❤️🃏 The Sex of Poker - 🧠💥 The New Poker Lobotomy
First you do it for Fun, Next you do it for Money, Then you do it for Love
With 2009 World Series of Poker Champion Joe Cada
The Poker Journey begins with a casual interest, progresses to a pursuit of profit, and often evolves into a deep passion. With luminaries like Joe Cada, who clinched the 2009 World Series of Poker title at just 21, setting a record as the youngest champion ever, the allure of the game transcends mere entertainment. It becomes a profound exploration into the unknown—the essence of The Sex of Poker.
I'm deep into The Sex of Poker—a revelation on navigating the unforeseen and embracing the enigmatic. It's a fresh perspective, akin to a Poker Lobotomy, steering away from conventional wisdom like "counting your outs" or predictable moves like folding AK in certain scenarios.
Instead, it delves into the realm of anti-poker—unchartered territory where conventional strategies falter. It's about confronting the unknown, recognizing the vast expanse of what we don't know, and the profound impact it can have on our poker journey.
The essence of The Sex of Poker lies in acknowledging the power of uncertainty. Many of my significant wins stemmed from unexpected twists and turns—a testament to defying conventional gambling instincts. It's a paradox where both knowledge and lack thereof can spur action, as exemplified in my journey to qualify for The Legends Of Poker on the WPT.
It's not so much about "counting your outs" and "folding AK in a raise, re-raised pot"-- that cause-effect relationship stuff like First in vigorish concept. Being the first player to bet, "creates" the edge of being the first to put your chips into the middle of a pot or The Gap Concept --“you need a better hand to call a raise with than you would need to open the betting yourself.
It's more about the anti-poker game--situations. A collection of situations you haven't played yet; of the things you don't know. there is a massive collection of unknowledge, the anti-hands that contain all the hands that may still change your poker life.
Don't Let Your Inner Psycho Out at the Poker Table!
They say poker is a game of skill, but let's be honest, folks – it's also a game of glorious mistakes. The biggest mistake you can make? Thinking it's all about luck and swaggering into a casino like Clint Eastwood with a bad hairpiece, muttering, "Do ya feel lucky, punk?" Yeah, that's a recipe for disaster faster than you can say "all-in with a pair of deuces."
Here's the thing: poker is a battlefield of situations, not a lucky dip at the prize claw machine. Walking into a game with just a "feeling" is like showing up to a marathon after a night of tequila shots. It's a recipe for self-destruction (and potentially some serious dehydration).
Sure, there's a thrill to the unexpected, that whisper in your ear saying, "Go big or go home!" But that's the psycho path, folks. The path that leads to an empty wallet and a serious case of "shoulda-woulda-coulda."
To truly conquer the felt, you gotta be a mental ninja. It's not just about strategy at the table, it's about the preparation beforehand. Think Rocky training for Drago, but instead of punching meat, you're hitting the books, getting enough sleep, and fueling your brain with healthy foods. Because a well-rested, focused player is a force to be reckoned with, while a sleep-deprived sugar crash is a recipe for bad decisions (and potentially drooling on the cards – not a good look).
So, the next time you feel that urge to gamble on a whim, remember: poker rewards the prepared, the strategic, the guy (or gal) who's put in the work. Leave the "feeling lucky" routine to the movies, and bring your A-game to the table. You'll thank yourself later (and your bank account will too).
"The Sex of Poker is really a game of mistakes and the greatest one is rooted in pleasure. The fine line we walk between success and self-destruction comes down to asking that one dirty (Harry) question rooted in the loner cop’s message of personal freedom, “Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?” Ed Reif
Poker is a game of situations. Winning poker is about making good decisions Feeling lucky and going to a casino is like feeling athletic and going to a sports bar. It’s a bad decision. It is the in to your sane, a kind of voluntary madness. The surest way of getting nothing from something. The road less traveled-the psycho path! To get an edge, you have to study the game, prepare and take, not just a focused approach but also a holistic approach that includes supplements, sleep, nutrition and exercise. A lot happens off the felt when you are not playing-doing the hard things now, so the easy things will come later." Ed Reif
What America does best is produce the ability to accept failure. Poker is no miraculous exception. One in a million is not one in a thousand, yet we confuse them as we focus on the payoff. It's charged.
Black Swan Events & Reimagining Poker
Fooled by Randomness--"We attribute our successes to our skills, and our failures to external events outside our control, namely to randomness."
AH! the whims of fate! Black Swan Events, those sneaky curveballs of randomness, have a knack for leaving us scratching our heads. We're a funny bunch, aren't we? Quick to pat ourselves on the back for successes, yet just as swift to blame external forces for our misfortunes—cue the blame game!
Take 9/11 or the COVID-19 pandemic, for instance—prime examples of Black Swan Events that caught us all off guard. And what do we do when caught with our pants down? We concoct elaborate narratives, convincing ourselves that surely someone, somewhere, should've seen it coming. But alas, hindsight is always 20/20, and we're left wondering how we could've missed the signs.
Yet, here we are, still none the wiser, bracing ourselves for the next cosmic joke life decides to throw our way. It's the cruel irony of history—a dance with improbability where the punchline remains elusive. So, as we reflect on our five-year plans gone awry, let's raise a glass to the unpredictability of it all. After all, missing a train is only painful if you insist on chasing after it!
"Since you didn't write a book yet," I told Jamie Gold, Winner, 2006 WSOP, Live At The Bicycle Casino, Bell Ca circa 2006, "the only thing I can imitate about your game is the Blueberries". (He ate them constantly during the World Series, and credits them with his win--because they are a super "brain food")
Reimagining Poker: A Paradigm Shift in Playing the Game
Buying into a poker game, unlike buying a car is a gamble that the future will represent an improved version of the past. And who knows whether that will be true? When it comes to NLH, what you don’t know is far more relevant than what you do know. Consider that many huge hands can be caused and sped up by their being unexpected, that case eight on the river for a suck out, a four card flush free roll.
With The Ambassador Of The World Poker Tour Vince Van Patten
Poker doesn't think. The cards have no memory.
So many utopian ideas are about Finite Games: End Cancer, solve global warming, get people to be more rational, reduce violence, and so on. As wonderful as all those Quixotic achievements would (will!) be, there is something missing from them. Finite Game optimism suggests a circumscribed utopia, without frontier or mystery. The result isn't sufficiently inspiring for me- and I turned to poker because poker doesn't think! It is an infinite game; the overall phenomenon of NLH has no end. It is always a frontier, always on the edge.
Decisions are bets on the future, and emotions are predictions based on the past. We manufacture both! They are not built in, they are built.
― Annie Duke, Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts
1-5: Bad Beats, Noise & Aggression
1. Bad Beats are Overhead; Chips, The Cost of Doing Business As Usual
In the world of gambling, each game has its own set of rules and strategies. While Blackjack offers a clear path with a perfect strategy to follow, No Limit Hold 'em (NLH) presents a different challenge. It's a game of piecing together limited information... NLH is notorious for its high luck factor. Playing smart in NLH means knowing when to fold and when to hold.
2. Eating What You Kill Is So Money!
You can't spell Manslaughter without laughter, so when you eat what you kill, make sure your opponents are having a good time. It’s not some felony conviction; more of a firm belief in magic... The cards are just there to confuse the bad players. The Playah puts the odds back into God.
3. Motivated by Noise and Money
Poker is a struggle for silence, and never interrupt an opponent when he is making a mistake... How you do chips is how you do life.
4. Poker Rewards (selective) Aggression
Being normal. It is the ideal aim of the unsuccessful and unimaginative... You simply can’t play a solid, safe game. Anyone who plays poker within their means suffers from a lack of imagination. Aggression causes trouble. The trouble is you must use extreme self-discipline.
5. The Power of Paradoxical Thinking
If you want to perform optimally at NLH, then you have to be paradoxical. In NLH you have to have your cake and eat it too... Control The Options: Get Others To Play With The Cards You Mentally Deal.
6-14: Randomness, Success & Free Agency
6. The randomness of NLH is too important to be left to chance!
NLH is mostly not about cards, it’s about people. All decisions should be randomly generated...
7. Why Be A Man When You Can Be A Success?
Few teams win back-to-back championships. Because nothing fails like success... Nothing lasts forever in NLH. You might as well get used to the expression, “Don’t worry, and It’ll change”.
8. Vene, Vidi, Velcro: "I came, I saw, I stuck around”
NLH is not that Spanish story about a guy named “Manual”. There are no playbooks, no rules and no rulers... A broken clock is right twice a day.
9. The Free Agency
The casino is the ultimate playground of Free Agency. The plug-and-play low entry point is one that anyone can move into... Play Poker It’s like applying for citizenship in the Gaming World.
10. Few things are harder to put up with than a good example
The assumption that gambling is bad has outlived its usefulness... Now anyone can do it with complete ease.
11. Are You Experienced?
Wisdom is shared experienced. When you played Stratego on a rainy weekend, you were just pretending to take over the world; when you play NLH, you actually are, one player at a time.
12. Lack Of Money Is The Root Of All Poker Evil
You can’t play poker without money, and lack of money is the root of all poker evil... It is when we lose everything purposefully - that we gain it back.
13. White Angry Hold Em--- My invisible internet friends
Vegas got Amazoned... Internet Playahs are capable of making sense of situations based on the thinnest portion of experience.
14. Last Is Basically Best
Remember, NLH is a game of high cards. “Let there be flop.” The power of position is your super power. Last is basically best.
15-28: Speed, Denials & Chaos
15. Instant Poker
Infinite patience brings immediate results to your game. How do you spell success in poker? T.I.M.E.
16. Drawing to the nuts is napalm
Nothing else in the world smells like that. Smells like victory... Losing motivates -- it never compensates.
17. The Secret Of Staying Young----lying about your age.
Your poker life is too short to play bad cards. Stay healthy with strong starting hands...
18. Winning Is A Way Of Turning Money Into Problems
It’s a misfortune that never misses. It’s a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses... Boredom is the only thing that can help you to make correct decisions.
19. Get Even — Get Odd! Casual Misanthropy
Hate the game, not the player. It’s poker. He’s a Poker Playah, the opposite of people.
20. This Is Not That
Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use in NLH. You get your Freak-onomics on with more = better...
21. Denial Is Not Just a River In Vegas
There is wise and otherwise--- winners and losers. Our national id may have ADD, but our poker idd needs DDD --- deceive, delude and deny.
22. Today Is A Good Day For Someone Else To Die!
Most Players simply do not know how to behave in a massacre. Poker weakness is pitied, but jealousy, that’s gotta be earned.
23. Money Costs Too Much
Poker acts. You react. The Cards alway have the first move... Create your own system, or be enslaved by another player’s.
24. There’s nothing ethical about the “work ethic” in poker.
A criminal is a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation. $100 bucks makes you the corporation.
26. Law of Large Numbers
The law of truly large numbers says that with a large enough people playing many odd coincidences are likely to happen.
27. It Ain’t Awful Play, It’s Lawful.
Everyone profession has a blind spot... The so called new ways to play holdem are the old ways heated up in a microwave for 15 seconds.
28. The Second Coming
Going For Broke makes you Broken- Having lost everything, the Playah feels that he has found himself... Paradoxical intention: All In with 74 Off Suit.
29-37: Egonomics, Rules & Poker Mastery
29. A rainbow of chaos
Crisis is not merely a mindless jiggling, it’s a subtle form of order. Reign Chaos Cow/girls/boys..
30. NLH is a sport like bald is a hair color
Holdem is too random to be left up to chance... The way to get better is to think about process not results—focus on better decision making.
32. Egonomics 101---Overconfidence, Myopia and Hubris
The power of mind over money is rooted in cognitive bias. FLOUNDERS verses ROUNDERS -The difference in playing with the belief and intention of winning against just being social.
33. Choosing Preferences over Outcomes
It's not success or failure only outcomes. Poker is, first and foremost, a game of managing resources, or if non are available, being resourceful.
34. Playing holdem without a helmet
This is one of the secrets to Beating America's 92 Million Irrational Poker Players: Most players are experience rich and technique poor.
35. The universal tell in poker is called betting!
No limit holdem is a game of ins and outs... Counting your outs, the number of cards that will make you a complete hand is something to reconsider, thanks to what I call, the Bluff Outs.
36. The possibility of sudden significant change in your game.
The way to get better is to think about process not results... NLH is not just a "sport", it's a concussion. The difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
37. Teach Yourself Poker in 10 Years
Learn to play poker like the Pros….and go broke. If you play like Gus (Hansen), you will... E= MC2 Equity= More Chips Squared. The Power of NEW-Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, verses The Power of NOW--Staying in the Moment is poker mastery.
The 4 Stages of Poker Mastery:
- Beginner's Passion: "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's there are few." Shunryu Suzuki
- The Student Emerges: "He is now forced to admit that he is at the mercy of everyone who is stronger, more nimble and more practiced than he." Eugen Herrigel
- Expert Level is Achieved: "He who has a hundred miles to walk should reckon ninety as half the journey." Japanese Proverb
- Poker, One Hand at a Time: "If one really wishes to be master of an art, technical knowledge of it is not enough. One has to transcend technique so that the art becomes an 'artless art' growing out of the Unconscious." Daisetz T. Suzuki