With the next SFPT event looming on Saturday and not having played much since the August tournament, I decided to pop back on to Full Tilt both yesterday and today for a couple tournaments. Both went pretty well: yesterday I finished 2nd in a 250, 1-table SNG, and today won a 6-handed 1-table SNG.
In the 9-handed event, I was barely paying attention, but in this case that isn't a bad thing. I was able to play the math, and let my subconcious mind work picking up trends, patterns, etc. This isn't new for me, but using that information in real-time is. I was able to do so, and got my chips in with the advantage, only to have the math bite me once again. No big deal. From that tournament, I also took away the fact that if I can play that well not paying attention, I have a lot of upside for when I actually do focus.
The 6-handed event today comes with a huge astrisk. One player was eliminated on the first hand, and two others were sitting out almost from the beginning. As soon as I recognized this, I loosened up my play, knowing in reality I was only playing against two other opponents. I was able to KO one of the others not too long after, and though the second guy was a much bigger challenge (I couldn't really put a read on his betting patterns), I was victorious over him as well.
The hand that finished him off is one I am proud of, not because of how it turned out, but because of how I processed the information. I raised 4x the big blind pre-flop with 8/8, and was called. The flop was 4/7/5, and I c-bet half the pot. A snap call, and turn J. Here's where I processed what was in front of me: an over pair to all but one card, a straight draw, and a better than 2:1 chip advantage against an at least semi-aggressive player acting after me. I shoved all-in, and was called with Q/10. River 6, straight, and to quote Hawk Harrelson, "he gone". The other two were still sitting out, and the result was a formality.
Which leads me to why I'm really blogging today. That sequence of events illustrates an area in which I've made great progress over the past few months. There were any number of hands which could have had me beat, or at least had me behind in terms of what we were drawing to, but I absorbed all of the information available to me and took a calculated risk. That is the essence of poker.
It's also the essence of life. Very rarely is there a situation in life that is black and white. Gray is the new black; there is always ambiguity in every situation you face. The ability to process incomplete information and make smart decisions is one of the factors that separate the successful from the unsuccessful, no matter your definition of success. Nate Silver once said that poker players are the best he's seen at evaluating situations correctly. I'm not sure if that is because of poker, or if people of that nature are drawn to poker and find themselves successful in part because of that attribute.
Either way, there's a very strong parallel. Mel Levinson and I always talk about "Baseball Mentality", which we have loosely defined as taking a situation as it comes, reacting calmly and without undue angst. Even the best of all time will fail in their objective six times out of ten. In that spirit, I am ready to officially christen Poker Mentality: taking all of the information available to you, processing it in relation to the situation, and making a decision based on what you know without being overly concerned about what you don't know.
Poker Mentality shall become one of my attributes - at the felt, and in life.
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