I’ve had a good weekend, and I hope you’ve had one too. It all started Thursday night when I decided, on a bit of a whim, to get a new computer. I checked the inventory of a place not far from where I live who lease computers to companies, and they often have pretty high standard machines for relatively low costs. Lo and behold, a Fujitsu Siemens Scaleo X, all decked out, for only ~$1000 (3.4GHz, 1GB RAM, ATI X350 PCI Express, SB Audigy2, 2×160GB SATA HDD for the tech-freaks), barely used. I woke up my girlfriend - who was trying to recover from jetlag, as we had gotten home only a few hours earlier - and told her the good news! She was, ehm, less than enthusiastic, but smart as she is, she realized that the fastest way of getting back to sleep was to just agree with anything I was saying.

I don’t think she actually listened at all. But does it matter? No, I have a new toy, and it’s too late to do anything about now!

So Friday night was spent doing all those things that a new computer in the house means: A lot of installing files, copying from old computers, moving stuff around and seeing if I can fit some of the old RAM into the new one. It’s a hassle, but it’s a hassle I enjoy. My girlfriend, now fully awake, does not enjoy this hassle, however. But does it matter? No, I have a new toy.

Oh, and I got something else on Friday - my bounty for knocking out CardsChat Champion of Champions Tournament organizer Rob (robwhufc), sent by Tenbob. Check it out, it’s pretty cool:

Notice the awesomely cool Fujitsu Siemens Scaleo X in the background? Yeah, baby.

I also got two decks of cards, one regular poker deck, and one magician’s marked deck. Fun stuff, but the plaque was awesome. Thanks TB!

Now for some actual poker related stuff: Patience.

Poker, more so than most other games, is a game of patience, but it’s a game of patience on more levels than just waiting for the right cards (which I’d guess is what most people consider the patience-part of the game), or carefully establishing an image at the table so you can later on exploit it (which is also a form of patience). It’s also a game that requires a great deal of patience to master, because no matter how many books you read, and how much you try to think about the game, you still need to go through tens of thousands of real situations to actually get the experience you need to become a great player.

Some of you might have a better knack than others for the game, and logically you’ll learn faster. Some may have an extraordinary reading skill, and by reading the available poker literature they can absorb ideas much faster than most others. All this is great - but you still need the experience, and though it may be cut shorter by doing your homework, you’re still looking at tens of thousands of hands.

The books are great, don’t get me wrong. In fact, it would be difficult to be a good player without them, and unnecessarily difficult at that - the books are available, take advantage of them. But the full value of the literature doesn’t come by just reading it, you need to practise too. But practising poker is tedious, and sometimes expensive, and what’s worse: It can be counterproductive. What’s that? Yeah, counterproductive. It’s a game where (relatively) small differences in odds make all the difference in the end result, and making the correct play will not always be followed by a pay-off. In fact, it often won’t. Because of the short-term tricks the game plays on us, it’s important to have massive amounts of experience to counter the temporary tilt that comes from losing with a hand that was a favorite up until the last card fell. That experience is your lifeline when your set of aces walks into a straight on the turn, and you’re wondering where you went wrong.

Don’t just see it as a grind, see it as a way of learning, and a necessary one at that.

Tip of the day: Fold low pocket pairs (22-66) in early position in limit hold’em. It’ll save you a lot of money. Trust me.

Cheers,
FP