Major head doctors together
Head doctors such as Jung, Freud and others would get very upset if I came up with an intellectual argument that poker is a great way of looking into peoples head and peoples genuine state of health. The psychodynamics that drive a person to play poker, to make decisions while playing poker and the players attitude after a game of poker would be very interesting to see.
Unlike many other gambling games poker is the only one I can genuinely see where players deliberately go after someone whether in anger or greed players get targeted. They even have a name for this – it is ‘fish’. Bookies will go after punters but they go after them with a built in advantage, the over-round. In poker there is no built in advantage in going after a player, all players theoretically start of with an equal bank (the stake).
So why would you go after a player? Simple, you want to get their chips. But what drives you could be many different things. You may not like them as individuals, they may have made you look like an idiot earlier on when the bluffed you off a pot, you may have noticed a ‘tell’ or even they remind you of the priest that used to beat you with a cane. There are many reason why a player will go after a another player.
Obviously I am referring to no limit Texas Hold Em since it is the one game that has made poker what it is today. So for this purpose the ability to bet when low on chips/money is important in my argument. And just to let you know the easiest way to lose money at poker is to go after someone due to some irrational head stuff, other than you have a tell on them.
If you have read my other post on the process I went through when I had my calamitous run over the post Christmas period, you will have understood that I broke the bad run and subsequent bad vibe with some new age mumbo jumbo. The mumbo jumbo worked for me, and, helped me by bearing my soul on this blog to understanding that my playing habits had to change. Some will call this mixing your play, but trust me mixing your play when losing is very difficult and almost impossible.
Ultimately a player in crisis will have to rethink their habit, strategy and style and go down a level or change their game. It will not sort out the winning/losing habit but being forced to face and analyse bad play is the only way to go and using positive psychology to create ‘flow’ ie blog to remedy bad behavior on the poker table.
So using poker and blogging as therapy should be studied. Many in academia will poo poo this idea as frivolous and without merit, but as was seen in the latest banking crisis gambling is part of the human condition and poker is the ultimate game for psychology.