Random On-Topic and Off-Topic Thoughts

I'm really good at the potpourri stuff, so this might end up as a disjointed, rambling post.
--------------------------------
One of my pet peeves online (and I guess in RL, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone do this in RL), is when a person refers to themselves as their nickname, and their family with sub-nicknames.

Like if I say I'm "Studdy," and I refer to myself as "Studdy" in my journal. I refer to my husband as "Mr. Studdy" or "SO Studdy" ("Better half Studdy" you get the picture). I refer to my kid as "Little Studdy," "Baby Studdy," "Tiny Studdy."

I wonder if people realize how retarded they sound. WTF is wrong with using your real name, for god's sake, and the name of the people around you? Glenn is Glenn, not one of a million stupid, moronic, idiotic nicknames that I can come up with.

Unless someone is being stalked on the Internet, feels seriously threatened for his life or is worried about his job, I don't think saying, "My name is David, my wife is Alice" is a really big issue. Paranoid people are rampant online. Deleted posts, changed names, worrying that your "family" will stumble upon your site...

While there are some legitimate reasons for maintaining anonymity, I feel most of the world should just be themselves online. All of this posturing is done just to make them feel important because they lack self esteem. Yes, this is only MY opinion. Yes, I truly believe this. Grow some balls, then we can talk.
--------------------------------
I used to tell poker players that in limit, you can't force a win. Anyone claiming to win 90, 80, 75% of their sessions were either very new, or liars.

Today things have changed somewhat. Given enough time at the tables, you really can win a larger percentage of sessions. The variance swings around so greatly during an individual session. If I had Glenn do a graph of winning, limit sessions over the past five years, I'd bet my house that his session winrate has increased.

Obviously this is live poker I'm talking about, since one rarely stays at the same table, same game for hours online.
--------------------------------
I have a challenge for all of the whiners out there. If you are always bellyaching and crying about your "bad beats," I challenge you to write up five "good beat" stories for every bad beat you tell. I'm not talking about when you GIVE someone a bad beat, I'm talking about when you were a significant favorite at the beginning of the hand, and you won the pot.

I think it is odd and warped that so many players remember every bad beat they've ever taken for years, yet can usually not list the hands they won, which should far outweigh the supposed "bad beats." Somehow the pots they won fade in their minds and become insignificant, while the beats they take sear their brains into eternity.

If you can turn this around, I think you will benefit from it both mentally and economically. Don't believe me? Go to the blog of a world class player. What DON'T you see? You don't see a lot of bellyaching about so-called bad beats. You might see him talk about a beat he took, but it is written in order to flesh out the story, or to balance the account of what happened in a session. You will also see that number or lots more of good pots won, or stories about winning tournaments with no real premium hands, or without going all-in once.

That is the difference between a world-class player and whining, mostly losing bloggers. A "bad beat" complaint is usually an indicator of bad play.
--------------------------------
Ray Zee was commenting on some of the O8 posts on 2+2 today. He stays pretty in-touch with 2+2 as a whole, for someone who retired and moved to Montana to get away :)

He is always willing to help people out, and I think that makes the forum that much better.

One point he brought up once again was adjusting. Today's players just don't seem to want to adjust to their surroundings. They want to read a book and receive the magic pill. They want to play the same way, no matter the circumstances, all the time. They do not adjust to the individual game, their table, their image or the times we live in. They think they should be able to read Ray's book, and then just play by some certain rote way which will always maximize their EV.

This is real life, guys.

I'm not sure if they lack of adjustment is because of the boom of poker, or the boom of Internet poker. Switching on a dime seems simply impossible for most players.

I can empathize. I absolutely cannot switch up my tourney game, no matter what. I can switch it up some in low buy-in events, or if my table is folding too much to my image, but I can't seem to play any differently whatsoever in a high buy-in event, no matter the way I got in (paid cash, satellite or freeroll), no matter the game (Razz, Stud, Stud 8, Omaha 8, NLHE), no matter the structure or starting chips. I'm like a deer frozen in headlights. I just won't budge.
--------------------------------
So there you have it. Just some interlude while I work on my Omaha series.

Now it's back to the storm...

Felicia :)