A few days ago, I caught this article over at the L.A. Times. The article describes a study in which 198 pro, semi-pro, and recreational poker players were asked whether they used a variety of stimulants and drugs. Not surprisingly, a lot of poker players admitted to using caffeine and energy drinks for an edge. What is surprising, given the small study sample, is that some players admitted to using amphetamines, cocaine, and valium? I'm not entirely sure that would give you an edge...
Poker ≠ Baseball
I have a few problems with this article. First of all, in the world of sports, performance-enhancing substances refer to substances that give one a physical edge--Steroids for muscle mass, red blood cells for increased oxygen intake, and much more. My problem with the article is that it equates poker with sports like cycling, baseball, etc. by its use of jargon. Whereas steroid use has lead to insane home run numbers in Major League Baseball, the edge that caffeine or energy drinks would give, let alone other, more potent drugs, is marginal at best. Essentially, the performance-enhancing substances of the poker world are akin to the corked bat of baseball, i.e. the edge given would be purely psychological. In poker, there just isn't a substance one can take that will make one smarter, more alert, more skilled, etc. without having a profound negative effect on other aspects of that person's game.
It Isn't Performance-Enhancing if, Well, You're Losing
I also have a major problem with the study cited in this article. I found it curious that in a study on performance-enhancing substances in poker, they put pros and recreational players in the same study without any measurement of how successful they were at playing poker? A performance-enhancing substance has the connotation of improving one's skills or abilities, and this wouldn't be the case if some of the subjects were big poker losers. That would be something else entirely, like a drug problem. Furthermore, I do not know any other arena of competition where alcohol is considered a performance-enhancing substance.
Overall, I found the initial topic of the article to be of interest, but the article and the study it cites is flawed. The study featured a sample size that was too small and included way too many substances that would be of little performance-enhancing value. The author even seemed surprised when she wrote, "The study did not include the use of anabolic steroids." I am not sure how anabolic steroid use would be relevant to poker, other than to give someone a major tilt/'roid rage meltdown that would make Phil Hellmuth look like Phil Ivey. This is just a case of a journalist with little poker experience trying to dig up dirt.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Report from the Felt Vol. 1, Issue 2
To people who know me, it was no small secret when I took a break from online poker. I didn't announce the break to anyone who'd listen or spam Facebook relentlessly to let everyone know. That isn't my style. When I went on my poker break, it was more incognito. People, however, could tell that something was up with poker. No longer was I talking about poker at every moment, trying to pull anyone with the vaguest notion of what poker is into my exciting world. Even though I was very excited, I was not overconfident. Everyday I marveled at the fact that I was able to win anything at all in poker. Playing online always seemed like an automatic losing proposition. It always seemed like the game I could never completely grasp. That excited feeling didn't go away, but rather, I did suffer a blow to my confidence that forced me to step back from the game and hit the books (and forums)!
I found some serious initial success playing 6-max cash games, but in a series of hands, I found myself down three buy-ins. Three buy-ins, gone as if I never had them. And how? I didn't completely understand. I shared some key hands with an online pal of mine, and he pointed out that perhaps I should rethink how I played Top Pair-Top Kicker. I put in some time, read some online sources he sent me, and sure enough, he was right! My post-flop play had improved tremendously, but there were still serious holes in my game. At that moment, instead of going back to the tables and maybe tilting away some more money, I decided it was time to hit the books hard and sharpen my edge.
Two weeks passed before I was ready to take my place at the tables. I started getting the poker itch. It came on slowly. At first, I found myself drifting more and more to Youtube, where I'd watch some poker videos. Then, I thought about what I would play when I returned to my game. Right before I returned, I was dying to play. However, something was still missing. Several days passed, and I caught a video of Ted Lawson:
Now before I offer up my commentary, even though I've been a fan of poker since 2005, I never really followed the World Series of Poker. I was only a fan of the games themselves. It wasn't until very recently that I began to watch WSOP videos and catch up on everything I had missed. When I initially saw this video, I thought that Lawson was the biggest idiot and/or donkey (and in reality, he might be). Just an idiot with money, it seemed. However, I was really surprised when I saw this next video from the same 2008 WSOP event:
I was completely surprised to see him take down that same tournament. Three tournaments all time? Yeah, it's likely that Lawson got lucky, but really, you have to get lucky to win any tournament with a large field. I kept watching. That's when I saw the bit at the end when he was asked the question, "So this is your first tournament at the World Series and only your third tournament overall, did you feel like you might be in over your head or thought it might be your day?" His response? "Well, the truth of it is, I expect to win..." That's the attitude I wanted to have! Even though I couldn't really draw inspiration from his play, his top-notch attitude is ultimately what put him in a position to win the tournament (with the aid of favorable situations and cards and everything else that goes into a WSOP bracelet). If an outmatched amateur can have this attitude at the WSOP, surely the worst of my opponents do. Feeling inspired, it was time to return to the felt!
I've seen success since i've returned, playing Sit N Go's of all things. I haven't complained at all about 'bad play' or 'suck outs' and really, I'm playing my A-game right now. I hit a hot streak when I came back, which surely helped, but even over some rocky sessions, I haven't even felt close to tilting. Later this week, I'll go over what Sit N Go's I've been playing, and also give everyone a review of a book I'm reading (Sit 'N Go Strategy: Expert Advice for Beating One-Table Poker Tournaments by Collin Moshman). I'll also share some of my own thoughts about Sit 'N Go play. Until then, see you at the tables!
I found some serious initial success playing 6-max cash games, but in a series of hands, I found myself down three buy-ins. Three buy-ins, gone as if I never had them. And how? I didn't completely understand. I shared some key hands with an online pal of mine, and he pointed out that perhaps I should rethink how I played Top Pair-Top Kicker. I put in some time, read some online sources he sent me, and sure enough, he was right! My post-flop play had improved tremendously, but there were still serious holes in my game. At that moment, instead of going back to the tables and maybe tilting away some more money, I decided it was time to hit the books hard and sharpen my edge.
Two weeks passed before I was ready to take my place at the tables. I started getting the poker itch. It came on slowly. At first, I found myself drifting more and more to Youtube, where I'd watch some poker videos. Then, I thought about what I would play when I returned to my game. Right before I returned, I was dying to play. However, something was still missing. Several days passed, and I caught a video of Ted Lawson:
Now before I offer up my commentary, even though I've been a fan of poker since 2005, I never really followed the World Series of Poker. I was only a fan of the games themselves. It wasn't until very recently that I began to watch WSOP videos and catch up on everything I had missed. When I initially saw this video, I thought that Lawson was the biggest idiot and/or donkey (and in reality, he might be). Just an idiot with money, it seemed. However, I was really surprised when I saw this next video from the same 2008 WSOP event:
I was completely surprised to see him take down that same tournament. Three tournaments all time? Yeah, it's likely that Lawson got lucky, but really, you have to get lucky to win any tournament with a large field. I kept watching. That's when I saw the bit at the end when he was asked the question, "So this is your first tournament at the World Series and only your third tournament overall, did you feel like you might be in over your head or thought it might be your day?" His response? "Well, the truth of it is, I expect to win..." That's the attitude I wanted to have! Even though I couldn't really draw inspiration from his play, his top-notch attitude is ultimately what put him in a position to win the tournament (with the aid of favorable situations and cards and everything else that goes into a WSOP bracelet). If an outmatched amateur can have this attitude at the WSOP, surely the worst of my opponents do. Feeling inspired, it was time to return to the felt!
I've seen success since i've returned, playing Sit N Go's of all things. I haven't complained at all about 'bad play' or 'suck outs' and really, I'm playing my A-game right now. I hit a hot streak when I came back, which surely helped, but even over some rocky sessions, I haven't even felt close to tilting. Later this week, I'll go over what Sit N Go's I've been playing, and also give everyone a review of a book I'm reading (Sit 'N Go Strategy: Expert Advice for Beating One-Table Poker Tournaments by Collin Moshman). I'll also share some of my own thoughts about Sit 'N Go play. Until then, see you at the tables!
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
The Mindset of Success
Republished from a blog I wrote on bluff.com.
I really like driving. Well, let me try to say that a different way. I hate driving. I hate traffic, I hate the wasted time, and I hate the drudgery of driving the same route day in and day out. I love the opportunity that driving affords. It affords, above all else, the time to actually THINK. Most of the time I drive around with the standard NPR fare on the radio, but even when it's on, I'm often immersed in my own thoughts. In a world that moves and changes at an ever-increasing velocity, it's the one time I can think without any outside interference.
During one of my average weekday commutes, I was thinking about my newest hobby, when I made an interesting correlation. Back between 2004 and 2006, on a whim, I found employment as a telemarketer. Fresh out of high school, the opportunity to work with a few of my friends and work somewhere that sounded challenging appealed to me. I really had no idea what I was getting into. I didn't realize it, but I really was about to put my mind through one of its biggest tests to date. In the end, telemarketing may have helped prepare me for a poker hobby.
I quickly caught on to the art of telephone sales, selling newspaper subscriptions for newspapers across the country. I'm sure it helped that the first call I ever took was a sale. However, as the newness and excitement of the job quickly faded after a month or so, I was left with a big challenge. Faced with sales variance, repetition, and difficult call recipients, I was forced to find a way to grind my way from base pay into commission week in and out.
Variance, even though that's not what we called it, played a big role there. Despite my skills, sometimes I would run into call after call of angry people who either were angry at all telemarketers or had been called numerous times, and find myself well below the minimum one sale per hour required. Other times, I would be walking on air making sale after sale. The times where I made sale after sale were easy. After all, I felt like king of the world, like I could do anything. The big challenge was dealing with the dry spells.
When things weren't going good, the internal battle would begin. At first, I would be able to recognize that I was probably just getting unlucky but when things continued to go bad, thought of doubt would creep in. Sometimes I would desperately change up my sales pitch, hoping that it would change something for me. Other times, I would ask an assistant manager to listen to my calls to see if he could offer any critiques that might help me that day, to see if there was something I could improve that day. Sometimes these things would help. Other times they would not. If you were below sales expectations, sometimes they would send you home. They would do that not because they were mad. In fact, they were very invested in everyone's success and wanted you to succeed. They sent people home because no matter how good you are, sometimes you just needed to hang it up for the day. I'm sure it saved them money but oftentimes it helped save my attitude for the long term. The next day, I could come in with a fresh approach. My job was always there the next day.
To succeed over the long term in telemarketing, there were a few skills that were important that helped me. When I first started, I was provided with a script. It covered all three of your required pitches plus a sheet of answers to objections. If one followed this, it helped turn you into a break-even telemarketer. It was enough to keep your seat. To succeed however, I listened to coworkers on the phones when I wasn't on a call, trying to pick things up. This helped but didn't lead to immediate success. What lead to success was taking the scripts and what I learned from coworkers and blending it into something that was my own and also something that was flexible that I could adapt to particular situations and people. The skills to not only synthesize techniques but also make them my own were essential to becoming successful and making a hefty commission almost every week.
Another skill that was vital was my attitude. I had a teacher in high school who was a silly man but he was always strangely positive. I asked him about this one time, and he told me that even when you feel negative about a situation, even pretending to be positive can have a positive impact not only on your mindset but the mindset of others. I put that into practice not only at telemarketing but in life. Granted, I do show other emotions. I'm not some sort of happy freak, but when it counts, like at work or at the poker tables, I carry the positive mindset. To me, it really is essential to being successful at anything. Especially in life, being more inclined to view things positively is the mindset of a leader. Like I tell people at work, identifying problems is great but things don't begin to change until you offer solutions.
So when I was a telemarketer, I put this mindset to use day in and day out. Even if I felt unsure about how I would do on the phones selling that day, I talked like I already knew it was going to be a great day. And nine times out of ten, it was. I knew the coworkers I wanted to talk to at work, too. I didn't want to talk to the guy complaining about his string of "almost sales" or the woman who complained that everyone she talked to that day hung up on her. Like a virus, those people would eat away at my mindset and my confidence. The coworkers I wanted to talk to were the ones who were upbeat and positive. Even if I was only doing so-so, I wanted to talk to the guy who was on fire. Together, our positive energy and thoughts would help us. With telemarketing, like in poker, the battle was keeping your head in the game. Even if things got bad, you wanted to keep your head in the game so that when opportunities came about to make money, you could extract maximum value. If I let negativity eat away at me, I could let sales go that I could have gotten on any other day. It was essential to believe in my skills and abilities and that if I kept to my A-game, the sales would come. And they always did.
It might seem like a stretch to everyone else, but I feel like telemarketing not only taught me a lot about myself and my resiliency but also gave something back. I'm sure that I had a personality and attitude suited for it, but like any talent or ability, it allowed me to train my mental endurance day in and out and payed me well when I succeeded. Even though my journey is still in its infancy, I feel like telemarketing helped prepare me for a poker hobby. The mindset, the endurance, just about everything has helped me so far. That's why if you ever talk to me about bad beats or how you got screwed out of a pot, I really won't care to hear it. In the worst case scenario, you throw me off my mindset and my game. Best case scenario, its the same except maybe you feel slightly less angry about it. When you put in the time and effort to learn, review, and improve, sometimes you just have to know that you will succeed. When you lose to a runner-runner or someone hits trips on the river, you just have to know in the long run, that's money. Money in the pocket's money in the bank.
So sorry for the long blog entry but that's what I think my edge is. I have been in this situation before--In a long grind upwards, where I constantly have to reassess and analyze my mindset, my skills, and my plays. Somedays I am successful. Somedays I find holes in my game. Other days, I just have to hang it up.
I really like driving. Well, let me try to say that a different way. I hate driving. I hate traffic, I hate the wasted time, and I hate the drudgery of driving the same route day in and day out. I love the opportunity that driving affords. It affords, above all else, the time to actually THINK. Most of the time I drive around with the standard NPR fare on the radio, but even when it's on, I'm often immersed in my own thoughts. In a world that moves and changes at an ever-increasing velocity, it's the one time I can think without any outside interference.
During one of my average weekday commutes, I was thinking about my newest hobby, when I made an interesting correlation. Back between 2004 and 2006, on a whim, I found employment as a telemarketer. Fresh out of high school, the opportunity to work with a few of my friends and work somewhere that sounded challenging appealed to me. I really had no idea what I was getting into. I didn't realize it, but I really was about to put my mind through one of its biggest tests to date. In the end, telemarketing may have helped prepare me for a poker hobby.
I quickly caught on to the art of telephone sales, selling newspaper subscriptions for newspapers across the country. I'm sure it helped that the first call I ever took was a sale. However, as the newness and excitement of the job quickly faded after a month or so, I was left with a big challenge. Faced with sales variance, repetition, and difficult call recipients, I was forced to find a way to grind my way from base pay into commission week in and out.
Variance, even though that's not what we called it, played a big role there. Despite my skills, sometimes I would run into call after call of angry people who either were angry at all telemarketers or had been called numerous times, and find myself well below the minimum one sale per hour required. Other times, I would be walking on air making sale after sale. The times where I made sale after sale were easy. After all, I felt like king of the world, like I could do anything. The big challenge was dealing with the dry spells.
When things weren't going good, the internal battle would begin. At first, I would be able to recognize that I was probably just getting unlucky but when things continued to go bad, thought of doubt would creep in. Sometimes I would desperately change up my sales pitch, hoping that it would change something for me. Other times, I would ask an assistant manager to listen to my calls to see if he could offer any critiques that might help me that day, to see if there was something I could improve that day. Sometimes these things would help. Other times they would not. If you were below sales expectations, sometimes they would send you home. They would do that not because they were mad. In fact, they were very invested in everyone's success and wanted you to succeed. They sent people home because no matter how good you are, sometimes you just needed to hang it up for the day. I'm sure it saved them money but oftentimes it helped save my attitude for the long term. The next day, I could come in with a fresh approach. My job was always there the next day.
To succeed over the long term in telemarketing, there were a few skills that were important that helped me. When I first started, I was provided with a script. It covered all three of your required pitches plus a sheet of answers to objections. If one followed this, it helped turn you into a break-even telemarketer. It was enough to keep your seat. To succeed however, I listened to coworkers on the phones when I wasn't on a call, trying to pick things up. This helped but didn't lead to immediate success. What lead to success was taking the scripts and what I learned from coworkers and blending it into something that was my own and also something that was flexible that I could adapt to particular situations and people. The skills to not only synthesize techniques but also make them my own were essential to becoming successful and making a hefty commission almost every week.
Another skill that was vital was my attitude. I had a teacher in high school who was a silly man but he was always strangely positive. I asked him about this one time, and he told me that even when you feel negative about a situation, even pretending to be positive can have a positive impact not only on your mindset but the mindset of others. I put that into practice not only at telemarketing but in life. Granted, I do show other emotions. I'm not some sort of happy freak, but when it counts, like at work or at the poker tables, I carry the positive mindset. To me, it really is essential to being successful at anything. Especially in life, being more inclined to view things positively is the mindset of a leader. Like I tell people at work, identifying problems is great but things don't begin to change until you offer solutions.
So when I was a telemarketer, I put this mindset to use day in and day out. Even if I felt unsure about how I would do on the phones selling that day, I talked like I already knew it was going to be a great day. And nine times out of ten, it was. I knew the coworkers I wanted to talk to at work, too. I didn't want to talk to the guy complaining about his string of "almost sales" or the woman who complained that everyone she talked to that day hung up on her. Like a virus, those people would eat away at my mindset and my confidence. The coworkers I wanted to talk to were the ones who were upbeat and positive. Even if I was only doing so-so, I wanted to talk to the guy who was on fire. Together, our positive energy and thoughts would help us. With telemarketing, like in poker, the battle was keeping your head in the game. Even if things got bad, you wanted to keep your head in the game so that when opportunities came about to make money, you could extract maximum value. If I let negativity eat away at me, I could let sales go that I could have gotten on any other day. It was essential to believe in my skills and abilities and that if I kept to my A-game, the sales would come. And they always did.
It might seem like a stretch to everyone else, but I feel like telemarketing not only taught me a lot about myself and my resiliency but also gave something back. I'm sure that I had a personality and attitude suited for it, but like any talent or ability, it allowed me to train my mental endurance day in and out and payed me well when I succeeded. Even though my journey is still in its infancy, I feel like telemarketing helped prepare me for a poker hobby. The mindset, the endurance, just about everything has helped me so far. That's why if you ever talk to me about bad beats or how you got screwed out of a pot, I really won't care to hear it. In the worst case scenario, you throw me off my mindset and my game. Best case scenario, its the same except maybe you feel slightly less angry about it. When you put in the time and effort to learn, review, and improve, sometimes you just have to know that you will succeed. When you lose to a runner-runner or someone hits trips on the river, you just have to know in the long run, that's money. Money in the pocket's money in the bank.
So sorry for the long blog entry but that's what I think my edge is. I have been in this situation before--In a long grind upwards, where I constantly have to reassess and analyze my mindset, my skills, and my plays. Somedays I am successful. Somedays I find holes in my game. Other days, I just have to hang it up.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Report From the Felt Vol. 1, Issue 1
I don't plan on doing this very often, but I am going to do this as much for myself as I am for anyone else. However, before I present what it is I'm going to present, I have to say this: This blog is not a place where you're going to hear a daily recap of my winnings or losses. This blog will not be a place where you'll hear me complain about my bad beats or gloat about how I'm dominating micro stakes. That's not the type of person I am, and that's not the type of blog I want to own. However, I will not hesitate to provide some commentary on hands I played or show you a graph or two every now and again. After all, although poker is a fun hobby, I also push and strive for results. So today, I present to you, in both graph and word form, what it looks like to be running good playing No Limit Texas Hold 'Em.
I played many hands using Short Stack Strategy to help build up some experience and a bankroll. After a few months of doing this, and also trying out Sit and Gos, I made the determination that I had read up on enough strategy and that I was ready to play using full buy-ins. It was a risky proposition for someone who really had very little Hold 'Em experience (~2000 hands), and I really wasn't sure what to expect as far as results go. I played 1,000 hands of full ring games, and at the end, I felt mostly lost, but I managed to break even over that stretch and simultaneously cure my "all-in fever," that is, my tendency to underestimate my opponent's holdings and call or reraise with inferior hands.
After talking a bit to some people on the web, including Paul Nobles over at bluff.com, I decided to try something else out: Six-handed cash games. The idea of taking these on seemed really daunting, since I knew that in some regards, shorthanded Texas Hold 'Em is a completely different game. However, I hit the books, scoured the internet, and tried to bolster my knowledge on the concepts behind shorthanded Hold 'Em, and then I jumped right in without thinking twice. The benefit in playing shorthanded is that it is much easier to isolate weak players and see flops heads up. No more seeing three- and four-way flops with aces! I ran pretty good during this, and my confidence in my playing ability soared.
$2 No Limit 6-Max Graph:
I quit playing 2NL because at the site I was playing at, I didn't have rakeback, and so I decided to move up in limits (which my bankroll could support), and play 4NL at another site where I had rakeback. In the process, I made some adjustments after a long review session of my play, and decided that I was playing pretty good, except I was bluffing too often. So, I made one major adjustment: I was going to bluff much less against all players and likely not at all against players who will not fold (the so-called "calling stations"). With the next four hundred or so hands, which I know is a very small sample, I continued running well but this time without running bluffs that had only a small chance of succeeding.
4NL 6-Max Graph:
In conclusion, this is indeed a very small sample, and I know that I can in no way extract what my "true" win rate at this level is. What I do know is that the adjustments I made to my game helped me ride this streak even higher. I posted this to exhibit some pride, since everyday I play poker online, I still feel like it's a dream. Hold 'Em for many years seemed impossible to me. In addition, when I'm running bad, this will serve as a reminder of what it looks like to be running good. Now, it's back to the tables! :D
I played many hands using Short Stack Strategy to help build up some experience and a bankroll. After a few months of doing this, and also trying out Sit and Gos, I made the determination that I had read up on enough strategy and that I was ready to play using full buy-ins. It was a risky proposition for someone who really had very little Hold 'Em experience (~2000 hands), and I really wasn't sure what to expect as far as results go. I played 1,000 hands of full ring games, and at the end, I felt mostly lost, but I managed to break even over that stretch and simultaneously cure my "all-in fever," that is, my tendency to underestimate my opponent's holdings and call or reraise with inferior hands.
After talking a bit to some people on the web, including Paul Nobles over at bluff.com, I decided to try something else out: Six-handed cash games. The idea of taking these on seemed really daunting, since I knew that in some regards, shorthanded Texas Hold 'Em is a completely different game. However, I hit the books, scoured the internet, and tried to bolster my knowledge on the concepts behind shorthanded Hold 'Em, and then I jumped right in without thinking twice. The benefit in playing shorthanded is that it is much easier to isolate weak players and see flops heads up. No more seeing three- and four-way flops with aces! I ran pretty good during this, and my confidence in my playing ability soared.
$2 No Limit 6-Max Graph:
I quit playing 2NL because at the site I was playing at, I didn't have rakeback, and so I decided to move up in limits (which my bankroll could support), and play 4NL at another site where I had rakeback. In the process, I made some adjustments after a long review session of my play, and decided that I was playing pretty good, except I was bluffing too often. So, I made one major adjustment: I was going to bluff much less against all players and likely not at all against players who will not fold (the so-called "calling stations"). With the next four hundred or so hands, which I know is a very small sample, I continued running well but this time without running bluffs that had only a small chance of succeeding.
4NL 6-Max Graph:
In conclusion, this is indeed a very small sample, and I know that I can in no way extract what my "true" win rate at this level is. What I do know is that the adjustments I made to my game helped me ride this streak even higher. I posted this to exhibit some pride, since everyday I play poker online, I still feel like it's a dream. Hold 'Em for many years seemed impossible to me. In addition, when I'm running bad, this will serve as a reminder of what it looks like to be running good. Now, it's back to the tables! :D
Friday, May 14, 2010
Poker Hobby as Rollercoaster
It has been a few months since I embarked on my descent into poker. Five-thousand hands into this odyssey, give or take a thousand, I have learned almost as much about myself as I've learned about the game. I've been elated, depressed, ecstatic, joyful, and downright angry. I've laughed outloud more times than I can count, I've consoled myself after a particularly bad beat ("You made the right play there. You made the right play. That's money in your pocket four out of five times there. You made the right play. Stupid donk!"), and I've also found myself arguing furiously with my computer screen ("How can he CALL right there?!"). Indeed, it seems my poker hobby brings out just about every shade of emotion. I'm sure this correlation has been made before, but I would argue that poker can resemble just about every facet of a rollercoaster.
1. You have to wait in line to ride the best ride.
I play mostly cash games online and a major facet of being good at this involves table selection. You need to look for the table that best fits your style of play and also has the most inexperienced and/or awful players at your table. However, these tables are often full and usually other players have noticed when a table looks to be particularly easy money. Sometimes you have to put in the time for that table, just like you would for that triple-helix, ninety-miles-per-hour screamfest at Cedar Point. The wait is almost always worth the monotony of the line. However...
2. Sometimes the best ride can feel like the worst.
You stand in front of a sprawling rollercoaster that promises a whole three minutes of top-of-your-lungs, hand-raising fun. You wait in line, you get on the coaster, and one minute into the ride, your stomach starts to give way and you're overwhelmed with a nausea that you're sure could kill you. You make it through what you think is the last corkscrew only to find yourself confronted with what looks to be an endless stretch of hills, valleys, ninety-degree banked turns, and more corkscrews.
In poker, sometimes that table of fish turns out to be sharks. Sometimes you finally call down that weak player with top pair only to be confronted with the nuts. Other times, the weaker players simply just get lucky. Either way, in both instances, what started out as a positive expection for entertainment or money turned into a nightmare. Sometimes, you just want off the ride.
3. The best rollercoasters can be just about the most thrilling and exciting experience.
You waited in line for what seemed like twelve hours and finally, you're on the ride. You ride up the initial hill, you're greeted at the top by a stunning panoramic view, and then you're off! With twists and turns taken at unimaginable speeds, your elation consumes you due to the sheer thrill and excitement. At that moment, nothing in the world comes close to adding up.
In poker, you wait for a table, then sometimes you can wait even longer just for someone to play back at you. You fold some hands, you raise some hands, your opponents fold in response. And then, unexpectedly, there is a key moment where you have to make a decision. Your stack hangs in the balance. The flop gives you what is likely the best hand! You decide to bet the flop. Your opponent reraises. Decision time! You decide to go all in, and your opponent calls. Then there's that brief moment, right before the two hands are revealed. You're hoping that you have him beat. You're begging to see his hand, because every millisecond seems like ten. Then you see it, and good news, you're a huge favorite to win the hand! Turn card, then the river, and your opponent's stack is yours! Nothing can beat that moment, where you feel like you're on top of the world. Then that moment ends, and you're back in line.
In both rollercoasters and poker, you really get a lot of everything. The complete spectrum of feelings, the best of the best and the worst of the worst, can be found in both. Of course, sometimes I feel flatter emotions in these situations, but the huge moments of victory and defeat really stand out. Those are the moments I really remember. One point that I left out on purpose is a more obvious comparison. I left it out because it can probably be made by just about anyone. However, I feel like it is nonetheless true: "Poker is like a rollercoaster ride--full of ups and downs." And truly, poker can be the ride of your life.
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