lower pair - were relatively minor mistakes. Preflop raise (reraising and early preflop raiser in both cases), and agressive play after the flop. The mistake was, in both cases, maintaining the agression after the flop, onto the river.

Still, the yoyo effect of bouncing between terrorised fear and thunderous rage is considerably lessened these days. I'm more confident with betting into the table with Top pair Top kicker, even on the days when that seems to be a losing proposition. I'm also getting more aggressive pre and postflop again, with a greater tendency to either fold or raise/reraise. I've cut calling with connectors down to calling with suited connectors, and my preflop fold stats are in the 75 - 85 per cent range. The average for the tables I play hovers around 60-65.

So looking at the last few days play, what types of situations have cost me the most?

Betting a premium pocket pair, preraised, against callers who I read as loose/passive, or loose aggressive. In both cases, I bet too far into the board, and calling down, or even folding at the river or turn (against the passive player), would have been the smart play. One mistake was in no limit, and I put the guy on a bluff and reraised. He was worried I had trip aces against his A5 two pair. I though about an overcard - the Ace, but mistakenly didn't figure him for an A anything hand - qq or jj seemed much more likely. First mistake - when the hell does a passive player bluff? Second mistake, if he keeps raising, he's caught a hand that will beat overcards. Third mistake - his pause before betting was not because he was on a bluff. Its because he was passive, and didn't have the nuts.

Second hand was KK against a pair of twos, which cold called three bets preflop. Board came queen high, and as a loose agressive, he raised and reraised on the flop. My mistake was in capping on the turn, as he would have bet out almost anything on the flop, including a flopped low or mid pair, but would've just called with a paired q hand on the turn, and hoped to catch his kicker. (I called this guy down for a decent sized pot later with nothing more than an Ace High, because this time, I payed attention to what his bets were telling me - one raise and a call on the flop, and a call on the turn, and I could put him on nothing, with AK in my own hand.)

In both cases, my play until the flop was correct, including aggressive betting. I played out a bunch of other hands the same way, or, on unthreatening boards waited until the turn to put in my raise - something which, when the fear gripped me, I could never do with TPTK.

Overall my play was pretty good. I caught some nice reads on playing styles and betting patterns, meaning I could pick up some pots I would never have caught otherwise - the Ace high mentioned above is one, reraising with my pocket Jacks on a q high board was another. And I generally played with patience, collecting notes on the worst players, marking down who's willing to call preflop raises with what, and storing them away for another day when I can sit down and take my money back.

All in all, calling stations, and Limit LAGs picked off most of my profits and sucked me under. K9, J6, calling stations playing sets without a raise at any stage. Not even when one memorably caught a Full House on the river against my K high flush. Middle pairs with bad kickers pairing on the river.

Apologies for the self obsessed post this time around. Next time I'll obsess about something external.

Tired. Grumpy. I wanna go home.

Not much to say today.

Working far too much to spend enough time playing.

I picked up Harrington on Hold Em this morning, on the jumbled rush in to work. Its already got Lasagne sauce on it. Or the burned, incinerated remains of "what our work kitchen diabolically refer to as Lasagne" sauce stains on it.

An infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of spatulas could all put in a solid weeks work trying to perfect this from of culinary warfare, and not even one of them could manage to accidentally aspire to these depths.

Down 7 dollars on my short table time last night, and busted out of a 200 seater tournament in the bottom quarter.

I should've learned by now not to play when I'm so tired. It was interesting, however to watch on the occasions when I was outplayed - people betting and raising their draws into me on the flop to catch free cards, which I gave them. It was even more interesting to watch when other players tried to copy them, without understanding the basic concept, trying it from early on the flop, or check raising busted draws on the river. I played weak tight, but not that weak tight.

I just learned that pokertracker can mine stats from Pokerrooms site, so as soon as my bank arrangements are sorted out, I'll be moving my play from there. The same reason why I'm going to avoid Party Poker and UltimateBet. When I sit down to play at a table, I like to play against the skills of the players I pit myself against, and not their ability to pay 20 bucks to have a piece iof software do their thinking for them. I don't like it when sites conspire with lazy players to screw me on the deal.

I've got a longer general rant saved as a draught, which it will take me a while to work up the bile and spleen to wrap up righteously, but in a nutshell, thats my problem with pokertracker. Its a fine tool for analysing ones own play, and its a vicious and weak skinned cop out for reading the play of others. And I look forward to the day when all the multitabling, observationally underdeveloped, pokertracker junkies have the crutches kicked out from underneath them, and have to face up to the brutal reality of playing at a table of people who depend on themselves to classify the competition, and have bothered to develop the skills required to do so.

Moneys just a way of keeping score. One should enjoy what one does, and take pride in your ability to do it.

But until that day comes, I refuse to play at any site that supports pokertrackers datamining abilities. Contrary to what the terminally incompetent miner reliant player may think, poker does have ethics. And those ethics don't warp around your desire to make as much money as possible with as little skill as necessary.

How bizarre

Brief session on the tables last night - I hit up a 1/2 limit ring game for 20bb in 40 minutes. A cool run of cards, and then two pair from pocket q 10, spiking the 10 on the river to beat out a slowplayed top pair top kicker AQ. He took the suckout well. My best short session result in quite a while. And an interesting experiment, overall, in aggressive play.

I wound up slightly ahead of that after another 30 minutes of cold cards. A strange table, yoyoing from ultra tight to near family flops in the space of a few hands.

Play of the session, putting the bb LAG on A low when he raised preflop with one other player in the hand - me, and reraising with A6o to knock out the rest of the field and hit the flop heads up. The call could have gone all sorts of wrong, but his call of my reraise on an A Q 9 rainbow flop made me think I was right. He held A5, and failed to pair his kicker, and called to the river. 6 on the turn. Nice. A lot of bets to lay out to find out about a hunch though. The key....observation. He slowplayed premium hands shorthanded, and fastplayed a anything always.

But I've still got a lot to learn about the discriminate application of aggression.

Speaking of which, I read HDoubles post on beating low stakes no limit hold'em, and the profit prospects seem a lot more interesting than low stakes Limit. That said, I need to improve my Limit play before I can graduate to the heady heights of 100 dollar buy in big bet poker.

Sarcasm is entirely at my own expense.

Specifically. Pay attention. Observation, of betting patterns, showdowns, and position play (specifically how people ignore it). Tiltability. All these things conspire to make me money. Ignoring them is at best impolite. Not paying attention has cost me heavily, in both winning and losing sessions.

I have been getting better with laying down sucked out losing hands, and slightly better at betting back into semi/total bluffs. But it still needs a hell of a lot of work. Theres no need to rub in a losing hand by paying to see what beat me on the river every time. Observation is key here. Sometimes the congenital bluffers and the river rat kings are the same people. And sometimes they are not. And the difference in laying down a hand, or raising against the bluff is as simple as watching whats been going on for the last 20 minutes.

If I'm stating the obvious here, be assured, its entirely for my own benefit.

Tournaments and tilt

I caught my second multi table tournament success this evening. 7th out of 230 in a 5 dollar NL game.

I've played three since reading Cloutier and McEvoys Campionship No Limit and Pot Limit Book. And when I say reading, I mean reading rereading, photocopying, underlining, highlighting and then copying out.

I have no life.

But the last three tournaments have given me the best results of my limited tournament experience - two final tables (6th out of 130, 7th out of 230), and a top 40 finish in a 200 field. Where I didn't listen to the book. KJ is not a hand to go to bat with from early.

Of course, I sat down at a 1/2 limit table with my new found arrogance, and it casually spent my hard earned money from me, with a cheeseeating grin that the whole table could read as money. Chasing a flush on a double paired board? What. Thats beyond arrogance. Thats penetrated right through ignorance, and barely even stopped at stupidity, and finally ground to a halt at some perversely inspired polar opposite of divine genius.

One or two beats at the table, which my arrogance determined would cost me more than they should..."no one at this table could possibly play well enough to crack my pair of queens, all shall bow before them, and know me for the player that I am." 6 9 offsuit, if I remember correctly. Top pair top kicker from my early raised AK going down in flames to the small blinds 10 7 o. How could he not believe a player as obviously good as me couldn't beat his flopped full house.

The beats are not the problem. Its pursuing them with perseverence that is. Hell. Call me Ahab.

Still, a pleasing day over all. I finished up for the day, my earlier solid play at the ring games having paid my tournament fee - which was refunded as a final table perk - and made enough on top to soak up the loss of most of my tournament win.

But more importantly, lesson learned. Theres no such thing as deserves to win.

That and my pre flop fold stats are closer to where I'd like them to be, and despite the problems, what intelligent application of aggression I made at the limit tables paid off. I'm beginning to make an impression on the tighter 1/2 tables - posted 3 out of 4 winning sessions at tables that would've murdered me last week.

Sudden illumination from within

Well, maybe not illumination.

What counts as read for a more experienced and better player hits this newbie like a blinding revelation.

I had a bad run of a couple of days. In fact, I'm still having it. And I took the opportunity to analyse my play. How much of this is my fault, my problem. How can I minimise the effect of whats not. Crisis affords few opportunities, I guess, but one of those is the opportunity for catharsis.

And amonst the many issues which I still don't have the expertise to resolve, I began to understand the general structure of my play, and the type of game I'm trying, at the moment, to develop for the ring games I'm playing in.

The structure seems simple, and I think thats a plus for someone early on the learning curve like me. And its that I'm trying to create a style of play that provides me with easy decisions in uncertain situations, and ideally places me in situations where I tend to make complex or difficult decisions where I have enough information to play them well.

Specifically, playing premium hands, or drawing hands with regard to position. Folding pre or on the flop on a regular basis, and keeping a watch on showdowns and hand histories to work back and find a picture of who it is I'm playing against.

As I said, the obvious is, to the uninitiated, often stunning.

But the key here is observation. Betting patterns, hand histories, opponents hand selection, and watching the ebb and flow of aggression at the table.

The next level of this, is to create situations of uncertainty for your opponents, forcing them into situations with regard to you where they are faced with complex decisions themselves, and they may not have the correct or sufficient information to make the right move.

And I guess my main weapons in creating these are creating a particular table image, ideally including a couple of showdowns, and watching how the dynamics of the table reshape themselves around what I'm communicating. And when the dynamic changes enough, there seems to come a moment when opportunity crystallises, when you can use what your opponent thinks they know about you to hit them up. If your image is tight, the table dynamic will tell you when you can hit the table with a vicious all out bluff. If its loose, when you can fast play hands that you would have check raised with previously.

Its only since I stepped up to 1/2 limit tables that this later point has come into play.

And the general structure of my play? Well, it helps me avoid hands where I don't have enough information to confidently make the right decisions. I hit any new table with a tight agenda, betting and check raising with premium hands, folding often on the flop, and slow playing monsters until the turn. Any premium pocket pairs or premium paint cards I'll play straightforwardly, raising or reraising preflop. No bluffing for the first thirty minutes, or until I've shown down some winners - whicever comes later.

The idea here is severalfold. Hand selection is of prime importance in profitablitity. And in the arly stages of a ring game theres the added advantage that players may read frequent pre flop/flop folding as weak, and try to come over the top of your made hands when they hit. It also sends out the massage that if I see the river, I've probably got you beat.

Check raising has several functions, but with regard to table image it says, I fold a lot, but I'm not weak. If you're gonna bet against me, you're gonna have to think hard about whether your hand can stand a reraise. My check does not always mean a fold.

No bluffing tells the table that you mean what you say. A bet means I have a good hand. A check raise means I have a hand. Slowplaying until fourth means I've probably got you beat.

And if you want to win, your kicker better be good, your flush probably needs to be high, and the ignorant end of the straight is not a good place to be. If your pair isn't the top on the flop, you better quit if I bet.

And then the dynamic changes. In severe scenarios, people who would normally see many hands begin folding to my big blind, or bet on the end. Some players avoid a hand if I'm already in. My reraises preflop thin the field to near nothing, and I'm winning limit hands without a showdown. And I've been watching, reading hand histories, and taking notes.

And the table, or certain players, are ripe for a changeup. I can avoid tight aggressive players, and know they'll probably avoid me. I can bluff, and have a formerly loose limit table fold to my raise. I can raise or reraise the flop and have my draws see the river for free. And in those complex situations, holding pocket queens on a king high board, flopping an ace on a rainbow board, with A little suited in late, weaker opponents will tend to put me on the better hand that my bets tell them I might have. I've made then have to think about whether their hand can hold up against the type of player they think I am. I've given then the difficult situation to deal with, and what was a straightforward decision now becomes a lot more tricky.

In short I'm in heaven.

At the moment, though, I'm in hell.

The novice speaks

Bill Rini has had a stack of excellent posts recently.

He's got an interesting post about signup and retention bonuses, and the pros and cons in terms of profitability from the poker site perspective.

As a newbie, I view bonuses as a crutch. They provide a useful way to cover the cost of experimentation, levelling up, and in general catching enough of the learning curve until I can hold my own. Which I'm doing. Bonuses cover the cost of my incompetence. They're also a handy bankroll builder for the lower limit player.

As it stands, this type of bonus structure has several advantages. As a new player it mans I'm playing with a more limited liability. And that sense of security, whether it be ultimately real or imagined, is enough to keep a lot of new players still donating to the games, who would not do so if they had to face the risk unsupported.

The new player benefits, specifically, the new player who is willing to learn, benefits. The experienced player whose income comes, significantly, I suspect, from capitalising on their greater skill and knowledge, benefits from a site supported supply of limited risk learners paying for the priviege of experience.

And the site benefits from a customer retention and recruitment perspective. You can offer all the 20 dollar bonuses you want to someone with a 10'000 roll, but what really keeps them playing at your site, I think, is a stable supply of games that they can beat. The smart move for the skilled and bankrolled player, I think, is to trade off on bonus whoring and concentrate on hitting up the right games for an hourly rate. That said, my long term plans are aimed at getting me into a position where bonuses are almost completely irrelevant. A 90 dollar bonus for sitting on your site for a month is a pleasant gesture. But the real reason I should be sitting down is that your tables are tables I know I can beat. Bonuses come and go. Whether I have the skill to beat the game is something I'm stuck with.

A final word to sign off on this somewhat frothing rant.

I've lost count of the amount of posts I've read of people multitabling to clear bonuses. Sitting down and baking in the glow of several screens on a Saturday morning to hit up some site for a monthly comp. And a large percentage seem to run close to breaking even. Sitting down for a morning og 8 table grind doesn't strike me as a way to work on your game. And it sure as hell seems like a waste of a Saturday morning.

Wouldn't a paper route be more profitable? It would sure as hell beat the hourly rate.

Compulsion, obsession, and the darker angels of our nature.

It doesn't take much for the darker angels of our nature to bare their anonymous teeth. Anger, rage, compulsion, obsession, taboo, jealousy.

Theres a common thread of venality that binds man to his brothers. And we have the thin veneer of civilisation to thank for wrapping up this subtle self that we all contain in a social contract of politeness, legality, constraint, and mutual benificience.

But anonymity has always been the enemy of the civilised project. Anonymity affords the greater mass of us the opportunity to shrug aside some of the looser conditions of our everyday behaviour. Anonymity allows us to exert a peculiar control over ourselves that we would not generally otherwise choose to exercise.

We're not always nice people when nobodies watching.

Plato asks a question in a parable. The parable of Gyges ring. Gyges ring conveys invisibility upon the wearer. What man who posessed it could possibly resist the opportunity to enrich himself, when absolved of the consequences of guilt.

In a nutshell. Morality is what you can get away with.

Tha parallels between online anonymity and Platonic invisibility are there to be seen. We can divorce our actions from their most obvious of consequences. Its easier to con a man, to lie, and chet and steal, when you don't have to look him in the face.

Poker offers to many players one of the few arenas in which they can exercise almost complete economic control over their fate. Its a game built on deception. It punishes the weak. It punishes kindness, generosity, and mercy. It measures itself in money. Dollars and cents, pounds and euros are the limited language of its success. And in its online guise, the anonymity offered makes fleecing the marks that much easier.

Would you sell an alcholoic a bottle of whiskey, or a junkie a hit of heroin. Would you fleece a gambling addict for his last dollar and feel good about the accomplished superiority of your play. Would you steal from the sick and post about how professional you were?

Its a difficult world, and you have to be careful about who you choose to be. Because in the end, its not civilisation that will judge you. At the end of it all, we are left with only ourselves, and what we have made of that. And its a subtle truth, too tenuous and thoughtful a thing for many who will have to live with it. And the tragedy of life is in unkowingly making of ourselves something that we secretly come to hate.

I like poker. I might even be good at it. But, in thoughtful response to my little blogs post, you have to be careful with who you become. Or ot might just sneak up on you one day. Money is a problem to be solved. It is too petty a thing to be an end in itself. Work to live, or live to work?

Letting the Days go by

So. Well. Here I am.

For some reason, Talking Heads lyrics are rattling around the addled remnants of my mind.

"And you may ask yourself...how did I get here,...

And you may ask yourself, How do I wok this"

But hell. Thats not important right now. What is important is this. I'm a brand spanking new, still flapping on the beach, poker player. Like a fish out of water. But that could just be the first step in a painful evolution.

I started about 6 weeks ago, an the 25/50 limit table on Pokerroom, and I've been playing 50/1 for two weeks solid.

And I'm not doing too badly. I've had my fun filled adventures in the furious land o'tilt. I've had terrible streaks compunded by boneheaded plays. I've made subtle mistakes, and had the pleasure of understanding them, and ironing them out. I've made less subtle mistakes and watched them baton charge my bankroll.

And after 6 weeks I'm still ahead of the game. Not by much, but by enough to think that I can stay ahead.

And each time my Pocket kings or flopped trips are beat out by an inside straight on capped betting, I'm ahead enough to think this single, solitary, comforting thought.

"O brave new world that has such suckers in it."