09-26-2001, 12:44 PM
I think it was Stanford Wong who once said that the biggest illusion in a casino is the table game drop. Because chips are bought at the table, a significant amount of chips are constantly flowing off the table. Our brain affectively estimates some things from visual clues, but the sight of a neutral cash for chips exchange and the later sight of someone absconding with their 'winnings' are not well correlated, and a chip lust is born.
I went back to real world poker after a several week diet of pure internet poker, and it was a lot of fun, if not incredibly profitable. I enjoyed talking and people watching. One thing I noticed more than ever before was the way people handled their chips. Taking pride in neatly aligned stacks, enjoying an air of benevolent generosity when deigning to part with a wing of their castle for mere bills when the need arises. Nervous pot-glancing as the showdown nears. Not to even mention the volumes spoke with the betting action of chips. I don't need to go into this. I'm sure the typical reader of this post has played much longer than my few years, and so to the point.
My point is that a good thing has happened for me from playing online, and it took live play to realize it. When you play online, the lack of chip mechanics makes it easier to divorce your decisions from not only results but the almost physical craving for the pot. I know this is reasonably repressed in a winng player but consider this: think of the language we use to describe poker actions. Agressive, weak, timid, solid, tight, loose; these are words laden with emotional connotations.
Contrast the emotions implied in deciding how many raises to throw in with KK against a probable big pair on a rag board. In my experience at least, I feel differently than when I contemplate completing the small blind with a baby pair. Or deciding to take a hearts or spades finesse in bridge, or on which wing to castle in a chess game. But its gotten better. Because games a forming and breaking once in a while, I go from table to table starting with the same buyin, and often don't know if I'm up or down for the session unitl I record the results and log off. And while I'm not oblivious to the dollar figure below my name, I trust my brain to have more luck with that format than a growing and shrinking pile of pretty baubles.
So when I went back to play live, I was surprised when I felt bold and adventurous while deciding the extra raise was justified, or upright and virtuous when I made a good fold. I was happily stacking up a pot when it came to me that if I was online, I would be thinking about the way I played the hand. It was an welcome eye-opener, and I enjoyed the rest of the session much more after the siren song of the chips was at least muted.
zooey
I went back to real world poker after a several week diet of pure internet poker, and it was a lot of fun, if not incredibly profitable. I enjoyed talking and people watching. One thing I noticed more than ever before was the way people handled their chips. Taking pride in neatly aligned stacks, enjoying an air of benevolent generosity when deigning to part with a wing of their castle for mere bills when the need arises. Nervous pot-glancing as the showdown nears. Not to even mention the volumes spoke with the betting action of chips. I don't need to go into this. I'm sure the typical reader of this post has played much longer than my few years, and so to the point.
My point is that a good thing has happened for me from playing online, and it took live play to realize it. When you play online, the lack of chip mechanics makes it easier to divorce your decisions from not only results but the almost physical craving for the pot. I know this is reasonably repressed in a winng player but consider this: think of the language we use to describe poker actions. Agressive, weak, timid, solid, tight, loose; these are words laden with emotional connotations.
Contrast the emotions implied in deciding how many raises to throw in with KK against a probable big pair on a rag board. In my experience at least, I feel differently than when I contemplate completing the small blind with a baby pair. Or deciding to take a hearts or spades finesse in bridge, or on which wing to castle in a chess game. But its gotten better. Because games a forming and breaking once in a while, I go from table to table starting with the same buyin, and often don't know if I'm up or down for the session unitl I record the results and log off. And while I'm not oblivious to the dollar figure below my name, I trust my brain to have more luck with that format than a growing and shrinking pile of pretty baubles.
So when I went back to play live, I was surprised when I felt bold and adventurous while deciding the extra raise was justified, or upright and virtuous when I made a good fold. I was happily stacking up a pot when it came to me that if I was online, I would be thinking about the way I played the hand. It was an welcome eye-opener, and I enjoyed the rest of the session much more after the siren song of the chips was at least muted.
zooey