09-02-2001, 02:43 AM
When it's time to leave your abode and travel to the poker game, it's like a mini vacation. Time to play and enjoy life as it was meant to be lived. Life is a gamble and a poker game is the vehicle of choice for fast aggressive action to stimulate our mind and body. Yes, poker is a mini vacation from life's stresses and disappointments. Poker, where men are men, fish are fish, and great expectations fill the hearts and souls of all the poker junkies.
Great vacations usually don't just happen, they usually require some thought. This is not to say you can't have a great vacation without planning, great things happen occasionally, without any planning at all. However, most of us realize the truth in the old axiom, proper planning prevents piss poor performance. A mini poker vacation shall be defined, for this post, as one playing session, lasting however long it takes to get your action fix. So lets look at the process of planning our mini vacation to the poker game. The reader should realize it will take longer to read these plans, than the actual time required to implement them.
Vacation Destination:
For some there is no destination decision for their mini poker vacation. Many poker junkies have only one location, and some have just a few more choices at best. Others who live in the lands of milk and honey like Vegas, California etc. have more choices than Carter has little liver pills. For the rest of us it's either our local poker room, kitchen table, basement, garage or wherever there's space to shuffle and deal. Should their be a choice of locations, the last win will probably dictate the poker game one will choose. Everyone knows, luck is stationary. So the last winning game will probably be selected in most cases. Luck breaks the rule that lighting never strikes twice in the same place. Luck is a repeat visitor but it requires adherence to specific rituals. Poker players, craps shooters, slot pros and gamblers in general have supernatural wisdom when it comes to getting luck to strike again and again. These ancient secrets known only to gamblers must always be repeated for luck to contentiously reoccur. Luck's secrets are obvious to the true gambler but this knowledge escapes the awareness of the none gamblers. Some of the requirements include sitting in the same seat, wearing the lucky shirt, hat, under garments and other personal items of clothing. There are lucky charms, lucky parking spaces, lucky postures, and before the none smoking rooms, Lucky Strikes. There are many more but just to many to list. But, I assure you, they are all of monumental importance. Gamblers have the inside track on how to seduce the return of Lady Luck. Luck requires certain rituals and the real gambler's understand the spiritual requirements to the seduction of Lady Luck.
With the vacation destination decided, it's time to pack. Yes, no gambler is without his or her own personal baggage. How one packs is usually closely related to their psychological history, personal playing style and form what Town or Valley they will be playing from. Those who reside full time in the Valley of Patience (VoP), usually manage to pack sparingly. The Rocks from the VoP pack so tight you couldn't get a greased bee bee up their fanny...........pack. The VoP residence who play a more creative style of selectively tight and aggressive, will pack, a thoughtful game plan full of patience, courage, awareness, and confidence. The poker clueless from Any2card Town use a paper bag. No need for fancy luggage when you might be returning home within minutes of arrival. They pack rabbits feet, high hopes, reckless courage, a ton of a cash, credit cards, along with the knowledge that any two cards can win. Sometimes they bring along a clinging spouse or friend who sits behind them and agonizes for them as they systematically blow all the vacation money. Then we have the players from Boarder Town (BT), an emotion lot, who need a truck to carry all the emotional baggage they bring to the poker game. They are packing fanatics. BT players have a huge psychological history. In addition to their psychological baggage they bring their long distance playing shoes and aspirin, for many of them are marathon players. They always pack their I can't believe it attitude, because it goes along with their endless dialog of how dumb everyone else played the hand. They pack a massive amount of personal dialog of prepared speeches on why and how the hand should be played. Plus extra bad beat stories are stuffed into their luggage just incase they get a sympathetic ear. BT players usually pack rules about inferior hands they must play. Why? Because they once won a monster pot with it fifteen years ago, hey it's an emotional thing. They also keep their credit cards handy because bad luck follows them like the plague.
Yes, all poker players have emotional baggage, some have more than others. However, time does not allow us to investigate them all. So there's the quick out line for a mini poker vacation. How do you plain your trips? What baggage do you carry to the game? Should you find yourself carrying to much emotional baggage, you might want to consider down sizing. Heck it's only a mini vacation. So why pay a big price for the extra baggage. Pack thoughtfully light, and take advantage of the discounts and comps.
SPM,...play long and prosper...
Great vacations usually don't just happen, they usually require some thought. This is not to say you can't have a great vacation without planning, great things happen occasionally, without any planning at all. However, most of us realize the truth in the old axiom, proper planning prevents piss poor performance. A mini poker vacation shall be defined, for this post, as one playing session, lasting however long it takes to get your action fix. So lets look at the process of planning our mini vacation to the poker game. The reader should realize it will take longer to read these plans, than the actual time required to implement them.
Vacation Destination:
For some there is no destination decision for their mini poker vacation. Many poker junkies have only one location, and some have just a few more choices at best. Others who live in the lands of milk and honey like Vegas, California etc. have more choices than Carter has little liver pills. For the rest of us it's either our local poker room, kitchen table, basement, garage or wherever there's space to shuffle and deal. Should their be a choice of locations, the last win will probably dictate the poker game one will choose. Everyone knows, luck is stationary. So the last winning game will probably be selected in most cases. Luck breaks the rule that lighting never strikes twice in the same place. Luck is a repeat visitor but it requires adherence to specific rituals. Poker players, craps shooters, slot pros and gamblers in general have supernatural wisdom when it comes to getting luck to strike again and again. These ancient secrets known only to gamblers must always be repeated for luck to contentiously reoccur. Luck's secrets are obvious to the true gambler but this knowledge escapes the awareness of the none gamblers. Some of the requirements include sitting in the same seat, wearing the lucky shirt, hat, under garments and other personal items of clothing. There are lucky charms, lucky parking spaces, lucky postures, and before the none smoking rooms, Lucky Strikes. There are many more but just to many to list. But, I assure you, they are all of monumental importance. Gamblers have the inside track on how to seduce the return of Lady Luck. Luck requires certain rituals and the real gambler's understand the spiritual requirements to the seduction of Lady Luck.
With the vacation destination decided, it's time to pack. Yes, no gambler is without his or her own personal baggage. How one packs is usually closely related to their psychological history, personal playing style and form what Town or Valley they will be playing from. Those who reside full time in the Valley of Patience (VoP), usually manage to pack sparingly. The Rocks from the VoP pack so tight you couldn't get a greased bee bee up their fanny...........pack. The VoP residence who play a more creative style of selectively tight and aggressive, will pack, a thoughtful game plan full of patience, courage, awareness, and confidence. The poker clueless from Any2card Town use a paper bag. No need for fancy luggage when you might be returning home within minutes of arrival. They pack rabbits feet, high hopes, reckless courage, a ton of a cash, credit cards, along with the knowledge that any two cards can win. Sometimes they bring along a clinging spouse or friend who sits behind them and agonizes for them as they systematically blow all the vacation money. Then we have the players from Boarder Town (BT), an emotion lot, who need a truck to carry all the emotional baggage they bring to the poker game. They are packing fanatics. BT players have a huge psychological history. In addition to their psychological baggage they bring their long distance playing shoes and aspirin, for many of them are marathon players. They always pack their I can't believe it attitude, because it goes along with their endless dialog of how dumb everyone else played the hand. They pack a massive amount of personal dialog of prepared speeches on why and how the hand should be played. Plus extra bad beat stories are stuffed into their luggage just incase they get a sympathetic ear. BT players usually pack rules about inferior hands they must play. Why? Because they once won a monster pot with it fifteen years ago, hey it's an emotional thing. They also keep their credit cards handy because bad luck follows them like the plague.
Yes, all poker players have emotional baggage, some have more than others. However, time does not allow us to investigate them all. So there's the quick out line for a mini poker vacation. How do you plain your trips? What baggage do you carry to the game? Should you find yourself carrying to much emotional baggage, you might want to consider down sizing. Heck it's only a mini vacation. So why pay a big price for the extra baggage. Pack thoughtfully light, and take advantage of the discounts and comps.
SPM,...play long and prosper...