Tuesday, November 16, 2010

The Cooler King










OK, yesterday I was saying I was .82c up, well that went south pretty rapidly. It turned into what we poker degenerates call, a cooler.



There are sessions where no matter what you do, how well you play, the poker gods will mock you. They will give idiot players, fish as we call them, improbable hands time after time. Yesterday I had two full houses beaten, which accounts for stacking off twice (losing my entire buy in for that table). Sometimes you get in the situation where your opponent, known as the villain, requires a one or two outer to beat you. That is, there are only one or two cards left in the pack to be dealt, that can beat you. The odds against the villain hitting are high. But on certain days, they will, again and again.

This is what I have referred to before, as variance. Mathematical probabilities are correct over very high samples. In the short term all kinds of weird plays can happen. Even knowing this, is no guarantee of sanity though. You can start to question your strategy, your karma and whether it is unlucky to be superstitious (It is). Another downside to this variance is it can affect your discipline, I made some bad plays, because I let emotion into the building. The poker table is not a place for emotions.

Today is a new day, time to dust myself off, and get back in the ring. One upside is I get post a pic of the all time cooler king himself.





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